Sculptor-turned-engineer Chuck Hoberman has a particularly compelling sphere of influence-literally. Hoberman takes the shapes found in nature (geodesic spheres, helicoids, hyperbolic paraboloids) and combines them with science to create structures that challenge the mind and delight the imagination. Hoberman says he is inspired by the "smooth process of complex physical transformations in size and shape," and so he has transferred, via technology, nature's most sublime metamorphoses, such as the blossoming and closing of a flower, into man-made structures. Hoberman has been recreating these processes for beauty and function over the span of his career, from folding bleachers to folding maps and from toys to bridges. Among his creations are the Hoberman Flight Ring, collapsible ultraweight flying discs, and the Hoberman Sphere, the 18-foot, 700-pound sculpture installed at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, New Jersey. The Expanding Hypar is a 5000-pound sculpture at the California Science Center, and the Expanding Helicoid sculpture, modeled on the double helix structure of DNA, is housed at Akron, Ohio's Inventure Place.

Hoberman holds a number of patents for unfolding structures, and his products have received a variety of awards, including a 1990 Silver Award from the Industrial Design Society of America and a 1991 award from the National Endowment for the Arts. He continues to create structures both large and small, ranging from Expandagon, a geometrically dynamic building kit for children, to a retractable dome for Expo 2000 in Hannover, Germany.