Mono Node: an All-In-One Folding Living System

Imagine trying to fit a bed, a couch, a table, and all your storage into one small room. Even if you are good at organizing, it can still feel like too much. The problem is that furniture takes up space even when you're not using it. Your bed is only for sleeping, but it sits there taking up floor space all day long. A dining table might only be used for an hour or two, but it's in the way the rest of the time.

Mono Node is trying to fix this problem. Instead of having lots of different pieces of furniture, this project puts several things together into one folding system. The idea isn't to make your home uncomfortable, but to think about how we use furniture and when we use it.

This whole thing is a concept model. It's not a professional building model, and it's not built to the exact size of real furniture. The main point is to show an idea: that folding systems can change how people live in small spaces. The materials used here were just chosen based on what was available and because the model is small. If this were a real-life version, we'd need different, stronger materials and building methods.

This is a list of everything used to build this model. The materials were chosen because they were easy to get, didn't cost much, and worked for a small model. Remember, this is just to show the idea.

1. Cardboard from old boxes
2. White cardboard
3. Origami paper (the kind used for paper folding)
4. Cardstock paper (stiff paper)
5. Scissors
6. Glue stick
7. Liquid glue
8. Tweezers (for putting on tiny details)
9. Small magnets
10. Magnetic strips
11. Clear plastic paper (like for covering books) for windows
12. Marker or Sharpie
13. Black tape
14. Tissue paper (for making blankets and soft things)
15. Small charms or little things found around to decorate
16. 
    

These materials helped to see how folding works, how things move, and how space can be used. This isn't a full-size model. The materials are just to show the ideas, not to be the final materials used to build an actual product.

Before we talk about how the model was built, it may be helpful to glance at what the finished system looks like. This gives you a preview at the Mono Node system when it's closed and when it's open.

In general, Mono Node is a project that looks at how folding furniture and even folding parts of a building can help people who live in tiny apartments make better use of their space. These days, lots of people live in studio apartments. This means they have just one main room that has to do everything. It's a bedroom, a living room, a dining room, and sometimes even a home office, all in the same place. When you try to do all those things in just one room, it can quickly get crowded and messy.

When the system is closed, it just looks like a clean, tall unit against the wall. You can't see any furniture. This is important because it shows how the system saves space when you're not using it. In a real apartment, this would let the room feel open and less cluttered during the day.

When you open the system, you can see the change. The bed folds down first, making a place to sleep. Next, the sofa folds out, creating a place to relax. And finally, the table folds out, so you can use the space for eating or working. All these things fit within the same space.

The most important part of this project is the idea. It's about showing how one system can do the job of several pieces of furniture. It's about how folding can help you create more free space in your home every day.

Image source: Elizabeth, "How to Make a Folding Dolls’ House," Open House Miniatures. https://openhouseminiatures.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/open_house_miniatures_mcloughlin_folding_doll_house_how_to_make.jpg. Used under fair use for informational purposes.

The idea for Mono Node started by thinking about folding in a simple way. When you fold something, you can change its size. Big things can become small. Flat things can become 3D. We use folding all the time, but we don't often think about it when we design furniture.

While thinking about folding, I thought about a folding dollhouse my sister had when she was little. When it was closed, it was flat, almost like a book. It was made of paper. But when you opened it, it turned into a whole dollhouse with different rooms inside. Each room had a job, but they were all in one object.

That memory stuck with me because it showed how you could hide and reveal space. The dollhouse didn't need extra space around it to work. It changed within itself. This seemed like a good idea for small apartments.

Then I started thinking about furniture. A bed doesn't need to be out all day. A table doesn't need to be there when you're not using it. A couch doesn't need to take up space if nobody's sitting on it. So, I asked myself: Why do we think of furniture as things that stay in one place, instead of things that can change?

Instead of designing separate pieces of furniture, I wanted to design one thing that changes throughout the day. In the morning, the bed can disappear. In the evening, it can come back. During the day, you can use the space for working or relaxing. Folding makes this possible.

This idea is what Mono Node is all about. It's not just about making furniture smaller. It's about making furniture use space in a smarter way.

Image source: Joey Hadden, Business Insider, "A cramped space is a stressful space," https://www.businessinsider.com/tiny-small-apartment-creates-stress-how-to-fix-it-therapists-2021-4work. Used under fair use for informational purposes.

Studio apartments are becoming increasingly common, especially in dense urban environments where the cost of housing continues to rise. As larger apartments and houses become less affordable, many people are pushed into smaller living spaces that must perform many roles at once. A typical studio apartment consists of one main room paired with a bathroom and a compact kitchen, meaning that a single space must function as a bedroom, living room, workspace, dining area, and storage zone simultaneously.

