Self-Actuated Textiles in the Design of Domestic Spaces
A PhD project by Aurélie Mossé, MA Design for Textile Futures.
In collaboration with TFRG, Central St Martins, University of the Arts, London.

Research sitting at the intersection of textile design, architecture and smart technologies with a specific focus on the design of self-actuated textiles for the home.

Key words

smart textiles, responsive architecture, textile design, electro-active polymers, light responsive polymers, self-actuated materials, home, modernity, sustainability, interdisciplinarity accross science and design

Abstract

As recent progress in material science place textiles back at the forefront of the technological scene, this practice-based and design-led research explores how the design of self-actuated textiles can inform the conceptualization and materialisation of a home in which technology cultivates a relationship of interconnectivity with nature.

 Self-actuated textiles like any other intelligent fabrics are materials intrinsically temporal. They are temporal in that they develop over time due to a set of dynamic properties. As they change colour, texture or shape, they move textiles from the passive to the motive, provoking a radical change in their expression and functionalities. As these new materials are becoming part of our everyday, they are not only introducing new technical possibilities and new modes of representation but they also alter our relationship to the world, how we conceive and apprehend it. 

The purpose of the project aims at exploring new conceptual, aesthetical and material spaces for the design of self-actuated textiles across material science, architectural and textile design practices within the Western domestic context of modern home. By investigating how the design of self-actuated textiles can encourage a new understanding of the domestic space and by speculating on how self-actuated technologies can be appropriated within the home; this thesis seeks to set the scene for relocating the design of self-actuated textiles beyond our culture of the measured time and space –where technology has been conceived as a mean to control and overcome the limitations imposed by nature – so as to embody a transnatural and transmaterial culture of making in which smart textiles become the drivers of a more permeable, sensitive and holistic home.

I am currently writting up my thesis but you can already catch a glimpse on some of the research outputs by exploring the following links  (1) Ice-fern (2) Reef  (3) Reef.2  and (4)  related publications.

Supervision

Carole Collet, MA Textile Futures Course Director & TFRG Associate Director, Central St Martins, University of the Arts, London
Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen, Associate Prf. & Head of CITA, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen

Links:
http://www.aureliemosse.com
http://textilefuturesphd.blogspot.com

 

 Publications:

 Brandt, M.
"Shaping reality with electro-active polymers"
In "Annual Report 2010" DTU Chemical Engineering Department  2011, p.21

Mossé, A.
"Reef: appropriating electro-active polymers through material tales"
In "The Role of Material Evidence in Architectural Research, Drawings, Models, Experiments", p.98-101

Mossé,A.; Gauthier, D.; Kofod, G.
"Towards Interconnectivity: Appropriation of Minimum Energy Structures in An Architectural Context"  
Conference Proceeding, Ambience 11, Borås, 28-30 November 2011,

Mossé, A. , Kofod, G. , Ramsgaard Thomsen, M.
"Materializing a responsive interior: designing minimum energy structure based on dielectric elastomers"
Conference Proceedings, Adaptive Architecture, London, 3-5th March 2011

Mossé, A.
"Energy-harvesting and Self-Actuated Textiles for the Home"
Duck Journal, Volume 1, 2010

Mossé, A.
"Smart Textiles as actors and actuators of the domestic space"
Archibots, Suppl. Conference proceedings, Ubicomp 09