Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Steve Howard has spent his life working toward sustainability. So on the TEDGlobal 2013 stage, he explains why he wanted to work for, of all places, Ikea.

Howard, who now holds the delightful title of Chief Sustainability Officer at the Scandinavian furniture behemoth, says that the company is dedicated to sustainability because of three numbers:

• 3. The number of people, in billions, who will be coming out of poverty by 2030 and joining the global middle class as consumers.
• 6. The number of degrees centigrade that we’re headed toward in global warming. We are currently at less than one degree.
• 12. The number of cities in the world that had a million people two generations ago. Now, there are 500 cities with a population of a million people or more.

Says Howard, “Sustainability has gone from a nice-to-do to a must-do.”

The vast majority of people care deeply about sustainability, but are used to products that are good for Planet Earth being, well, not that good. Think of that expensive, rough recycled toilet paper.  Howard urges companies to focus on creating beautiful, affordable and, of course, functional sustainable products.

One area where Ikea is making strides is in the light bulb department. Ikea is committed to, by 2016, stocking only LED bulbs, which use 85% less electricity than incandescent bulbs. ”LEDs are the next best thing to daylight,” says Howard, saying that these bulbs can last for up to 20 years.

Ikea is also focusing in on materials, from what’s used to make their products to the food they serve in the cafeteria. By 2015, Ikea plans to use 100% better cotton. At the same time, they’re working toward responsible forestry, with 35 million hectares of forests certified so far.

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

In their 300 stores around the world, Ikea is aiming for energy independence, thanks to 300,000 solar panels in addition to wind farms.

“By 2020, we will produce more renewable energy than we use,” says Howard. ”Renewable energy is a good thing for the CFO, not just the sustainability guy.”

Overall on the TED stage, Howard urges companies to think more about sustainability — and for consumers to reward those that do.

“Vote with your wallets. Be a discerning consumer – search out the companies that are acting on this,” says Howard. “If we get it right, we can make sustainability affordable for many people and not just a luxury for the few.”

Paola Antonelli is senior curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. But despite her nearly 20-year tenure at the museum, Antonelli remains resolutely disinterested in relying on the known or the obviously popular. She is always keen to challenge preconceptions of design’s role in everyday life,Paola Antonelli: Why I brought Pac-Man to MoMA even as she pushes her colleagues at the museum to consider and question design’s relationship to art.

As she explains in today’s TED Talk, her decision to acquire 14 video games for MoMA’s permanent collection caused howls of outrage to echo through the museum’s hallowed halls, as aggrieved critics tore out their hair at the disrespect implicitly being shown to artistic heroes such as Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh. But design is quite separate from art, Antonelli argues, and they should not be mistaken for one another. Too often, people seem to assume that designers secretly want to be artists. “No!” she says forcefully. “Designers aspire to be really great designers.” Right on!

MoMA initially bought 14 video games for its design collection … and more are on the wishlist. For design buffs and fans of contemporary culture, this is an important moment, one that broadens the perception of design and its influence in society, and prompts deeper consideration for a discipline that is often poorly understood or overlooked.

Here, Antonelli describes the selection process for those 14 trailblazing games, sharing insight into her curatorial thinking.

1. Pac-Man. “It goes without saying, but let’s say it: an absolute milestone, not only because it was inspired by pizza and the ghosts are so cute one almost roots for them, but also because it stands as the archetypical maze game.” Toru Iwatani (Japanese, born 1955). Publisher: NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc. 1980-1981. Video game. Gift of NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc. © 2012 NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc.

2. Tetris. ”Or, ‘Engineers Just Wanna Have Fun.’ It is a pillar in history (not only of video games): elegant, simple, timeless, irresistible — and Alexey Pajitnov recreated for us the original game he designed for the USSR’s Academy of Sciences.” Alexei Pajitonov (Russian, born 1955). 1984. Video game. Gift of The Tetris Company, LLC. © 2012 The Tetris Company, LLC.

3. Another World. “A technological and aesthetic breakthrough for the time–its sound effects and editing inspired a new wave in game design — it is still a fiercely elegant cinematic platformer game.” Éric Chahi (French, born 1967). 1991. Video game. Gift of the designer. © 2012 Éric Chahi.

