Entangled – Architectural Yarns and Structural Textiles. Photo: Michelle Mantel, adapted with drawing: Natalija Miodragović, 2025
Workshop
»Entangled« brings together experts from materials research, architecture, textiles, and the humanities to discuss textile material practices in architecture. The workshop at Deutsches Architektur Zentrum invites the public to engage in conversations about the future of our built, grown, and woven environments. It builds on a network of academic and industry partners with expertise in textile technology and material flows. Registration is now open!
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Ausstellungsansicht, WEtransFORM, Foto: David Ertl, 2025 © Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Two Cluster Research Projects Contribute to the Exhibition at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn
We are delighted that two of the Cluster's research projects contribute to the exhibition »WEtransFORM. On the Future of Building« at Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, opening on June 5th, 2025. Fundamental design principles for a climate-friendly renewal of our building culture are on display with around 80 projects that deal with the challenges in an exemplary manner. Large-scale prototypes of the interdisciplinary research projects »Architectural Yarns« and »Structural Textiles« illustrate the potential of textile binding techniques such as knitting or weaving for flexible and reconfigurable architectural elements. Plant fibers from flax and willow, or biological materials such as fungal mycelium and wool, are processed into reconfigurable walls and components.
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Article in the Tagesspiegel Highlights the Interdisciplinary Exhibition
At the center of the exhibition »Fermenting Textiles« is a greenish-brown shirt made of coarse fabric used for hunting. It was treated with vouwo, a dyeing method practiced in the Marka-Dafing community in Burkina Faso for generations. An interdisciplinary team from »Matters of Activity« has systematically researched the dyeing technique for the first time, together with a master dyer from the West African community of Safané. You can read about their findings and how they relate to today's fast fashion in a profound Tagesspiegel article by Martin Ballaschk. The exhibition can be seen at the Art Laboratory Berlin until July 6.
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Samples of woven cotton cloth dyed with mud (vouwo), Adama Séré - Marka-Dafing master dyer, 2020. Photo: Salif Sawadogo 2020
Exhibition and Talks
»Fermenting Textiles« explores the fermentation of textiles in mud and plant material. The exhibition at Art Laboratory Berlin connects anthropology, microbiology, and art through the engagement of artisans, anthropologists, scientists, and artists and mirrors the multi-species collaborations that are integral to the mud dyeing process.
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»Re-Enactment« mit lebenden Bakterien in einer großen Petrischale: Visualisierung der Interaktionen von Bakterien und den Schoten einer Pflanze, die bei der Schlammfärbung von Textilien von Bedeutung sind. (Foto: José I. Hernández Lobato und Regine Hengge/HU)
Interview mit Regine Hengge zu »Fermenting Textiles«
Im Interview spricht die Mikrobiologin Regine Hengge über die besondere Sichtweise des Exzellenzclusters »Matters of Activity« auf Materialien und was ihre Expertise auf dem Gebiet von Bakterien und Biofilmen damit zu tun hat. Die am 16. Mai 2025 eröffnete Ausstellung »Fermenting Textiles« im Art Laboratory Berlin, die die Ergebnisse ihrer Forschung zu traditionellen Färbetechniken in Afrika zeigt, ist der Anlass mit ihr über das Konzept aktiver Materialien und ihrem Nutzen zu sprechen sowie darüber, was naturwissenschaftliche Forschung von künstlerischen Herangehensweisen lernen kann.
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Vouwo - mud dye produced by Marka-Dafing master dyer and hunter Adama Séré. Photograph by Salif Sawadogo.
New Paper in Coloration Technology About Novel Approach to Researching Sustainable Textile Dyes
Coloration using soil-based dyes is a fast-growing subject of enquiry in fibres and textile surface design, with pigments and microbes involved in their production being extensively researched. Using this rich natural resource, dyeing techniques have also been integral to long-standing textile traditions worldwide. Grounded in an anthropological study of the dyeing practice of Marka-Dafing hunters in Burkina Faso, West Africa, this paper analyzes the coloration processes in vouwo, or mud dye, used for hunting and ceremonial garments. It highlights complex chemical and microbiological reactions occurring in a dyeing experiment curated by dyers throughout an 18-month-long fermentation process. The authors, Cluster members Laurence Douny, José Ignacio Hernández Lobato, Salif Sawadogo, Peter Fratzl, and Regine Hengge, together with Adama Séré and Shahrouz Amini (MPICI), propose an interdisciplinary approach to the study of vouwo.
