Underlying Technologies

We introduce the foundational technologies behind Nature Architects’ design approach—such as metamaterials and origami—that control physical properties through structural design.

What's Meta-materials ?

Metamaterials are engineered structures designed to control physical behaviors such as deformation, light, and vibration through specialized shapes and material arrangements.
They often consist of fine repetitive patterns and are termed "metamaterials" because they can be considered to govern the effective material properties when viewed at the macroscopic scale.

Mechanical Metamaterials

Control of deformation properties represented by Poisson’s ratio and Young’s modulus
Examples include structures with negative Poisson’s ratio (see right video) and lightweight, high-stiffness honeycomb structures.

Electromagnetic Metamaterials

Control of Electromagnetic Properties (e.g., Negative Refractive Index)

Acoustic Metamaterials

Control of Acoustic Properties (e.g., Low-Frequency Sound Insulation Beyond the Mass Law)

How Meta-materials works

Metamaterials enable performance beyond the inherent properties of base materials and advanced tuning of characteristics by applying specialized structures.
Achieving this requires the integration of extensive computational technologies such as shape processing, simulation, optimization, and machine learning.

At Nature Architects, we enable comprehensive design exploration ranging from fine structures like metamaterials to component shapes optimized for mass production by applying integrated computational structural exploration technologies.

Possibilities of Metamaterials

Metamaterials offer numerous possibilities, including:
・Achieving physical properties that are difficult to realize with base materials alone,
・Enhancing the functionality of general-purpose materials,
・Optimal functional allocation within engineered structures,
and more.

At Nature Architects, we broadly conduct technology development rooted in metamaterials, spanning from advanced design techniques tailored for cutting-edge manufacturing methods such as 3D printing to design approaches adapted to the constraints of current mass production technologies.

What's Origami ?

Origami is closely related to metamaterials from the perspective of controlling physical behaviors (such as deformation and mechanical properties) through its structural folding patterns. It is an actively researched technology with wide-ranging applications in fields including aerospace and architecture.

Not limited to folding a single sheet, we target a wide variety of shapes such as three-dimensional tube and cellular structures, as well as all types of materials including plastics and metals, thereby enabling diverse properties and application possibilities.

how origami works

How Origami Works

A key strength of origami lies in its ability to control and harness mechanical behaviors to achieve distinctive mechanical properties.

Examples include designs that enable efficient, synchronized deployment and folding of the entire structure, structures that maintain high rigidity after three-dimensional formation, and cellular structures exhibiting extreme anisotropy.

To effectively design complex structures composed of numerous panels connected by hinges, extensive knowledge of geometry and mechanism science is applied, while computational simulation-based structural discovery is actively pursued.

how origami works

Origami and Computational Methods

Designing origami requires exploring shapes that satisfy a vast set of nonlinear constraints.
This necessitates a specialized numerical simulation-based shape exploration environment for origami that integrates insights from fields such as computer graphics (CG) and human-computer interaction (HCI).

Additionally, embedding geometric knowledge enables both broad exploration of design candidates and, conversely, efficient narrowing down, which proves to be highly effective.

Moreover, these techniques can serve as powerful tools in general mechanical design as well.
At Nature Architects, we develop technologies for efficient design exploration that originated from origami-specific design methods.

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