4. Myst. “As if being the best-selling PC game of the 1990s were not enough (and it would not be enough for MoMA’s collection), Myst was a milestone in ‘architectural’ design, its hefty code allowing for seamless changes of scenery and spatial atmosphere.” Rand Miller (American, born 1959) and Robyn Miller (American, born 1966). Publisher: Cyan Worlds (USA, est. 1987). 1993. Video game. Gift of Cyan Worlds, Inc. © 2012 Cyan Worlds, Inc.

5. SimCity 2000. “In game designer Will Wright’s mind, we can all be master planners, movie directors, architects, little or BIG gods — and bear the great responsibilities that come with great power.” Will Wright (American, born 1960). Publisher: Electronic Arts. 1989. Video game. Gift of Electronic Arts. © 2012 Electronic Arts.

6. The Sims. “So, so, so deep! I can hardly think of a more interesting and ambitious construct (except perhaps Spore, but it did not work out as well) than a game about building a family, and then a community. It blows my mind.” Will Wright (American, born 1960). Publisher: Electronic Arts. 2000. Video game. Gift of Electronic Arts. © 2012 Electronic Arts.

7. Vib-Ribbon. “This is a lovely game that responds to the music the player chooses (the ‘preassigned’ demo plays to a haunting tune that reminds me of Jay-Z’s ‘Hard Knock Life’). But more than anything, its minimal graphics remind me of a cartoon I grew up with in Italy, Osvaldo Cavandoli’s La Linea.” Masaya Matsuura (Japanese, born 1961). Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. 1997-1999. video game. Gift of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. © 1999 Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

8. Katamari Damacy. “In interaction design, Katamari Damacy represents the power of pure, unadulterated, good delight — of course supported by strong code and spatial and narrative sense. I have not met a soul who does not smile when the name of the game is mentioned.” Keita Takahashi (Japanese, born 1975). Publisher: NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc. 2003. Video game. Gift of NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc. © 2012 NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc.

9. EVE Online. “Superbly designed, in continuous evolution and as compelling as a great sci-fi saga, EVE is a great example of collective strategy. It also sports a great and generous community that helped us work on the display in the galleries.” CCP Games (Iceland, est. 1997). 2003. Video game. Gift of CCP hf. © 2012 CCP hf.

10. Dwarf Fortress. “The ASCII graphics! Devastatingly elegant. That’s what won us over. Not to mention the super-high IQ barrier of entry. We are watching from a window. When the Adams brothers showed up at the EVE Online fanfest in Rejkyavik, people went crazy. It’s a gamers’ game.” Tarn Adams (American, born 1978) and Zach Adams (American, born 1975). 2006. Video game. Gift of the designers. © 2012 Tarn Adams.

11. Portal. “The spatial progression of the story — an MC Escher-like maze — is groundbreaking. And the protagonist, Chell, is a woman.” Valve (USA, est. 1996). 2005-2007. Video game. Gift of Valve. © 2012 Valve.

12. flOw. “Creator Jenova Chen is a master in the game of surprising experiences — like being a sea creature, or the wind — but we were also interested in the Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment AI system, which enables a game to automatically adjust to a player’s abilities.” Jenova (Xinghan) Chen (Chinese, born 1981) and Nick Clark (American, born 1984). Publisher: thatgamecompany. 2007. Video game. Gift of Jenova Chen, Nick Clark, and Austin Wintory of thatgamecompany. © 2012 thatgamecompany.

13. Passage. “You have five minutes, you live, you grow old, you die, and there is no extra life. Along the way, you make choices. For instance, if you choose to have a partner, life will be more complicated but longer. Quite existentialist.” Jason Rohrer (American, born 1977). 2007. Video game. Gift of the designer. Image courtesy Brandon Boyer.

14. Canabalt. “A classic side-scroll runner in black and white, Canabalt has sophisticated indie cred and takes very little memory, but it exploits all the tricks of the contemporary trade in ways that transpire in its ‘buglessness’.” Adam Saltsman (American, born 1982). Music by Daniel Baranowsky (American, born 1984). Video game. 2009. Gift of the designer.

Happy Tuesday! Enjoy a bonus binge this week: a playlist about design. “Design giants” contains 13 talks by iconic modern designers. Hear from Philippe Starck, who asks, “Why design?” … Stefan Sagmeister on how design helped him find happiness … Eames Demetrios on his grandparents’ legendary work … and today’s talk, Paola Antonelli, on how she shocked a few people in the art world by adding 14 video games to the design collection of MoMA.

