The Swarm Garden lies at the intersection between mechanics, swarm robotics, architecture, and art. Units of confined, shin sheets, which buckle into controllable patterns according to geometry (see doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.108.035002), act as “flowering” agents. These modules respond collectively to one another to human interaction. Envisioned as a way to customize sunlight in interior spaces, we held an interactive art exhibit (April 2024) to demonstrate the mechanism.

See more about the making of the Swarm Garden on the CreativeX website.

Collaborators: Merihan Alhafnwai, Radhika Nagpal, Sigrid Adriaenssens, Vicky Chow, Jad Bendarkawi, & Yenet Tafesse

M. Alhafnawi, L. Stein-Montalvo, S. Adriaenssens, and R. Nagpal. Swarm garden: A human-responsive facade based on buckling of confined sheets. In prep.