I Have Heard Of Grow Your Own Food,

but grow your own furniture in a matter of minutes?

photographs ÉCAL apparently it can be done, researchers from Swiss design school ÉCAL have unveiled a range of flat-pack furniture at Milan design week that needs to be soaked in water to reach its final form, the collection, 

called Under Pressure Solutions or UPS, is constructed from thin, compressed sheets of cellulose sponge, allowing the objects to fit into flat parcels – some small enough to squeeze through a letterbox – for more efficient shipping,

just add the flat pack to water, 

watch it grow, wring it dry and wait for it to harden, looking at the photographs the material appears to be quite strong, once the furnishings have reached the end of their life, they can be either recycled or backyard composted, breaking down in soil within a matter of months, graduate student Brice Tempier harnessed the pliability of the sponge to create a customisable shelf that can be moulded into different shapes while wet, "You can decide the shape you want for the shelf and when it's dry, it will stay like that," Guberan said. "And if you move somewhere else where you have another setup, you can re-wet it and remould it."

rather than being an inconvenience, the hope is that the furniture's elaborate unfurling process will form an "integral part of the owner's experience", much like it did with Gaetano Pesce's iconic UP5 chair made from self-expanding polyurethane, which the Italian designer debuted in Milan in 1969, "Every 20 minutes, we unveiled a new chair," Pesce told the ÉCAL team shortly before his death. "We tore open the bag, and people lined up just to witness the sight: a chair rising like dough." "Our goal was never to put this on the market tomorrow," he said. "We know how complicated it is to bring a new material and new research into the industry." adding "But I think it's the role of a school to dream a little bit and to have the liberty to offer something different." what an amazing idea and product, the size and weight must make it a hands down winner in distribution of what will become a large item.