The Design of Transformable Origami-inspired Furniture

Origami (from Japanese oru, to fold and kami, paper), is the ancient art of paper folding. Traditional origami usually involves only straight folds on a (square) planar piece of paper without tearing, cutting or gluing. Once folded, the origami constitutes a developable surface that can be unfolded as a flat plane. Though the traditional purpose of origami is rather recreational and artistic, with suitable origami geometry, engineers are able to create self-folding structures. Many origami design principals are applied in space systems, robotics, and small-scale devices that are self-assembling. Because of its ability to compactly store deployable structures, origami has proven to be a good design strategy for transformable furniture. Therefore, the objective of this senior project is to develop a systematic methodology for designing transformable furniture using origami structure. To accomplish this goal, I designed and manufactured a transformable origami structure that can be stored as a flat piece but folds into a chair.