The Lift-Bit is a piece of customisable furniture whose only limits are your imagination. Designed by Carlo Ratti for the furniture company Vitra, the Lift-Bit can transform itself into any shape with the swipe of an iPad screen.
Gizmodo reports that the shape-shifting sofa is made up of a series of hexagonal stools mounted on motorised actuators that can be raised or lowered using an app. The customisable stools can be ordered by the piece: While you can’t do too much with a single stool, two can be used to make a chair, and a cluster can be transformed into a love seat, couch, bed, or a unique structure of your own invention.
The Lift-Bit was designed to be interactive, and while you could theoretically install it in your home as a static piece of furniture, Ratti wants to encourage people to play around with it. In fact, Ratti designed the Lift-Bit to get “bored” when it’s left alone: It’ll begin shape-shifting on its own when not in use for extended periods of time.
“Architecture has often been described as a kind of ‘third skin’— in addition to our own biological one and our clothing. However, for too long it has functioned rather like a corset: a rigid and uncompromising addition to our body,” says Ratti.
“Lift-Bit draws on the potential of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to transform our interior landscape, giving form to an endlessly reconfigurable environment. In the future, we could imagine an architecture that adapts to human need, rather than the other way around — a living, tailored space that is moulded to its inhabitants’ needs, characters, and desires.”
The Lift-Bit is currently available to pre-order online, and anyone interested in designing their own Lift-Bit configurations can do so on the Lift-Bit simulator.
— Source: www. mentalfloss.com
