With the introduction of micro-apartments and smaller living spaces, everything is shrinking- closets, kitchens and even furniture.
A Belgian designer, Carl De Smet,takes us far into the future of furniture. De Smet has designed some "foldable" chairs made of high-tech foam; however, they are more "cook-able" than foldable!
Apparently, all you have to do is plug the bundle of white fabric to the wall, turn on the switch and in a matter of ten minutes, you have a new chair! The cool and convenience quotient just notched up a bit higher here, didn't it?
The concept behind the 'cook-able' furniture is that the objects are made of polyurethane shape-memory polymers (SMPs) that are compressed into light and flat slabs. When the object is heated, the polymer returns back to its original shape, reports Dezeen.
The material literally doesn't take any space at all as it can be smashed just like a chewing gum strip, is light weight and can easily be shipped.
However it has its downsides. It is important that the user controls the heat. The temperature must be somewhere in the range of 70°C to 158°F for the transformation to occur. Now, that kind of temperature is difficult to maintain outside the oven. De Smet hopes that electrical heat could trigger the transformation, reports FastCoDesign.com.
Currently, the project is still in its research stage. De Smet and his team have only tried making chairs until now. They are not really sure about larger structures. Moreover, the polymers used in the furniture are really expensive. Read more on the project at Dezeen.
Check out a video where furniture is more like "popcorn" below:
