Our homes are, as comedian George Carlin put it, just a place for our stuff. But what if, asks a new generation of startups, all that stuff could just…disappear? Inventors, architects and designers all over the world have lately converged on ways to do just that. Their technology can make parts of apartments and homes, and all their contents, slide out of view at the touch of a button. Former researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ex-Apple and Tesla engineers toiling in San Francisco and a design and architectural firm in Spain are among those devising what can only be described as robotic furniture.

Back in 2014, MIT debuted CityHome, a solution for tiny living spaces with the ability to pack several home necessities into a single, movable modular unit. Today, the concept -- now renamed Ori Systems, after the Japanese art of origami -- is available for preorder at $10,000 in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and other major US and Canadian cities.