Origami-inspired deployable systems face a fundamental trade-off: deployability requires mechanisms that fold and unfold, but shape stability requires rigidity. A system that deploys easily is one that collapses easily. The standard solution — external supports, locking mechanisms, active control — adds weight and complexity that undermine the elegance of the folding.
Multistable origami resolves this by design rather than addition. Each folding pattern has multiple stable configurations separated by energy barriers. The deployed state isn't maintained by external support — it's a local energy minimum. The structure holds itself up because unfolding requires climbing an energy hill. Shape stability and deployability aren't traded against each other; they're encoded in the same geometry.
The scaling problem is that single origami units are small. Architectural applications require assemblies of many blocks, and the global geometry and mechanics of an assembly aren't simple sums of the parts. The research explores how multistable blocks can be designed to align and interlock — sharing faces, constraining neighbors, forming load-bearing structures.
The design space has two dimensions: geometry (which configurations are stable, how blocks connect) and mechanics (stiffness control through geometric parameters, ensuring the assembly can support loads in its deployed state). A block that's individually stable may destabilize its neighbors. An assembly that locks perfectly may be impossible to deploy — the blocks interfere during unfolding. The design problem is finding the subset of multistable geometries where individual stability, mutual compatibility, and deployment sequence all coexist.