Furniture has traditionally been a static thing. We sit at our tables, in our chairs that hold their stiff, rigid shape no matter what we’re doing or how we’re feeling. As our homes become smarter and more personalized, furniture has almost wholly been left out of the revolution.

It’s a shame. Just imagine if your sofa could sense how you’re feeling when you get home from work. To stave off marathon TV sessions, it could transform from a cushioned pile of pillows to a rigid lounge as encouragement to go outside and move around. This exact shape-shifting scenario is an unlikely reality, but a new project from MIT’s Tangible Media Group envisions more realistically what might happen when our furniture is finally able to respond to us.