Student Invents Shapeshifting Pinecone-Inspired Building Material
3rd July 2015
Chao Chen, a Master’s student in design at London’s Royal College of Art, was inspired by an ordinary pinecone he saw in Hyde Park. Pinecones close when wet, and Chen decided to see if he could mimic the movement for a class project.
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He discovered that by layering a veneer, fabric, and a thin layer of film together he could make a material that reacted just like the pinecone to water: opening on sunny days, and curling in the presence of water.