Signals & Stats

Amorphous architecture

New York – Storefront Gallery has exhibited an interactive room that moved and morphed around visitors, providing a range of stimuli.

Artist Lucy McRae and MIT Self-Assembly Lab's Skylar Tibbits collaborated on JB1.0: Jamming Bodies

The project examined the future of spatial design using malleable and solid structures

JB1.0: Jamming Bodies Laboratory, 2015 by Lucy McRae and Skylar Tibbits with MIT's Self-Assembly Lab at Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York

Film Still of JB1.0: Jamming Bodies Laboratory, 2015 by Lucy McRae, Skylar Tibbits with MIT's Self-Assembly Lab and M. Brandon Finney, commissioned by Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York

The exhibition featured an enclosed space surrounded by breathing membranes that inflated to become soft and mouldable. Morphing around the body and applying different degrees of pressure, the installation imagined a future in which static, rigid environments are replaced with self-configuring spaces that serve different functions.

JB1.0: Jamming Bodies is an extension of McRae’s research into soft architecture and its potential applications for the future of health, wellness and space travel.

Although the installation served as an artistic investigation and testing laboratory rather than a final product, the rise of soft robotics and self-assembly technologies hints at a future in which dynamic physical environments will increasingly feature.

The Big Picture

New technologies are fuelling the imagination of artists and designers who aim to challenge the way we interact with built environments. To find out more about McRae’s investigations, read our Portfolio piece.