Shape Shifters
Brooklyn startup Rock Paper Robot is transforming the future of furniture.
“I never was like, ‘I’m going to grow up to be a kinetic furniture designer,’” says Jessica Banks. “Who does that? Maybe now people will.”
Along the way to becoming a pioneer in this unusual emerging field, Banks studied physics and robotics, pursued a career as an astronaut, and worked in comedy as Al Franken’s assistant in his pre-Senate days. All these experiences and more come together in Rock Paper Robot, Banks’ company devoted to creating furniture that moves and transforms in surprising, delightful ways.
Three and a half years ago, Banks found a kindred spirit and collaborator in Pete Schlebecker, an experienced furniture maker who had also explored kinetic designs. Their growing team works out of New Lab, a sprawling space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard once used for building ships, which now hosts an impressive array of entrepreneurs, artists, and researchers working with emerging technologies in creative ways.
We spoke with Banks and Schlebecker as they prepared to unveil their latest creation on Kickstarter: an exquisite reimagining of collapsible seating called the Ollie Chair.
How do you describe what you make at Rock Paper Robot?
Jessica Banks: When we say kinetic furniture, usually we get a blank look. We ease into what that means, saying a La-Z-Boy or a water bed could be considered kinetic furniture, and then work up to it. After people see our stuff and hear a little bit more about what we do, usually they will say, “Hey, I love this idea.” Or, “Oh, what about this?” It feels like we make new connections in their brains.
Can you describe the new chair that you brought to Kickstarter?
Pete Schlebecker: All you have to do is pick up the chair and it automatically pops open. It transforms from this flat thing into a three-dimensional shape with curved surfaces. The wooden tambour surface, which is like a roll top desk — thin slats of wood bonded to a piece of cloth — instantly conforms to the new shape of a chair with lumbar support.
What got you thinking about this?
JB: Actually, we didn’t think of it. Somebody came in to see the table that we were working on, the Ollie table. It slides down from the wall, comes out to any length. They asked, “What happens to the chairs when the table goes up on the wall?” We were like, “Shit, we’ll be right back.”
That table really came out of us seeing that people would like flexible work spaces that can change size and be customized. Part of the not-so glamorous way to be inspired is desperation—and so, seeing as we have this company, we need to make something that is great for a certain market and answers some pain points we’re seeing in urbanization and small living.
What got you started with kinetic furniture?
JB: The Float Table is our signature piece — it was our first product. It’s basically a matrix of magnetized wooden cubes that all levitate with respect to one another. It’s kind of like a wooden Jell-O cube. If you put another coffee table book down, the table is like, “Not another book. Oh my God.” If you put it a little lopsided on one or two cubes, the table compresses and responds to that. But if you distribute the mass, it’s totally balanced.
That table is incredibly beautiful, but it’s almost more like a piece of art. I imagine the process for making it is quite involved.
JB: Occasionally someone will tell us it’s great for some sound equipment or something like that because it’s buffered. Then we’re like, “Oh great, a real function!” But really I think it has social value. It’s beautiful, functional art.
The table came into its own because of Pete’s hands and his mastery of woodworking. It took us a year to even figure out the process of putting it together.
PS: Jess had already worked out the engineering mechanics of it. Basically, I streamlined the process of building it so that it was more efficient and repeatable.
JB: Yeah, if you’re crazy. [laughing]
But this new chair is your first foray into larger-scale manufacturing, right?
JB: That is exactly how we say it, yes. We wanted to be able to make things that are accessible to a broader demographic. We’ve realized we need to make money when we sleep, somehow—otherwise we are essentially freelancers doing custom work. Even though we love it, it can be really tough to do that constantly as a business.
Have there been any surprises or challenges with scaling up production?
JB: Interesting things pop up with manufacturing overseas. [Our partner said], “We’re sorry, we have to close the factory, there’s too much smog.” I’m like, “Well, when can you reopen it?” “When there’s not as much smog.” They couldn’t give us an exact timeline, but they said they might try to open at night. At that moment I realized I was torn between being an environmentally conscious person and being a businesswoman, and I weighed it out. I was like, “Just be late. Don’t make more problems. That’s not what we are here to do.” Those are really interesting learning experiences.
The folding chair is such a generic, almost disposable piece of furniture. How did you reimagine it and imbue it with your signature style?
JB: We interact with the chair and figure out what will make it seem like magic when it folds.
PS: A big part of my job is going, “Okay, we’ve got this idea. Now we build a prototype and see what it does.” It wasn’t until I had the thing assembled and made it pop out that we saw the tambour just slither over the surface as it opened. I didn’t expect that. It was like, whoa!
JB: It can go from flexible to a more rigid state, which is really interesting. The tambour is actually a little different than a traditional one. It has to be able to bend in two directions because of the profile of the chair.
Like the Float Table, the Ollie Chair confounds our assumptions about what a solid material like wood can do.
