Engineers at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology in Boston have designed a robotic furniture system that can maximise space in small apartments. They've called it Ori Systems, inspired by origami, the Japanese art of paper folding.

With millions of people living in cities, we need a new way of designing for smaller spaces, explained Ori Systems co-founder Hasier Larrea.

"Ori is at the convergence of two macro trends, mass urbanisation and the digitalisation of the physical world," he said.

"This system tackles the three biggest challenges that studio renters are facing: lack of a separate space, lack of a proper living area or dining area, and lack of storage."

Typically, architects or interior designers suggest that rooms can have more than one function. For example, a lounge room can double as a study, or perhaps include pull-down beds or convertible furniture that folds in or expands.

However, the Ori system integrates robotics and artificial intelligence into furniture to reconfigure smaller living spaces, including getting rid of the unused space a bed takes up during the day.

The system is basically a compact movable wall unit that can divide an area into separate spaces. It houses a desk, bed, shelves and wardrobe. The key idea is that each piece can slide in and out to create a bedroom, a study, a loungeroom, or a walk-in robe, but only when you need them.

A bed takes up valuable space during the day, so in this system it can slide back into the unit, and then a desk or table can slide out to take up that space, or the wall can be moved back to create a larger lounge room.

"With robotics, spaces will adapt to us and our activities, and not the other way around," said Larrea.

The Ori team is now housed in software company Autodesk's Building, Innovation, Learning, and Design (BUILD) space, which is a collaborative R&D technology workshop for designers and builders.

"Ori Systems has decoupled modern living functions from fixed space requirements, (which) is a very liberating idea for design and I think will start to affect how architects and designers think about the basic configuration of a building," said Rick Rundell, a former architect and director of the BUILD space.

Larrea states that it is important for the reconfiguration process to be effortless. There's a mechanical actuator that slides the wall and the bed, and is controlled by pushing directional buttons on a central panel. A heavy wall can be moved with one finger, which means there is no more manual rearranging or sliding furniture into place.

Configurations can be pre-programmed for living room, bedroom, and office spaces through an app, and the system also works using voice commands.

What about safety? Sitting on a lounge chair in the mock studio space and watching the unit move towards me was slightly unsettling. But there are embedded sensors for safety and the system detected I was there and stopped moving just before it hit me.

In the future, extending the reconfiguration principles of the Ori system, whole buildings could work like machines, said Rundell.

"Maybe we will find entire cities becoming transformable, imagine the city in the 1998 movie Dark City minus the neo-noir angst."

You can't buy Ori Systems off the shelf yet; for now they go to property and real estate developers in the US for installation in apartments.

Cynthia Karena travelled to Boston as a guest of Autodesk.