Designing Matter 1: From Filament To Fabric

The MoA Design Research Studio »Designing Matter 1« investigated designed filaments and fabrics as architectural material systems.

»Designing matter« denotes the definition of the form and the materiality for the component elements of a material in order achieve a specific functionality. This process allows to utilize and enhance the inherent properties of a given material and ultimately to generate novel ones. Codes – either analogue or digital – are used to implement the design of the material by means of a systematization of this form-function interrelationship. In this context the MoA Design Research Studio made contributions with respect to the development of designed filaments and the close adherence of the architectural designed fabrics to the production sequences and patterns observed in silk-cocoons.

The MoA Design Research Studio was structured in five phases. In phase 1 silk-cocoons, which can be considered non-wovens occurring in nature, were introduced from the perspective of Anthropology, Biology and Materials Science. Phase 2 and 3 focused on the design of filaments and spinning patterns which are suited for architecture-scale material systems. In phase 4 the notion of an architectural material system was introduced and participants developed design principles for a spatial installation based on the designed material they developed in the previous phases. In the fifth and final phase participants integrated the design research developed in the previous ones into a coherent thesis argument. This was supported by the overarching phase X on writing, documenting and archiving.

Below you can find some impressions of the works done by the students that were presented at the final review on February 1st–2nd.

Responsible Persons and Contributors

weißensee school of art and design berlin, Matters of Activity, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Professor Dr.-Ing. Karola Dierichs
Jessica Farmer, BA
Dr. Mareike Stoll

weißensee school of art and design berlin
Elaine Bonavia, MSc
Alexandre Mballa-Ekobena, MSc

Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Matters of Activity, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Dr. Laurence Douny
Dr. Michaela Eder
Nikolai Rosenthal, MSc

Guest Reviewers
Dr. Karin Krauthausen, Professor Dipl.-Ing. Christiane Sauer, Sebastian Soukup

Students, BA Textile- and Surface Design
Madleen Albrecht, Gifty Amoateng, Katharina Birkmann, Saskia Buch, Vera Castelijns, Sara Hassoune, Lea Lüdtke, Sebastián Plaza Kutzbach, Jasmin Sermonet, Louise Verstraete, Melis Kiran, Elisa Martignoni, Eva Eckert, Lara Rocho