MIT Media Lab has partnered with designer Yves Béhar on a smart furniture system for micro apartments, which can turn the space into a bedroom or living room at the touch of a button (+ movie).
The Ori system operates a compact module that incorporates a bed and a closet on one side, and a home office and an entertainment suite on the other.

The full-height unit can shift forward and backwards to free up space on either side. When needed, a bed slides out from underneath the storage space, while a bench emerges from below the TV.
Researchers from MIT's CityHome project developed the actuators, electronics and software that enable the heavy furniture to glide and shape-shift, as well as connect to other smart devices.

Béhar and his San Francisco studio Fuseproject came on board to create a single furniture unit that could transform to make the most of small spaces. The final design can be ordered in custom materials, finishes and colours. The system is designed for micro apartments with less than 300 square feet (28 square metres) of space, as rent in cities continues to rise and living spaces become more compact.

Demonstrating the issue, an illustrator built a tiny wooden bedroom for himself in a friend's living room to avoid paying San Francisco's "absurdly high" rents.
"Cities such as London, Seattle, San Francisco and almost everywhere else are seeing an influx of young professionals, yet those urban centres are more expensive and more condensed,&qu...