Watch the playlist “Design giants” »

TED playlists are collections of talks around a topic, built to illuminate ideas in context. A new playlist is added every week. We hope you enjoy this installment.

Alastair Parvin: Architecture for the people by the peopleParvin isn’t merely being rhetorical, as he shares in today’s talk. He and his London-based team have come up with a way to democratize both the design and the manufacturing of buildings. It’s called WikiHouse.

“The idea is to make it possible for anyone to go online and access a freely shared library of 3D models which they can download and adapt in Sketchup,” he says in today’s talk. “Almost at the click of a switch, they can generate a series of cutting files, which allow them in effect to print out the parts from a house using a CNC machine and a standard sheet material like plywood. The parts are all numbered, and basically what you end up with is a really big IKEA kit.”

Sounds intriguing… so how does it really work? We got Parvin to break it down, visually:

WikiHouse is an “open source construction kit.” It enables anyone with an Internet connection to access a shared library of structural designs.

Users simply choose a design. By clicking a button marked, “Make this house,” WikiHouse generates a set of cutting files for each of the parts that goes into that particular structure.

Using a CNC machine, the parts can be “printed” from a standard sheet material such as plywood.

All of the parts in the open source construction kit are numbered, and designed to minimize confusion. “The principles of openness go right to the mundane physical details,” Parvin says. “Don’t design a piece that can’t be picked up, and don’t design a piece that could be put in the wrong way around.”

The WikiHouse system is designed so that it slots together using wedges and pegs. Here’s another radical idea: even the tools used to make the house can be crafted using the WikiHouse technology. Design and manufacture your own mallet!

“People get confused between construction work and having fun,” jokes Parvin, who points out that before the Industrial Revolution, barn-raisings were a common occurrence. Why shouldn’t family and friends be involved in the construction of a modern house?

A building’s panels are screwed into place. A small team can complete a house structure in about a day. As Parvin lyrically describes, imagine “a future where the factory is everywhere, the design team is everyone.”

Mod cons might not be included in a WikiHouse, but they can certainly be incorporated. The frame of the house can easily be adapted to include the likes of cladding, insulation and windows as well as other amenities. Maybe one day, those will be downloadable files, too.

It’s still early days for the WikiHouse project (buildings take time to make, after all.) But here’s an intriguing timelapse video, filmed at the OUI Share Fest in Paris, which shows wiki-building at work.

Read much more about WikiHouse »

Paola Antonelli, MoMA’s design curator, talks about why she acquired 14 video games for the museum’s collection at an event in our office called “Design is Everywhere.” Photo: Ryan Lash

Whether we’re conscious of it or not, design affects us in hundreds — if not thousands of ways — each day. Just think back to your morning. A designer made the decisions that went into the craftsmanship of your bed, your futon, your mattress. A designer determined the form and materials of your toothbrush, your shower, your towel — helped create the experience of your first cup of coffee or tea. Less tangibly, a designer was involved in the way you caught up on the news or checked the weather. And that’s all before you’ve even left the house!

Design can be big — think of the subway systems or highways. Design can be small — think of the details in the fonts we stare at on screens and in books. But design is truly all around us. And so Thursday night in the TED office, we held a salon called “Design is Everywhere,” hosted by our Ideas Editor, Helen Walters. Over the course of the night, four speakers gave talks on their unique approaches to design.

First up was Jake Barton, whose media design firm Local Projects creates systems for museums to unearth works in whimsical ways, and to let the citizens of a city tell their stories in their own voice. In a very moving talk, he shared how the team approached creating the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. As Barton says, September 11 exists somewhere “between current events and history” and all of us – no matter where we were at the time — are witnesses to the event. He explained how the museum sees its mission as collecting stories of that day — even from museum visitors. He also explains how names on the memorial are arranged by an algorithm attuned to “meaningful adjacencies” of personal connections.

Next, came designer Ayşe Birsel, co-founder of Birsel + Seck, who has been called, among other things, the “Queen of Toilets,” for her innovative TOTO toilet seat. She calls her design process Deconstruction: Reconstruction. Birsel talked about her workshops, in which she asks people to rethink their greatest design product: their lives. She presented thoughtful maps and charts that different clients have made of their priorities, influences and loved ones, and how it helped them reconstruct — and ultimately express — what’s meaningful to them.