In most studios, the bed is the largest and most dominant piece of furniture. It occupies a significant portion of the floor area and is rarely moved. A couch is often added to create a place to sit, even though the bed could technically serve the same purpose. A table follows, used for eating, working, or both, along with shelves, drawers, and storage units squeezed into any remaining gaps. As more furniture is introduced, the room becomes harder to navigate and increasingly inflexible. Walking paths shrink, surfaces overlap in function, and the space loses its ability to adapt. Everyday activities such as exercising, cleaning, or hosting friends can quickly feel inconvenient or even impossible.

Beyond physical limitations, living in a crowded, cluttered environment can have a significant psychological impact. Research has shown that cluttered spaces are closely linked to higher stress levels, anxiety, and reduced overall well-being. When everything is constantly visible, the brain is forced to process more visual information, leading to cognitive overload and making it harder to concentrate or relax. The lack of order can also affect emotional regulation, contributing to irritability, frustration, and a persistent feeling of being overwhelmed. In a studio apartment, these effects are intensified because there is no real separation between sleeping, working, and relaxing. The same room holds every activity, blurring boundaries and making it difficult for the mind to shift between modes.

This lack of separation also disrupts daily rhythms. Without clear distinctions between zones, work can bleed into rest, rest into work, and sleep into everything else. Poor separation negatively affects work-life balance, reduces mental clarity, and can harm sleep hygiene by making it harder for the body and mind to associate specific spaces with rest. Even small spatial cues play an important role in signaling how a space should be used, and when those cues are missing, productivity and well-being often suffer.

This project approaches the problem from a different angle. Instead of asking how more furniture can be added to a small room, it asks what would happen if only the furniture needed at a specific moment was present. By allowing furniture to fold away when not in use, a single room can transform throughout the day, shifting between sleeping, working, relaxing, and socializing without feeling permanently crowded. This kind of spatial flexibility is especially important for people living alone in small apartments, where the ability to reclaim open space can improve both physical comfort and mental well-being.

Image source: Cait Etherington, Get To Know, "Ten common apartment layouts in NYC," https://www.cityrealty.com/nyc/market-insight/features/get-to-know/ten-common-apartment-layouts-nyc-see-stellar-for-sale-examples-under-25m/45263. Used under fair use for informational purposes.

New York City provides a clear and widely recognizable example of what it means to live in a small apartment. Many studio apartments in the city follow a similar layout: long and narrow, with the kitchen located near the entry door and a single main living space at the far end. This main room is expected to function as a bedroom, living room, dining area, and often a home office, all within a limited and awkward footprint.

The narrow proportions of these apartments make furnishing especially difficult. Furniture placement options are limited, circulation paths become tight, and rearranging the room is rarely possible without blocking walkways, doors, or windows. Standard furniture often feels oversized in these spaces, contributing to congestion and reinforcing the sense of confinement. Visually, the lack of width can make the room feel compressed and cluttered, even when relatively few objects are present.

For this project, a common New York City studio apartment layout was used as a reference, with particular focus on the main living area. The layout is pictured above. Grounding the design in a real and familiar layout helped ensure that the project addressed practical, everyday constraints rather than abstract or idealized conditions. Working within these dimensions revealed just how little usable space is available and how much that single room is expected to do.

Mono Node was designed to fit within these constraints. The system sits against a wall to keep walking paths clear. The direction of the folding elements allows furniture to move into the room without blocking doors or windows. Natural light remains unobstructed. Wiring can be hidden within the system to keep the space visually clean.

This type of layout shows how little space is available in many New York City apartments. One room often has to serve every function. Mono Node directly responds to that condition by allowing the room to change based on use, rather than staying crowded all the time.

For the image above - Top Fold: Accordion, Middle Fold: Triangle-style, Bottom Fold: Flat-fold

Before building the main model, I experimented with several paper folding techniques to understand how different folds affect structure, movement, and thickness. This step was important because paper behaves very differently depending on how it is folded. Some folding methods allow surfaces to compress and expand, while others introduce rigidity, angles, or self-supporting forms. These early tests helped establish which folding strategies could realistically translate into functional furniture elements.

Three primary folding methods were explored. The first was an accordion-style fold, made up of alternating creases that create a repeating pattern of peaks and valleys. This method allows a surface to compress and expand easily, offering a high degree of flexibility and size reduction when folded. However, when tested at scale, the accordion fold became bulky and unstable when unfolded. It occupied too much space and lacked the structural integrity needed for furniture applications, making it unsuitable for this system. It may be useful for lighting fixtures or structures that do not require weight on top of them.

The second method involved folding triangular forms. By folding corners inward to create triangular geometries, the surface gained significant strength and rigidity. This type of fold naturally creates angled planes that can support themselves when opened, making it well suited for load-bearing elements. While this approach requires more precise measurements and careful folding, it proved effective for maintaining structure. This folding method was later applied to the sofa, where stability and support were essential.

