Tensegrity structures consist of three-dimensional systems of rigid bodies (bars), which are stabilized by inserting tensile elements (strings) between them (“tensegrity architecture”, refer, e.g., to Skelton, R. E. and de Oliveira, M. C., Tensegrity Systems, Springer, 2010).  Such structures attract the interest of artists and researchers operating in many different areas, including engineering, architecture and biology, because of their beauty and their special ability to serve as light-weight and deployable systems.

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NEWMATT designs furniture such as lamps, outdoor and landscape lightings, bed frames, table frames, chairs and ornaments, which incorporate tensegrity structures/elements. 

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Our design philosophy mixes creativity, mathematics and computational mechanics, in order to achieve optimal shapes according to given mechanical, functional and aesthetic criteria.

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Some of our major design goals are the following:

• lightness: design of minimal mass shapes under given constraints, such as material strengths; positions, size and connectivity constrains;

• deployability: the employed tensegrity structures can dynamically change shape through mechanical and/or manual control of the tension in the strings;

• foldability: the tension string control can also be used to fold and easily stow a given structure, which can be collapsed to a planar, linear or punctual object (eventually using telescopic elements for the bars);

• tensegrity origami: some of our tensegrity structures can be built out of a flat sheet of material, by combining the origami technique with the tenssegrity philosophy, through the insertion of tensile elements between the faces of the origami, which act as rigid members of the structure;

• apparent “levitation”: in specific applications, the rigid (thick) parts of the current tensegrity structure can appear to levitate above the ground, since such elements are not connected each other and are stabilized by thin and transparent strings;

• light ray effect: when using optical fibers and/or fluorescent tubes for the bars, the above “levitation” approach may lead to design lighting objects looking like light rays;

• mounting kits: we can design mounting kits for tensegrity furniture to be assembled by the user, eventually according to multiple mounting schemes.