Skylar Tibbits is the founder and co-director (with Jared
Laucks) of the Self-Assembly Lab at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), and Assistant Professor of
Design Research in the Department of Architecture. His
invention of 4D printing has established a unique area of
design research focused on programmable materials that can
sense and actuate in response to internal or external stimuli.
From self-transforming carbon fibre to responsive textiles,
active printed wood and ‘smart’ leather, these have a variety
of novel material capabilities and industrial applications.
His work on self-assembly has demonstrated the
scalability of this natural construction phenomenon with
synthetic design and fabrication systems. The research
is
the
first
to apply the principles of self-assembly to construction
and manufacturing: for example,
a
cellphone that can build
itself,
a
chair that self-assembles, and the self-construction
of aerial balloons. Including symmetric and crystalline
lattices, non-homogenous geometries and differentiated
complexity, the work has shown autonomous assembly in
diverse conditions such as
fluid-filled
tanks, turbulent
airflow
chambers and
helium-filled
environments.
Tibbits has
a
professional degree in architecture and
a
minor in experimental computation ...
