super cube: transformable furniture with unpredictable configurations

super cube: transformable furniture with unpredictable configurations
configuration #15
all images courtesy of yuhao zhu

each year, the UCLA architecture & urban design department expands the boundaries of their creative disciplines by inviting industry partners to work with professors and students for a program called SUPRASTUDIO. the results are imaginative and experimental, as the collaborations with partners such as greg lynn, thom mayne, boeing, walt disney, and UNESCO provide new ways of applying core principles to contemporary ideas. one such concept is ‘super cube’, a tech project created by the seminar of gehry partners and gehry technologies.

the initial intent was to have a human size furniture base on the exploiting of the specialty of KUKA arms: precise, repetitive operation. the work consists two units, each of which can be broken down eight small smaller pieces. these larger components can merge into a single cube, but also transform into single cubes individually. construction utilizes a combination of thin alloy sheets that have been CNC-cut, folded, and manually attached. despite the simple facets and fabrication logic, it has various configurations. each arrangement has its own function that grants a wide range of spatial opportunities. yuhao zhu of the studio says, ‘we are still figuring out the complete catalog of its variants. the record notes that it has more than 50 stable configurations.’

back to back chair, #19

configuration #18

configuration #17

configuration #2

configuration #13

configuration #17-#16 

book storage table #8

big unit configuration catalog

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.