Inflatable Structures reimagined

Pneumatic systems have long been used at various scales. Buckling – a failure mode involving the development of crumples – is usually avoided since it leads to undesirable and potentially rapid changes in form and function. Our work on the deliberate design for crumpling has now been published, opening up new design opportunities by demonstrating that crumpling can be experimentally and analytically predicted and used to facilitate the creation of new pneumatic morphologies. The demonstration prototypes span from the product (e.g. energy absorption) to the building pavilion scale, made in the GSD’s FabLab, in the facilities of the Bertoldi Group at Harvard SEAS, as well at Pneuhaus Studio in Rumford, RI.

Yang, Y., Youn, H. J., Kamp, L., Sachse, R., Li, Wenjie, Vidal, J., Feng, J., Bechthold, M., Bertoldi, K. 2026. ” Reconfigurable Inflatables Through Controlled Surface Crumpling.” Advanced Science. https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202600074