Morphing Matter Lab. Carnegie Mellon University Flat-pack furniture is commonplace, and flat-pack pasta might be one day too. Wen Wang of Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania and her colleagues have developed edible 2D pasta that swells into 3D shapes when cooked, such as long spirals resembling fusilli and saddle shapes similar to conchiglie. Advertisement The researchers believe that flat-pack dry pasta could drastically reduce the amount of packaging required for the foodstuff, as well as saving on storage and transportation space. For example, when macaroni is packaged, around 60 per cent of the space in the box or bag is air, estimates Wang.