Futuristic, Shape-Shifting House Modeled After Mathematical Formula

By Nick Venable | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

I’ll admit that I’ve never before found myself saying, “The reason why my house is not optimal is because it isn’t able to transform into different shapes that take the different seasons into account.” But I’m definitely saying that now. Also, there are some cracked tiles in the bathroom, if there’s a mathematical formula to fixing those without having to pay out of pocket.

The company D*Haus, founded by architects David Ben-Grünberg and Daniel Woolfson, has been hard at work for a couple of years adapting designs for furniture around a formula discovered by Henry Ernest Dudeney, the mathematician that figured out how to separate a square into four polygonal shapes that can then be fit together to make an equilateral triangle. The duo wants to do the same thing with a full-size house, set up on some kind of track that allows it to constrict and expand per the user’s wishes, though they’re taking the seasons into account, saying that colder weather will make the tight cube shape more optimal, while warm summers call for an opened-up floor plan. Of course, the blueprints aren’t all set in stone just yet. (Otherwise I would have “borrowed them” for my own benefit.)

Before the full-scale ideas can come to fruition, D*Haus has started a Kickstarter campaign to fund the first phase of the project: a table based on the same design. Rarely does a table capture the same kind of “oohs and ahhs” that an entire house will, but this is one of those times. The sky really is the limit for this kind of design, which utilizes both space and shapes to offer a variety of looks with just one piece of furniture. One $1,500 piece of table furniture that will sadly never see the light in my house.

Check out an additional video of the house design below, and research what mathematician figured out that a smile turned upside down is a frown.

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