The third method explored flat-folding techniques that allow a surface to remain thin when closed while opening fully without the need for cutting. This approach relies on interlocking flaps and controlled crease placement so that the surface can unfold and stay level. While it does not offer the same structural strength as triangular folding, it provides a clean, unobtrusive solution for elements that need to disappear when not in use. This method was ideal for the table, where a flat, horizontal surface was required.

These folding experiments informed the overall design strategy of the system. Rather than forcing a single folding method onto every component, each element was designed using the folding technique that best matched its functional needs. This approach allowed the system to balance compactness, stability, and usability while maintaining a cohesive design language.

The base room model shows the living area of the apartment. I used cardboard sheets to make the walls, floor, and ceiling. I didn't try to make it look exactly real, just clear.

The layout of the room was based on the New York City studio apartment. I added a door and a window in the same places as in the layout. This helped make the room look believable.

I put clear plastic paper behind the window to look like glass. This made the room feel more real and let me add light later.

The first folding element I made was the bedroom. This part folds down from the wall to become a bed, which was the most important element because sleeping takes up the most space in the room.

The folding mechanism is simple and works like many wall beds. In this model, paper was used to show how the surface folds. Paper is not a practical material for real furniture, but it made the movement clear and easy to test.

A small nightstand was attached next to the bed. It folds down with the bed and folds back up when the bed is stored. This shows that even small items can be part of the folding system and save space.

Magnets hold the bed in place when it is folded up. They keep the bed secure, aligned, and neat, making the system stronger and easier to use. Magnets were positioned carefully to make alignment precise and strong enough to hold the bed without making it hard to pull down.

The second thing that folds out is the sofa. This comes out after the bed. The sofa lets you relax without having to close the bed completely.

I used the triangle fold for this part. This let the sofa come out while still folding back into the system. This fold also made the sofa feel strong.

I used origami paper to look like cushions. I used tweezers to press the paper to make it look like fabric.

I added magnets to help line up the sofa when it was opened and closed.

The third thing that folds out is the table. This comes out last and finishes the system.

I used a flat folding method so the surface would stay level. I added folding chairs using the same method. This area is for eating, working, or studying.

When it's not being used, it folds away so it doesn't take up space.

I used magnets throughout the model to connect the folding parts. Because the model is very small, the magnets took up more space than I thought. I tried to make the magnets as small as possible without making them nonfunctional. Realistically, such large magnets will not be necessary.

Material wise, I had thought about using wood and metal and attempted to do so, but they were too thick at this size and got in the way of the magnets. As a result, I opted to use paper.

For real-world versions, other materials could be used. Lightweight plywood would provide strength and stability, aluminum framing could make a modern, durable frame, and bamboo panels could offer a sustainable, attractive option with a good strength-to-weight ratio. Hinges can be used to secure the these materials.

This was my personal favorite step! I added small details to help show what the space could feel like when people lived there.

I made a simple moveable table using cardboard, black tape, and a phone charm. I added a black rug to make the living area feel separate.

I also added some tiny details and created paper models, as pictured above.

These are just to help you see what it could be like.

I added lighting to make the model feel more real. I used colored translucent paper I found from binder dividers to change the light. Orange and yellow paper went behind the window, with a light behind it. This made a warm glow in the room.

For my set-up, as seen above, I had my model on top of a basket and the paper to a side. Behind the paper, I placed a lamp that shined colored light through.

The warm light made the space feel calm and more like a real room. Different colors can create different moods. Lighting also adds depth and interest. It can show details, make shadows, and make the room feel more realistic and three-dimensional.

This shows all the systems together, closed and open. It shows how the bed, sofa, and table are all in one system, and how someone might live in this.

From the front, it looks clean and simple. When you open it, you see all the things you can do in the room. This is what Mono Node is all about.

Mono Node shows how folding furniture can change the way we live in small spaces. One wall can do many things if it is designed well. This project shows that you don’t always need fancy tools, just an idea and a willingness to try things out.

There are many ways this idea could grow. Different folding methods could be tested, and more features could be added. In the future, sensors could detect when someone is in the room and move the furniture automatically. The system could remember personal preferences and adjust itself. You could even control it remotely or with your voice using something like Google Voice or Alexa.

So many more things could be added, such as closets, extra storage, and other features. This project is just a foundation, showing what is possible when a small space is designed to be flexible, smart, and practical to use.

For fun, I decided to use AI Gemini models to see what Mono Node might look like in a real apartment. If you don't have any CAD experience, like me, you might find AI renderings to be very useful in projects like this.

The AI helped me make realistic pictures of the system without building a full-size model. It was a fun way to show how the folding furniture could work in real life.

Thank you for reading about this project. Building Mono Node took time, testing, and creativity. It felt good to turn simple things into a living system. I hope this project shows how even small ideas can help make our lives better. I hope you liked my project.