While serving as a lecturer in the MIT Department of Architecture, Skylar Tibbits SM ’10 was also creating art installations in galleries worldwide. These installations typically featured intricate structures made from algorithmically designed and computer-fabricated pieces, drawing on Tibbits’ graduate work at the Institute.
Late one night in 2011, he and his team spent hours meticulously riveting and bolting thousands of small pieces to install a corridor-spanning piece called VoltaDom at MIT for the Institute’s 150th anniversary celebration.
« There was a moment during the assembly when I realized this was the opposite of what I was interested in. We have elegant code for design and fabrication, but not for construction. How can we enable things to build themselves? That’s when my lab’s research program truly began, » he says.
Now an associate professor of design research, Tibbits co-directs the Self-Assembly Lab in the Department of Architecture, where he and his collaborators explore self-organizing systems, programmable materials, and transformable structures that respond to their environment.
His research spans a wide range of projects, including self-assembling furniture from parts placed in a water tank, rapid 3D printing with molten aluminum, and programmable textiles that detect temperature and adjust to cool the body.
« If you ask someone on the street about self-assembly, they might think of IKEA. But that’s not what we mean. I’m not the ‘self’ assembling something. Instead, the parts should build themselves, » he explains.
Creative Foundations
Growing up near Philadelphia, Tibbits, who was very hands-on, enjoyed building things manually. He was deeply interested in art and design, inspired by his aunt and uncle, both professional artists, and his grandfather, an architect.
Tibbits decided to study architecture at the University of Philadelphia (now Thomas Jefferson University) based on his grandfather’s advice to choose a school strong in design.
« At the time, I didn’t really know what that meant, » he recalls, but it was sound advice. Thinking like a designer helped shape his career path and continues to fuel the work he and his collaborators do in the Self-Assembly Lab.
While studying architecture, the digital boom was transforming many aspects of the field. Initially, he and his classmates drew by hand, but digital fabrication software and equipment soon surpassed traditional methods.
Wanting to get ahead, Tibbits taught himself to code. He used equipment from a sign shop owned by his classmate Jared Laucks’ father (now a research scientist and co-director of the Self-Assembly Lab) to digitally fabricate objects before their school had the necessary machines.
Seeking further education, Tibbits chose to pursue graduate studies at MIT because he wanted to learn computation from full-time computer scientists rather than architects teaching digital tools.
« I wanted to learn a different discipline and really enter a different world. That’s what brought me to MIT, and I never left, » he says.
Tibbits earned dual master’s degrees in computer science and design and computation, delving into computation theory and what it means to compute. He became interested in the challenge of embedding information into our everyday world.
One of his most impactful experiences as a graduate student was a series of projects at the Center for Bits and Atoms involving reconfigurable robots.
« I wanted to understand how to program materials to change shape, properties, or self-assemble, » he says.
He pondered these questions as he graduated from MIT and joined the Institute as a lecturer, teaching in studios and labs in the Department of Architecture. Eventually, he decided to become a research scientist to lead his own lab.
« I had some experience in architectural practice, but I was really fascinated by what I was doing at MIT. It felt like there were a million things I wanted to work on, so staying here to teach and research was the perfect opportunity, » he says.
Launching a Lab
While forming the Self-Assembly Lab, Tibbits had a serendipitous encounter with someone wearing a Stratasys T-shirt at Flour Bakery and Café near campus. (Stratasys is a 3D printer manufacturer.)
A lightbulb went off in his head.
« I asked them, why can’t I print a material that behaves like a robot and just comes out of the machine? Why can’t I print robots without adding electronics, motors, wires, or mechanisms? » he says.
This idea led to one of his lab’s first projects: 4D printing. The process involves using a multi-material 3D printer to print objects designed to sense, actuate, and transform over time.
To achieve this, Tibbits and his team pair material properties with a specific activation energy. For example, moisture will transform cellulose, and temperature will activate polymers. Researchers fabricate materials in specific geometries to harness these activation energies to transform the material predictably and precisely.
« It’s almost like everything is becoming a ‘smart’ material, » he says.
The lab’s initial 4D printing work has evolved to include different materials, such as textiles, and has led the team to invent new printing processes, such as rapid liquid printing and liquid metal printing.
They have used 4D printing in numerous applications, often collaborating with industry partners. For example, they worked with Airbus to develop thin blades capable of bending and curling to control airflow to an aircraft engine.
On a larger scale, the team embarked on a multi-year project in 2015 with the organization Invena in the Maldives to leverage self-assembly to « grow » small islands and rebuild beaches, potentially helping protect the archipelago from rising sea levels.
To achieve this, they fabricate submersible devices that, based on their geometry and natural ocean forces like wave and tidal energy, promote sand accumulation in specific areas to become sandbars.
They have now created nine field installations in the Maldives, with the largest measuring about 60 square meters. The ultimate goal is to promote the self-organization of sand into protective barriers against sea-level rise, rebuild beaches to combat erosion, and eliminate the need for dredging for land reclamation.
They are currently working on similar projects in Iceland with J. Jih, an associate professor of architectural design at MIT, focusing on mountain erosion and volcanic lava flows, and Tibbits envisions many potential applications for self-assembly in natural environments.
« There are almost limitless places and forces we could harness to solve significant problems, whether it’s beach erosion or protecting communities from volcanoes, » he says.
Blending the Radical and the Relevant
Self-organized sandbars are an excellent example of a project combining a radical idea with a relevant application, Tibbits explains. He strives to find projects that strike such a balance and don’t just push boundaries without solving a real-world problem.
Working with brilliant and passionate researchers in the Self-Assembly Lab helps Tibbits stay inspired and creative as they launch new projects aimed at solving big problems.
He feels particularly passionate about his role as a teacher and mentor. In addition to teaching three or four courses each year, he leads the undergraduate design program at MIT.
Any MIT student can choose to major or minor in design, and the program focuses on many aspects and types of design to give students a broad foundation they can apply in their future careers.
« I’m passionate about creating polymath designers at MIT who can apply design to any other discipline, and vice versa. I think my lab reflects this philosophy, where we take creative approaches and apply them to research, and where we apply new principles from different disciplines to create new forms of design, » he says.
Outside the lab and classroom, Tibbits often finds inspiration by spending time on the water. He lives on the beach on the North Shore of Massachusetts and is a surfer, a hobby he dabbled in during his youth but fully embraced after moving to the Bay State for graduate school.
« It’s such an incredible sport to keep you in tune with the forces of the ocean. You can’t control the environment, so to ride a wave, you have to find a way to harness it, » he says.
