Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

Tag: ori

  • Robotic furniture startup Ori partners with Marriott Hotels

    Space-saving transformational furniture isn’t necessarily a new thing. We’ve all seen a murphy bed. And people like Graham Hill (of LifeEdited) have been designing and building out small urban apartments that magically transform for what seems like a decade. Perhaps it’s even longer than that.

    But I wouldn’t say that robotic and transforming furniture has hit the mainstream yet. There is, however, an argument to be made that it’s kind of inevitable. As the price of construction and housing continues to increase, there will be a continued push to do more with less space.

    Enter companies like Ori, which offer robotic and tech-enabled furniture for both end-users, as well as developers. Ori is already in 57 buildings across the US and, at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), it was also announced that they have partnered with Marriott to start rolling out their furniture in the hotel space.

    This to me feels like a perfect use case.