Esther Rivas Adrover (Architect and PhD candidate, Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge)
Deployable structures can expand and/or contract due to their geometrical, material and mechanical properties.
The process of expansion is known as deployment. Their compact state is also known as packaged state. Deployable structures offer great potential for creating truly transforming, dynamic experiences and environments. Their lightness and transportability allow them to adapt to a society that is constantly evolving and changing. Furthermore, these are reusable structures that make efficient use of energy, resources, materials and space, thus embracing the concept of sustainability. Today, not only engineers and architects, but origami scientists, biomimetic researchers, astrophysicists, mathematicians, biologists, artists and others are studying, designing and developing applications for an extraordinary vast range of deployable structures.
This includes mechanisms that have yet to be tested in architectural applications and are relatively unknown outside their scientific field.