Carlo Ratti Associati, in partnership with Milanese fab lab Opendot, has launched Lift-Bit - a shape-shifting sofa with embedded motion-tracking sensors that can be reconfigured remotely via an app.
First unveiled at last year's Triennale di Milano International Exhibition as a prototype, Lift-Bit is a modular, digitally reconfigurable furniture system that allows a sofa to turn into a chair, a bed, a lounge room, and an almost-endless set of configurations. The system involves a collection of individual, upholstered stools that can be easily assembled together.
Lift-Bit officially debuts at Opendot space in a ready-for-production version, featuring sleek new legs in birch wood. For the first time ever, visitors are able to control Lift-Bit directly, shifting the individual stools' height in any desired configuration - either with a hand gesture, or remotely through the use of Lift-Bit's mobile app.
The Lift-Bit app includes both a series of predetermined three-dimensional shapes and a tool to invent dynamic combinations. Furthermore, the seats' soft texture embeds a capacitive control system, allowing each stool to sense the presence of a person's hand close to it and start moving accordingly. By matching these technological elements with an elegant design, Lift-Bit makes it possible to reconfigure any or home or office setting, ushering in a new vision of interior design.
Photography: Daniele Iodice