PJ Dick Innovation Fund Project Grant: From Soft-to-Structure: Novel Computational Workflows for Textile Techniques in Architecture
From Soft-to-Structure: Novel Computational Workflows for Textile Techniques in Architecture. Image credit: Vernelle A. A. Noel.
From Soft-to-Structure: Novel Computational Workflows for Textile Techniques in Architecture
Project Lead: Vernelle A. A. Noel, Lucian and Rita Caste Assistant Professor in Architecture, Carnegie Mellon Architecture
Project Team: Jim McCann, Associate Professor, Robotics Institute (CMU); Olivia Robinson, Teaching Professor, Soft Technologies (CMU); Harrison Apple, Associate Director, The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry (CMU)
This project seeks to develop novel computational workflows at the intersection of digital processes, automated fabrication, and augmented reality (AR) through textile crafts. Architecture has a long history of involvement with textiles as design method and theory. With the development of new technologies, materials and methods, textiles can now also be extended into methods for fabrication. This project brings architecture, computer graphics, human-computer interaction, and textile crafts together to develop novel computational workflows for and from textiles to extend human creativity and augment human experience through architecture. We will create computational workflows for employing knitting, weaving, and smocking in the design and fabrication of installations and structures. Steps will include making material samples and prototypes of textile techniques with manual and CNC knitting machines, building digital knitting geometry using a solid knitting design tool, weaving, and sewing smocking techniques with a domestic and industrial embroidery machine. Steps also include embedding hard materials and hardening materials into soft materials for structure. A collaborative robot will aid in the automated application of materials, and AR tools will be employed in fabrication and assembly of installations and structures. Findings from this project will contribute to scholarship in design, architecture and computing.
Image: From Soft-to-Structure: Novel Computational Workflows for Textile Techniques in Architecture. Image credit: Vernelle A. A. Noel.
About the Project Lead
Lucian and Rita Caste Assistant Professor in Architecture & Situated Computation + Design Lab Director
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Established in 2023 by PJ Dick Trumbull Lindy Group, the Faculty Grants Program will award a total of $400,000 over four years beginning in 2024. The program supports faculty research and teaching innovations that address the School’s three pedagogical challenges of climate change, social justice and artificial intelligence. The proposals were assessed on their impact in furthering a faculty member’s research and teaching, their contribution to interrogating the School’s challenges, and their viability to garner further research support, make an impact on the discipline and expand the pedagogy of the School.