JB: Exactly. Our goal is to make those interactions have a visceral impact so that these products feel more like experiences, and you feel excited and invited to use them. There are a lot of aspects to the chair that I think are important: it’s customizable; the tambour can be swapped out and changed. It’s ergonomic; most folding chairs are not. Then when it stores, it’s beautiful, so you can hang it on the wall kind of like a piece of art.
Who are some of the designers or artists that inspire you?
JB: Thomas Heatherwick is one. Jeff Lieberman is also amazing. We have a great network of friends who are amazing designers and scientists and engineers, and they constantly inspire us.
[Kinetic sculptor] Arthur Ganson was probably the first that made me think, “I’m going to make stuff that moves.” I was studying robotics [at MIT] and I saw him for the first time at the MIT Museum. I was absolutely blown away. The motion did something to me — I felt sad just from looking at something move. How amazing to be able to access someone’s emotions through this vehicle.
What was is like like studying robotics at MIT?
JB: It was basically a rebirth of wonder for me, and a total ego demolition at the same time. I wouldn’t trade those years for anything — I wish everyone could have that experience. When you get accepted to MIT, you feel smart before you actually go. Then I got there and I was like, “I’m so dumb — I don’t know anything. These people are brilliant.”
That was a really big mental transition for me. Then it was really just about how much can I learn. Even if I knew the answer I’d ask, “What do you mean?” I wanted to hear everyone’s takes on certain theories. I also really learned how to use my hands for the first time. I learned how to work at a machine shop. After I realized that I could change the shape of metal, I felt like there was nothing that I couldn’t morph—nothing I couldn’t change.
What were you were making there?
JB: My PhD thesis work was on a mobile robot that could balance on a ball and move on a single point of contact. My Master’s was about robotic skin — like a little finger in a grasper, and how to cover it with materials that would give us feedback.
The pieces that we’ve talked about so far use technology in interesting ways, but most people wouldn’t think of them as robots. What does your background in robotics mean to your current work?
JB: We do have one robotic chandelier that can open and close in response to things happening in the room. It makes great reflections on the ceiling. The progress of the company has been from a very niche market of high-end furniture — functional art — to this broader demographic. I kind of make fun of people when they use the term IOT [Internet of Things], but we are evolving into that world where we have sensor-embedded tables and chairs that can actually move and react to you in real time and integrate quantified self data. I think that’s ultimately where we’re headed.
Imagine that you’re in a café and you have data about the best times of the day [for different activities]. The tables in the room can transform, allowing for more foot traffic in the morning, then coming down slowly to invite people to stay longer later on to sit and have coffee. How can our spaces actually react to us and for us?
Pete, you studied furniture design at RISD. How did you start making pieces that move?
PS: I went back to school after I’d already been a furniture maker for quite some time. After the first year I’d done some interesting stuff, but I was still struggling to find my voice. At one point I had this experience with my son, who was probably ten: we had a trampoline, and I was watching him jump on it, a little freaked out that he was going to fall off and hurt himself, but also amazed at his sense of balance.
It’s just one of those things… Lightning hit, and I came up with a sculpture that balances.
It’s about six feet tall and has a base that’s only nine inches square. It’s articulated in a bunch of different spots so that you can push on it and it appears to be falling over, but it rights itself. In the process it does this swinging sinuous motion, which was also a surprise. I knew by the engineering that it would right itself, but I didn’t expect the sinuous motion. I really enjoyed that project and decided to try other things that involve motion.
Jessica, you mentioned that your father was an industrial designer. Did you grow up seeing his process?
JB: I remember watching him draw something from multiple dimensions or different directions. I was like, “How are you drawing that? It’s not in front of you!” He’s like, “I’m taking the object and I’m turning it around in my head.” I was amazed. I would try to do that as a young child — close my eyes, look at something, and try to make it spin in my head. Wanting to be able to do that affected my approach to objects.
What did he design?
JB: He was manager of industrial design for GE Medical. He designed MRI machines, mammography machines, and things like that. He would bring his team over to our house, and back then, they built a lot of these things out of styrofoam. They’d be like, “Jess, get up on the kitchen table. We’re going to put you in this mock-up of an MRI, and tell us how you feel in there. Does it make you feel nervous?” I was excited because I was on the kitchen table, right? But that was a really cool experience, to see how they were testing out these models. I understand that now more through my own experience. That was prototyping and market testing.
In terms of prototyping, how many versions of the Ollie Chair have you built?
JB: It’s really hard to name the exact versions because things segue into each other. It’s more of a long, two-year gradient. This is somewhere around generation seven.
Does that feel like a high number or a low one?
PS: At the beginning of the process, if I had been told it was going to take two years and seven major iterations, I would have said, “That’s too long, no way we can do that.” Looking back now, that’s just what it takes. This is what development is like. I expect that future projects will be similar.
