Have you ever rolled a piece of paper into a cylinder, or tried to wrap aluminum foil around an object without making it crumple? Imagine being able to simply turn a piece of flat material into beautiful, strong furniture, lighting or even the buildings and bridges of the future.

In the world of architecture and product design this idea of building complex 3D shapes using flat materials has always been a fascinating challenge. Flat sheets made from materials such as paper, metal, or plastic are easy to cut and manipulate, but until now, turning them into specific curved shapes has required clever engineering and design, expensive shaping tools and often a lot of trial and error.