In November 2012, New York’s Museum of Modern Art acquired 14 video games for its design collection — causing a few gasps among art critics. How dare they place Pac-Man and Portal alongside Picasso and Picabia?! In a very funny talk, MoMA’s design curator Paola Antonelli makes the case that, yes, video games do belong in her museum. Why? Because, as one attendee tweets: ”Video games are the purest form of interaction design.”  She details how to acquire a video game for a museum (forget the game gear, get the code) and shares her wishlist for the next few acquisitions.

And finally, in a lighthearted and sharp-witted talk — the kind you could only expect from the cartoon editor for The New Yorker magazine — Bob Mankoff offered his reflections on the nature of good humor and gave tips to would-be cartoonists. (Hint: “That’s the nature of any creative activity – you’re mostly going to be rejected.”) While sharing scores of his favorite “idea drawings,” and divulging the intentions behind the magazine’s occasional abstruseness, he showed how no joke is funny unto itself. Context is everything.

“Design is Everywhere” was part of TED@250, a series of salons held at our New York office at 250 Hudson Street. Since our main conferences are only twice a year, TED@250 is an opportunity for talks that rethink headlines and respond to conversation happening in real time. It’s also a place for speakers with the kind of personal stories that simply work better on the small scale. Stay tuned. Some of these talks may be coming to TED.com.

“Lists like this are useful in shining a light on unseen leaders and unheard voices,” says John Cary, the curator of Public Interest Design, who worked with Autodesk to research the list and create an interactive graphic of it. The list offers a new lens on some favorite TED speakers and TED Fellows — because, it turns out, they’re designers. Below, a look at these honorees:

• William Kamkwamba made the list for designing and building a windmill that brought electricity to his home and village in rural Malawi. Did we mention that he was 14 at the time? He shares the story in his TED Talk “How I harnessed the wind.”

• Jacqueline Novogratz was honored for Acumen, her initiative that has invested over $50 million in ventures like D.light Design, which serve poor communities. She explains the Acumen approach in talks such as “On escaping poverty” and “A third way to think about aid.”

• TED Fellow Hugo Van Vuuren, who co-founded Design with Africa, made the list for his work on design solutions to social challenges across the continent.

• Bunker Roy was honored for his Barefoot College, which seeks to make communities self-sufficient by teaching skills in energy, health, waste management and more. He talks more about his for-the-poor-only college in the talk “Learning from a barefoot movement.”

• Amos Winter, who founded Global Research Innovation and Technology, made the list for his work on products like the Leveraged Freedom Chair. In this talk, he shares more about the development of this “Cheap all-terrain wheelchair.”

• TED Fellow Yaw “DK” Osseo-Asare, of the architecture studio Low Design Office, was honored for his work in low-cost, low-energy, and low-environmental-impact design.
  .
• Bill and Melinda Gates made the list for the Gates Foundation’s work addressing global health and poverty issues, often with design-based solutions. See Bill’s big-picture design thinking in action in the legendary talk “Mosquitos, malaria and education.” Melinda made waves in 2012 with a rousing talk “Let’s put birth control back on the agenda.”

• Zainab Salbi was honored for founding Women for Women International, which helps survivors of war recover from crisis. Her TED Talk “Women, wartime and the dream of peace” is simply incredible.

• TED Fellow Jodie Wu’s Global Cycle Solutions has created a bike-powered maize sheller and phone-charger. These unique designs landed her a spot on the list.

• Alastair Parvin was honored for his work on Wikihouse, an open source construction set that lets anyone build. His talk from TED2013, “The DIY house of the future,” will premiere on TED.com next week. Stay tuned.

Below, check out a static version of Public Interest Design’s Global 100 graphic. And head to PublicInterestDesign.org to play with the interactive version »

This is how speakers stay focused as they give TED Talks: a “confidence” monitor onstage, shown here at TED2011. Slide design: WORKSHOP/staff. Photograph: James Duncan Davidson.

It is, indeed, a monumental day here at TED Towers. We’re winners! Or, as June Cohen, executive producer of TED Media, described this morning’s news of our winning the 2013 National Design Award for corporate and institutional achievement: “We’re thrilled!”

