Ori’s New Robotic Furniture Is a Game Changer For Tiny Apartments

The ideal home robot is one that can do all our household chores. Sadly, we're still light-years away from The Jetsons' Rosie the Robot becoming a reality. But innovative companies have created home robots that solve one problem really well. Think robotic vacuum cleaners, clothes-folding robots, and now, robotic furniture.

A single piece of robotic furniture can solve your space issues—now you can have a walk-in closet and a king-sized bed in even the smallest of apartments. Ori, who produced the first robotic furniture suite in 2017, has just introduced two new "robots," the Ori Cloud Bed and the Ori Pocket Closet. 

The bed is a new twist on the old bed-in-the-wall space-saving solution (only much more stylish). The Cloud Bed lowers from the ceiling at night and rises in the morning to reveal a modern sofa. The Pocket Closet is a desk/media console/bookshelf that opens to be a walk-in closet on demand.

Both allow the creation of multiple spaces—a dressing room in the morning slides away to become a home office. In the evening, the bed disappears to create a relaxing living room. 

Other concepts Ori is exploring include a dining room table that raises to allow a treadmill to emerge from a closet, as well as walls that move to turn two rooms into one. Imagine two offices turning into one board room, or a bar and restaurant that converts into a nightclub.

Ori's robotic, modular furniture is a game-changer for today’s city-dwellers. It allows you to do more with less space, and moves at the touch of a button, or with a simple command to your Alexa or Google Home device.

"As urban populations continue to grow, society must find ways of making increasingly small living and working spaces provide better experiences and at the same time be more functional, affordable, efficient, and sustainable," explains Hasier Larrea, CEO and founder of Ori. 

"The Ori Collection will show the world how robotics allow us to see space differently, and provide compelling solutions for adapting urban spaces to us and our daily activities. Each piece demonstrates that you no longer need a lot of square footage to make small spaces both functional and comfortable."

A mechanical engineer and MIT graduate, Larrea and his team developed Ori at MIT’s Media Lab, collaborating with Yves Béhar to launched the company in 2015. This type of partnership between technology and design is key to bringing these futuristic concepts into our homes comfortably and naturally.

A limited edition of the Ori Pocket Closet in white and oak is available now,  additional colors include white, oak and walnut, available in small, medium or large sizes. The Ori Cloud Bed will come in king and queen models later this year.

Related Reading: 11 Transforming Apartments That Make the Most of Minuscule Spaces