Described as “Origami building blocks”, Troxes are triangular interlocking bricks. They were developed by MIT student Jonathan Bobrow, who first conceived of the design as a part of his coursework.
The assignment was to create a “press-fit kit”, or a system of objects that can be made to fit together so tightly that you don't need glue to hold them in place. Bobrow decided to think outside the box (quite literally), and use the triangle as his foundation—the shape isn't often associated with structure, but it is incidentally very commonly found as a building block in nature, whether in the fold of the protein molecule, or the structure of a diamond.
What makes Troxes especially unique is that they're all built out of the same singular shape, cut from a soft-touch paper called Plike that has the texture of plastic. The singular shapes are folded together, like in Origami, to form the triangular foundation blocks—depending on how many of the pieces you use, you can either build a tetra (4 pieces), octa (8 pieces) or icosa (20 pieces) block. These blocks can then be further interlocked, like your typical Lego pieces, to form larger and more complex sculptures.
Bobrow has developed an enormous number of sculptures with Troxes, some of which are on display at the MIT Museum. Architects have approached him in regards to the design—the concept may be valuable in developing flat-pack housing. Not only is the structure a successful “press-fit kit”, but is also capable of holding massive amounts of weight. In fact, larger versions of the shape could even hold up to 40 pounds.
Bobrow has started a company called Move38, which he hopes will be a platform for more out-of-the-box systems thinking through play. The company's first endeavour is Troxes, which is now on Kickstarter—the first among many projects to come.
It may take a while for Troxes to gain the precedence of LEGO, but here's to watching it change the way we build, one block at a time.