“Design and design thinking has always been core to TED’s mission. After all, it’s the ‘D’ in TED,” she continued. “That’s reflected in everything we do, from staging and hosting our conferences, to filming and publishing our speakers’ talks, to building TED.com and our apps, to creating TED-Ed animations, to helping TEDx organizers put on independent events. We’re so grateful to the network of talented designers we partner with — as well as our in-house team — for their tireless efforts in moving TED’s mission forward.”

Stage design is a big part of the TED conference experience. Here, young African innovator Richard Turere tells his story at TED2013. Photograph: James Duncan Davidson.

The field of corporate design has evolved since its romantic heyday, when hero designers such as Paul Rand or Massimo Vignelli created iconic visual systems for companies such as IBM, UPS or American Airlines. These days, a company’s identity needs to be able to work in many different contexts, to adapt to the ever-changing needs and demands of a digitally driven universe even as it holds true to the principles at its core. This is especially true as TED’s list of initiatives is always growing.

The TED branding works in many different contexts. Here, at right is a print program guide designed by Albertson Design, with TEDActive programs and dogtags designed by WORKSHOP.

Mike Femia, TED’s director of design services, explains how he and the team work across the company’s many extensions. The key? To focus on the mission statement of “ideas worth spreading.”

“We want a certain simplicity to be the basis of everything we do, so that TED can be a platform for ideas. We don’t want to overshadow them or impose unnecessary branding flourishes,” he said. “At the same time, we are very open to new design directions, and we work with many outside studios and designers who have unique viewpoints. The fundamental question: how can we use design to help encourage the spread of ideas? Our best work comes about when we bring all of these elements together.”

The theme of the conference is the basis of print pieces produced for attendees. Here, the cover of the program guide for TED2010, designed by Paper Plane Studio. Photograph: Marla Aufmuth.

Thaniya Keereepart, TED’s product development director, echoes the importance of remaining focused, a task that anyone who’s ever had anything to do with modern life knows is easier said than done. “Design should be simple. Quiet. It should bring to light the content and enhance the experience of content consumption,” she explained. “If you go to a website and the first thing you see is the design, that’s not TED.”

Both Keereepart and Femia are quick to share any credit for TED’s award with their many collaborators, both internal and external, and it’s safe to say we’re thrilled. Last word to the Cooper-Hewitt’s acting director, Caroline Baumann, who said this morning, “TED draws an enormous and varied audience who find inspiration and ideas from the conference, as do the speakers themselves. TED is an invaluable resource and experience for designers in all industries.”

TED playlists are “collections for curious minds.” Just added to the site this year, it puts new spin on TED’s classic page design.

When illustrator/storyteller Oliver Jeffers and animator/woodworker Mac Premo get together, sketchbooks travel 60,000 miles, suitcases wander the streets of Brooklyn and sandwiches are skewered with bows and arrows.

Jeffers and Premo created the opening video for TED2013 — and its star,  the TED Machine. The TED Machine works like a schedule board in an old train station — with panels that reveal, with each new flip, the names of the 72 speakers and performers at TED2013 in squiggly handwriting. In the video above, the machine comes to life in stop-motion animation, revealing a magical world filled with ukelele strumming and changing backdrops. At TED2013, the video — which has a homespun charm a bit different from TED’s regular polished punch — elicited the kind of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ normally reserved for fireworks displays.

On Monday, New York creative types crowded the workshop space of Manhattan’s 14th Street Apple Store for an evening with Jeffers, Premo, and TED’s  Design Director Mike Femia, for a conversation about building the machine and where to find the best trash in the city. During the event, Jeffers and Premo revealed how they met (at summer camp); what they do when they’re not making art (they make hot dogs text); and how they pitched their idea for the TED machine.

Being asked to create the TED2013 opening sequence was nerve-wracking, Premo told the crowd, but he and Jeffers knew it would be a great opportunity to stretch their creative muscles. “TED is the most intellectually-stimulating blitzkrieg in the world,” he said. “And we had to make a film that encapsulates it.”

So they set out to build the TED Machine by doing what they do best: Premo taking on the woodwork and Jeffers creating a collage — something they had to physically attach to the 72 rotating “name bumpers” on the machine, because as Premo said, “We needed the things to turn.”

In the end, filming took five days (note: this is a 72-second long video!) and even included a trip to Coney Island in 7 degree weather.

