A workshop extending the Automorph exhibit at the London Design Biennale on the 5th and 6th of June 2023

Take a minute and look around: the objects around you are solid structures shaped by applying external forces (cutting, assembling, carving, molding...), investing large quantities of energy and generating waste. But Nature uses different strategies with optimized and efficient use of material and energy: leaves, trees, and flowers are solid structures that develop via internal growth. Natural structures shape themselves, they are self-morphing systems.

How would life look like if our cars, commodities and houses were self-morphing? How much waste and energy could we save if we allow matter itself to be a partner in the shaping process? Could this help build a sustainable environment to live in? What new inventions could emerge from recognizing that solids are not necessarily passive, but can undergo changes, store information and even perform autonomous motions?

This highly interdisciplinary workshop is intended to present recent advances in various fields that involve shape-changing materials and objects (Architecture, Physics, Computer science, Design, Biology...). The aim is to foster discussion across disciplines and create a connected interdisciplinary community working on self-morphing.

PROGRAM

DAY 1 - JUNE 5TH

Screening room, South wing, Somerset House, strand, London

MAP

8:30-9:00 - arrival and coffee - at the entrance to the south wing - room#2 on the map
9:00-9:30 - Opening - Benoit Roman and PSL president

9:30-10:15 - Richard Smith - The curious behavior of pressurized cellular solids (plants)
10:15-11:00 - Eran Sharon - Physics and Geometry of self-morphing
11:00- 11:30 - coffee break
11:30-12:15 - Sabetta Matsumotto- Knitting geometry into fabric, stitch-by-stitch
12:15-13:15 - Lunch
13:15 – 14:15 - flash talks: M. Castro, J. Binysh, C. Mostajeran, D. Duffy, A. Forte, S. Ziv Sharabani
14:15 – 15:00 - Mark Pauly - Computational design of morphing structures
15:00- 15:30 - coffee break
15:30– 16:15 - Lining Yao - Design and shape-morphing
16:15-17:00 Jan Knippers - TBA (Architecture)
17:00- 17:45 - flash talks: C. Bording, H. Segerman, P. Ducarme, E.S. Sahin, A. Rich, J. Marthelot, N. Vani

DAY 2 - JUNE 6TH

King's college, Strand entrance, London WC2R 2LS

10:00 - 18:00 - Hands-on workshop; Building self-morphing objects