Future origami, AI music and wellbeing 2030
Future Origami
The centuries-old paper-folding tradition serves as a foundation for many futuristic technologies. Origami is creating breakthroughs in robotics, architecture, medicine, and aerospace.
Engineers are applying fold patterns to pack space solar panels, build lightweight exoskeletons, and design self‑assembling structures that spring into life with a single motion. At Harvard and MIT, origami‑inspired robotic arms and nanobots fold and contract like living tissue, enabling minimally invasive medical tools and micro‑scale machines. Read more here
Performance Meets Process
One has officially opened the world’s first LightSpray production facility in Zurich, innovating how performance running shoes are made. Using robotic arms and 1.5 km of filament, the fully automated process creates ultra-light one-piece uppers in just three minutes, with 75% fewer carbon emissions than traditional methods.
Developed over four years, LightSpray represents a new way of thinking about how performance products are made, local, automated, and materially efficient. The Zurich facility is a test case for reimagining manufacturing itself, reducing steps, emissions, and waste. Read more here
CO2 Absorbing Material
Scientists have developed a material with photosynthetic bacteria that convert carbon dioxide into a mineral skeleton. The material hardens over time and locks the carbon in the material.
The blue-green algae within the material absorb CO2 through photosynthesis and convert it into biomass, which becomes part of the material. It could, for instance, be used as a coating on building facades to absorb CO2 out of the atmosphere. Read more here
AI Music
The Velvet Sundown is a fully AI-generated band, their music, visuals, backstory, all fabricated. With over 474,000 monthly listeners and 380,000 streams for their hit “Dust on the Wind”. It looks and sounds like a real group, but there’s no human behind the voice, the instruments, or the surreal album covers.
As synthetic culture becomes more convincing, it begins to displace real voices and lived stories with polished approximations optimized for engagement It raises questions about how we define creativity, autheticity and value, and if it matters if it is made using AI and to what level. You can listen here or read more here
Fashion Watch Party
Fashion critic Lyas turned not being invited to the Jonathan Anderson debut Dior’s menswear show into a moment of cultural improvisation, hosting a public viewing party in a Paris bar. With phones streaming the runway, the event brought the energy of a live sports match to fashion.
Livestreams and fan communities can create new forms of access and a sense of belonging. More than a watch party, it was a statement: the front row is wherever people gather. See more here
Wellbeing 2030
New on Vision Insights is the Wellbeing 2030 Report, which explores the cultural, biological, and technological shifts shaping how we care for ourselves and others. The report offers a multidimensional view of what wellbeing means in an age of uncertainty.
Wellbeing is evolving from a narrow focus on fitness or mental health into a full-spectrum, daily practice shaped by work, identity, relationships, and environment. For a generation navigating instability and complexity, health is no longer a side goal, it is central to how life is built.
Movement, rest, food, and connection are being redefined not as goals to optimize, but as tools to restore balance and resilience. As the boundaries between work and life blur, the future of wellbeing lies in integration, not separation. Explore here