Femia explained what drew the design team at TED to Premo and Jeffers in the first place — they were impressed by the hand-painted wooden map that the two had created for TED Prize winner JR to track his Inside Out project. The piece eventually became a landmark of the design for the 14-city TED Worldwide Talent Search.

“The moment before talks start at a TED conference is very dramatic,” Femia explained. “People are settling into their chairs; the lights are getting dim. We asked ourselves, ‘How could we make it special?’”

Femia said he knew Premo and Jeffers were right for the job because of their ability to tell a story with their art. “What I like about their work,” Femia said, “is that it’s explanatory — it celebrates the process, the messiness, the dirtiness.”

Why is this process called 4D printing?

The reason we call it 4D is because the object changes over time. So whereas 3D printing simply creates an object,Skylar Tibbits: The emergence of "4D printing" the 4D-printed object is printed using smart materials that are activated by various sources — like heat, water, current, sound, pressure, and so on.

Objects are printed with the multi-material printer using a combination of smart material and standard 3D printing material — currently, Stratasys’ Connex highly precise multi-material 3D printers can print two materials — in whatever shape you want. Then when you activate the object, it changes: swells or contracts or moves.

Right now the material we’re using is a polymer-based water-absorbing material that expands 150%. For the non-4D material, Stratasys has a whole line, everything from soft rubber to plastic. Right now we use their hard black plastic, just a standard plastic material, alongside the 4D material as the activator.

So the expanding material does one thing and the rigid material holds the shape, is that right?

Right. The rigid material gives it structure and constraints. If you have two pieces and you want them to fold, how do you make it go the right direction? That way or another way? Well, you put a very thin piece of rigid material on the side you want to fold. So that means that the expanding material is going to expand, and that super thin material is going to bend. And so this basically creates a force. But then the question is, how do you make it so that the bend stops at the correct angle? So you add rigid limiters. You also use the lengths of the segments to achieve the shape you want. The rigid material is the code, and the expanding material is the energy.

It’s just become a really elegant process from start to finish, where my hands are out of it the whole time. I build intent, but the object is manufactured as a streamlined piece. You dip it in water and it goes by itself.

Video above: A demonstration of 4D Printing, the “MIT” self-folding strand in action.

The first time you saw the test object fold by itself in water, were you incredibly excited?

I had one surprising moment. I set it in water, and I had my camera set up doing a time-lapse — the process is so slow you can’t see it moving in real time. A few hours later I came back and it was folded. And I thought, “Oh, cool. It folded. It works.” But then I looked at the time-lapse and went, “Whoa!” — because it looks like a live worm. It’s not just click, click — MIT. It takes weird dynamic forms to get there. So that was cool.

How did you originally connect with Stratasys?

It’s actually a funny story. I was at a coffee shop, in Cambridge, right across from MIT, and the person across from me had a shirt on that said Objet — the 3D printing company that later merged with and became Stratasys. We started talking, and I introduced her to the department of architecture at MIT. I showed her the work I’m doing, saying, “I wish there was a way we could print this stuff so that we could embed the energy directly into it.” She connected me with their materials science division, which was developing this material that expands in water. Together we realized this wasn’t just a weird material that we don’t know what to do with, but a new paradigm for what you can print.

You are the only person working on designs for this material and this particular process. So do you get all the credit for 4D?

Well, Stratasys developed the materials and the machine, so this wouldn’t be possible without them. I had the vision of how this would be a real change in the game of 3D printing. This only became a reality once we produced the prototypes and demonstrated that it is possible. But I think 4D printing is something that in the future anyone can do. If the materials were on the market, everyone would be 4D printing tomorrow.

But you need the design knowledge.

That’s true. There’s the whole democratizing-design world, and they’re trying to make it so anyone can 3D print anything. This falls into that realm. It’s a little bit more complex because you need to be smart enough to figure out, say, if you want to make a fairly complex and intricate shape, you need to then be able to figure out what’s the pattern for it to go from here to here — and that’s not always easy. Going from a line to a circle is pretty straightforward. You can make a strip, and you can make a standard interval, and it will curl uniformly. But if you want to make something more intricate, you need to have the tools to be able to do that. So we started to collaborate with Autodesk to help develop new design tools for this — tools that allow you design around self-assembly principles as well as simulate and optimize the folding patterns.

Video above: A demonstration of a self-folding sheet, created at the MIT Self-Assembly Lab.

