Sympoietic Pleksis: Theoretical and Practical Approaches from Textiles to Architecture

ConCave Ph.D. Symposium 2022 Proceedings, April 7-8, 2022. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia.In the past decades, due to advancements in digital technologies, digital fabrication, and material sciences, there has been a theoretical and design shift. Prior to this, architectural discourse tended to prioritize and segregate form over its materiality, as matter followed the design, creating a clear distinction between design and making. In comparison, craft lies upon the idea of the applied skill and mastery of the material. In craft, matter and its properties are the progenitors of the form alongside the methods of fabrication and forces applied to it. Neri Oxman uses the term material ecology to describe the shift towards new material-based design processes and looks at how craft processes can inform current manufacturing methods. The proposed practice-based research sets out to develop and examine forms of architectural craft alongside fabricating prototypes. It uses textiles as a medium to explore how craft techniques can be re-interpreted to inform our current design and material processes. Textile making is a craft known from prehistoric times. It is a performative action of construction and deconstruction that could be considered the first architecture. Thus, the first known architects can be identified as weavers with the skills to produce structurally complex enclosures. Also, textiles can be seen as a medium to express stories transferred from one generation to another and can indicate aesthetic values, technological advancements, and sociocultural characteristics. The key scope of this paper is to establish the theoretical background that contributes to the conceptual framework of my research. Firstly, it examines the dynamic relations between the maker, materials, and tools. This is followed by an exploration of how such interconnected relationships can be translated to creating design principles and methodologies. Additionally, it includes an overview of textiles in architecture and how they can be used as a fabrication method and as a theoretical metaphor. The process can be seen as ‘re-coding’ the textiles through material choices, pattern creation, computation, and fabrication methods. The paper aims to provide an overview of the ideas leading to creating a dynamic methodological framework, exploring how textile craft can be applied and re-interpreted in an architectural context by emphasizing material programmability and computation