JB: Sometimes you think you’re done. Around generation five, we’re like, “We got it. We got it.” And then we’re like, “We don’t got it.” We consulted with someone from a furniture company. They went through their safety definitions, and we realized that we didn’t think about certain things. We had to go back and make sure, okay, no one’s going to pinch their finger if they put it here.
Pete’s really the one that pushes for comfort and says, “This is how the back has to feel.” I’m like, “But it looks funny.” He says, “Someone has to be able to sit in it for a long time.” And I’m like, “They’re never going to sit in it if they don’t buy it.” We go back and forth, and we end up with a really great compromise.
PS: We push each other. With the Ollie table, one of Jess’s strict things was that when it comes down off the wall, you don’t see any rails. It’s a clean wall. We brainstormed so many different things.
JB: We thought we invented a new patentable mechanism, and we were so excited. Then we talked to a friend about it who was like, “Oh, it’s like the little mechanism in watches. It’s called a fusee.” I remember that day. I was like, “Pete, it appears that we didn’t invent something.”
PS: It turns out Leonardo figured it out.
I guess there’s no shame in being scooped by Leonardo da Vinci. Have other furniture makers adapted any of your techniques?
PS: We’ve been contacted by some major furniture manufacturers. They’re all excited. Then they look at what we’re doing and they’re like, “We can’t do that.” It’s very hard for them to justify putting money into developing a piece of furniture that’s outside their normal realm. Being a smaller company, we’re more nimble. We can take those risks and move faster.
JB: This is especially true in the furniture industry, which is a bit reluctant to embrace technology and change. We joke that you see a movie and a Transformer or an android will walk into a room, and there’ll still be a black leather couch. It’s like, really? Why does the couch look the same as it did sixty years ago?
Jessica, I read that you were interested in becoming an astronaut at one point?
JB: I still am, for anyone reading this! That’s actually why I went to MIT. I wanted to fly the shuttle, which meant I had to be in the Air Force and fly combat. I thought if I went to MIT for grad school I could make a rover and become a mission specialist… but then everything morphed into kinetic furniture.
Have you ever thought about designing furniture for space exploration?
PS: We have some friends who run a company called Final Frontier. They make space suits. At one point they showed us photographs of the chairs [on the International Space Station] made out of this stuff called 80/20. It’s kind of like an erector set for engineers. No real finesse in how it’s assembled. They said NASA is interested in improving these designs. We’ve been so busy with what we’re doing that we haven’t pursued that, but we’d love to.
I also read that you, Jessica, worked in comedy. I think of the products you make as having a performative element. I’m curious whether comedic timing or the art of a good reveal influence your work.
JB: I think you can even be more specific and say a kind of humor. Even though the Float Table might have a very minimalist aesthetic, there is a humor in it when you play with it, right? Also, with this chair, it’s kind of like — abracadabra! You pull the string and the Ollie chair disappears. There’s that visceral effect that we try to have on people and incorporate into our designs. I guess it’s performance, but it’s also a lightheartedness and a playfulness.
As someone who’s explored a variety of fields, do you have advice for people who are pulled in lots of different directions by their creative passions?
JB: If I ever thought that I was going to commit to something—some way of thinking or even one of my passions—for the rest of my life, that would be a little intimidating. People change. We evolve with new information, new experiences. Try as much as you can. Start things and see how far you get.
There’s a chance of an option paralysis, which I suffered from before. There were so many things that I wanted to do — and even could partially do — that I didn’t know where to start. It really took me going through these different tests of my interests to figure out the best thing to do.
PS: For me, as soon as I finish a project, it’s raised all these new questions. If you ignore that kind of inspiration and just try to repeat what you’ve done before because it was successful and people liked it, you’re going to be in a rut.
JB: That’s such a good answer. It speaks to something we think about: everything — even when there’s a finished product — is always a prototype. Everything can be improved upon. Having that mentality of, “I’m done and it’s good for now,” but knowing that it’s not the end of the evolution is important. I feel like I’m a prototype too. That mentality has been really helpful in relaxing some of the requirements for being true to every passion.
Being at New Lab, it seems like you’re surrounded by a community of people who are constantly trying new things and play many different roles.
JB: Totally. So many people here would never have been able to say, “I want to grow up to be…” whatever they are now. I never was like, “I’m going to grow up to be a kinetic furniture designer.” Who does that? Maybe now people will. But I think most of the people we know couldn’t have filled in that blank when they were young.
PS: We are also really fortunate to have people who believe in us and are supporting us in this crazy endeavor. We wouldn’t be able to do this without them.
JB: They’re a special kind of person too, you know? People who like things that are on the edges of what’s conventional. Those people tend to be really powerful and effective in the world because they have an idea of what exists, and then they push a little beyond it and take a risk. They like to be a part of what others are doing.
Interview by Nick Yulman, Senior Curator, Design & Technology
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Explore more inventive Design projects here. And sign up for Invent, Kickstarter’s Design & Tech newsletter, to receive more stories like this in your inbox.
Feel inspired to make something of your own? Get started here.