So what now? Are you thinking up ways to apply this technology to designs?

Yes. So far we’ve demonstrated that a one-dimensional form folds into a three-dimensional form. One goal is to go as complex as possible. I’m trying to do a 50-foot long strand that folds into eight inches: it’s called the Hilbert curve — a mathematical curve. So that would demonstrate that we can do highly simple first parts that lead to very complex other structures. And it also may have implications for studying protein folding, how they can go from one configuration to another, how they don’t tangle, and what design parameters are essential. But I also want to demonstrate all of the other low-hanging fruit — a flat 2D sheet that folds into a rigid 3D structure. A 3D object like a cube that turns into a sphere. We know we can do it — we just haven’t. There are a ton of these.

After we’ve proved we can build complex things and we can do all geometric transformations, then we can start to use the technology for more real-world applications. Then we will need to push the materials further and make sure we have the right properties so that it is scalable. Part of me is just fascinated by pushing the boundaries of what we know, what’s possible, what materials can do, and how much information you can embed. But I also want to make large-scale things and solve real-world problems with them.

You’ve talked to us about applying self-assembly technology to adaptable infrastructure like piping and bridges, low-energy manufacturing, and passive energy construction techniques. What about potential applications for space?

We have been working with Shackleton Energy as a design advisor to help build space infrastructure systems using these principles. They are looking to build a whole pipeline space infrastructure for fueling and energy extraction. The idea is to provide an infrastructure for all of the private space companies, so that they don’t have to keep going back and forth, but stay in space longer. So they need an energy supply chain, module components and smart ways they can connect to one another.

The opposite paradigm is the International Space Station: it comprises extremely complex and expensive technology made all around the world, coming together in complex ways. Nearly no module is the same. In contrast, we want to develop simple systems that can be shipped, then expand in orbit and are reconfigurable. These would be standard components that come together in many, many ways, so you have massive design possibility with a minimum number of components.

Adaptable infrastructure: pipes that expand and contract according to need. Photo: MIT Self-Assembly Lab

Why is 4D — and self-assembly — necessary?

The short answer is that I don’t like manual labor. People always comment that my work reduces energy consumption. But I never say that; I say it uses alternative energy sources like heat, shaking, and so on. The extra energy required to make smarter parts that self-assemble could be offset by reducing the expensive and huge amount of energy used in construction.

Well, 4D radically modifies that argument, because the manufacturing side would also be streamlined. There isn’t excessive labor to make the parts “smart”: I don’t have to embed magnets in every single piece, for example. It goes right from design to reality — and it doesn’t stop at reality. Smart materials can even continue to adapt — changing shape or texture. But the manufacturing process is streamlined.

How did you become interested in self-assembly in the first place?

Skylar Tibbits: Can we make things that make themselves?It all began in 2007, when I was in architecture school, as an undergrad in Philly. I was building these huge sculptures and breaking my back.

Were you originally an artist?

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an artist. I was always drawing, and also making stuff. And I was into photography in middle school and high school. But somehow I thought architecture was a lucrative art form. Architecture was all software-based, but at a certain point, you get to the limits of software. I started learning how to write code. And the code is what led to the sculptures.

Generative art was a brand-new field at the time. At the same time, digital fabrication began. It was all brand new: fab labs were popping up, architecture schools were getting robotic fabrication machines, and laser cutters and 3D printers. Suddenly there was this code explosion, which meant that people like me could make stuff that no one else could make. It was the students that were pumped about this new technology. “Wow, we have all these crazy design tools and digital fabrication tools. Now we can build stuff that hadn’t been possible before — and with one percent of the budget.”

Tibbits’ first installation, “Flat Panel Quadrilateral Tessellations,” 2008.

What was your big break?

I got a huge opportunity to do an exhibition in Philly in 2007, at the Real World house in this old bank. It’s two floors, balcony. They offered me the whole space. I pitched to do something called “Scripted by Purpose,” which was a collaboration with TED Fellow Marc Fornes. The idea was using scripted processes for design. And so we brought anyone from around the world that we knew that was doing generative design at the time.

We had architects, but we also had Vito Acconci there, Marius Watz and Francois Roche, and other well-known architects, artists and designers. We were the first ones in the design world to put together such an exhibition, so people started inviting us to do exhibitions around the world. For us, it was an opportunity to make stuff in ways that people weren’t making before. And we could compete. Big architects were doing wild projects with billions of dollars. We could do wild geometries in smarter ways, because we could write code and run machines ourselves — for little money. But it was manual labor — people fabricating, assembling, connecting things, finishing the parts. Eventually the labor side of it made me realize that there had to be a better way. Not just code to design stuff, not just code to make stuff, but code to assemble stuff as well.

Somewhere in there, I joined MIT Design Computation Group and started working on programmable matter and robotics, artificial intelligence, and eventually the biology stuff crept in. That showed me possibilities of construction at other length-scales that used computational processes and embedded assembly information. That led to the research on self-assembly!

So you did ultimately get to be an artist.

Yes, I am an artist, but I also think of myself as an architect. My art was always trying to prove an architectural point. My first installation was called “Flat Panel Quadrilateral Tessellations.” It basically said that we can make complex, doubly curved surfaces, out of flat pieces of material. So it’s super cheap and super easy to build, all through code and coded machines.

For me, the most exciting challenge is not to do the same thing ever again, or to keep critiquing myself each time: how could it be smarter, how could this thing be more streamlined or do things that we didn’t expect? Each time I start something new, I want to do something I couldn’t have imagined was possible.

How has the TED Fellowship had an impact on your life and work so far?

The TED Fellowship has given me the opportunity, network and confidence to start my own lab at MIT, the Self-Assembly Lab. I likely wouldn’t have been able to take that trajectory otherwise. TED has also really been a research testbed and an opportunity to experiment. I’ve been fortunate enough to exhibit work during three of the four conferences that I’ve attended — putting the work out there, getting feedback, getting exposure and using it as a stage for development. I think this has really been a unique experience, much more tangible and direct than I could have imagined.

Video above: Watch Tibbits’ recently posted TED-Ed animation: “Self-assembly: The power of organizing the unorganized.”

Here, some staff picks of smart, funny, bizarre and cool stuff on the interwebs this week. First, happy (late) World Poetry Day! Celebrate the occasion with 8 talks from spoken-word poets.

Vijay Kumar: Robots that fly ... and cooperate
Just when you thought Vijay Kumar’s robots that fly and cooperate were creepy enough, he and his team have developed a drone that can pick up objects at high speed using a bird-like claw. [The Verge]

A piece by Ed Yong takes an in-depth look at new findings on the mechanics of swarming, a phenomenon that has baffled scientists. Awesome quote: “Cannibalism, not cooperation, was aligning the swarm.” [Wired]

Beautiful photos from Christo’s “Big Air Package” — which is being called the “largest indoor sculpture in history” — being installed at the Gasometer Oberhausen, due to premiere in December 2013. [This is colossal]

Ed Boyden: A light switch for neurons
Congrats to Ed Boyden, who was named one of the winners of the 2013 Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Prize earlier this week for his work on optogenetics. Watch Boyden’s 2011 talk, about using fiber-optic implants to control specific neurons in the brain. [MIT news]

What is it like growing up in a futurist household? Veronique Greenwood’s mother, a technology consultant, was touting the rise of mobile social networking years before the iPhone had come out and before Facebook had a “Like” button; she had pens printed with the slogan “Remember when we could only hear each other?” a decade before Skype. [Aeon magazine]

Stewart Brand: The dawn of de-extinction. Are you ready?

More Ed Yong? Yes. Yong takes a look at the pros and cons of de-extinction (a big topic in these parts after Stewart Brand’s TED2013 talk). [National Geographic]

Congratulations to TED Fellow Durreen Shahnaz, whose company, Impact Investment Exchange, has been nominated for the Rockefeller Foundation Centennial Innovation Award.

Timo Arnall’s thoughtful critique of the growing trend to encourage “invisible” interaction design. [Elastic space]

Jehane Noujaim wishes for a global day of film

More congrats are in order, to 2006 TED Prize winner Jehane Noujaim, who just completed a Kickstarter to raise money for postproduction on her Sundance Award-winning documentary The Square. [Kickstarter] Read more about The Square.

A father overhears his son talking about coming out of the closet to his mother and him, then leaves him this note. [Twitter] More details from Gawker.

A cute hello from the Axosoft TED Live event from TED2013. Watch for some tasty-looking carrots. [YouTube]