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Screenshot Article »Bauen mit Flachs statt Beton«, 29.04.2025. Copyright: Tagesspiegel
Tagesspiegel-Artikel gibt Einblick in die Forschungsarbeit von Matters of Activity
Im Rahmen einer Tagesspiegelserie zu Forschungsergebnissen aus den Berliner Exzellenzclustern erschien jüngst ein Artikel über die Arbeit von Clustermitglied Maxie Schneider. Neben Maxies Mitarbeit im Projekt »Architectural Yarns«, das auf experimentelle Weise Wissen aus der Architektur und den Textil- und Materialwissenschaften verknüpft, um Zeitskalen und Lebenszyklen von Bauelementen neu zu denken, erforscht ide Architektin im Rahmen ihrer praxisorientierten Promotion die Materialprogrammierung und das Formverhalten als Reaktion auf äußere klimatische Reize. Wir freuen uns über die Aufmerksamkeit.
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Felix Rasehorn gives a MoA Talk at weißensee school of art and design
On Tuesday, 12 November 2024, Felix Rasehorn will give insights into his work as a design researcher at »Matters of Activity« developing his practice-based doctoral thesis at TU Berlin. His research focuses on the principle of tessellation in nature and its transfer into wearable designs. Since 2019, Felix and the designer Robin Hoske lead the Berlin-based WINT Design Lab. The studio designs products and conducts design
research for clients like Adidas, SPACE10 and IKEA.
The lecture is part of MoA Design Research Studio, Scaling Nature »Tiles and Tissues« at the Material and Textile Design Department, headed by Cluster member Prof. Christiane Sauer. more
research for clients like Adidas, SPACE10 and IKEA.
The lecture is part of MoA Design Research Studio, Scaling Nature »Tiles and Tissues« at the Material and Textile Design Department, headed by Cluster member Prof. Christiane Sauer. more
Exhibition of research objects during the MoA PhD presentations 2024. Posterlayout Ada Favaron. Copyright: Matters of Activity
Presentations Doctoral Program 2024
Under the title »testing un/common grounds«, the Matters of Activity doctoral cohort impressively presented the progress of their diverse research projects during the Cluster retreat. The event included the three moderated panel discussions as well as an exhibition of selected research objects that were at the core of the format. With their various disciplinary backgrounds ranging from art, architecture, engineering and design to the humanities and natural sciences, the group explored this interdisciplinary ›un/common ground‹ and aimed to develop forms of common knowledge that respect locally-based actors and embrace collaborations with diverse agencies and species.
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Still »Change by Design«. Copyright: ARTE.tv
Claudia Mareis Contributes as an Expert to an ARTE Documentary on Sustainable Design
For all our German and French-speaking friends we have a special treat: ARTE TV visited us and made our Co-Director Claudia Mareis and »Matters of Activity« part of a documentation about sustainable fashion and of course design. English subtitles as well as other languages are also available, so don’t miss it!
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Bi-Leaf - Morphology of a Movement, Antonia Dönitz, Master Thesis Textile and Material Design, 2024. Image Copyright: Antonia Dönitz / weißensee school of art and design
Student Projects On View in Collaboration with »Matters of Activity«
On July 20th and 21st, 2024, 12.00–8.00 pm, weißensee school of art and design berlin will open its studios for the traditional Open House. Also this year, there will be the opportunity to learn more about the design research projects and students’ works developed during the previous year, some of them in cooperation with or in classes led by researchers of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«.
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Visit Bauhaus Earth, 15 July 2024. Copyright: Matters of Activity
On July 15th, 2024, members from Bauhaus Earth and the research group »Architectural Yarns« exchanged common ideas and current projects with mutual visits to MoA's Activarium and the Marienpark Lab of Bauhaus Earth. The goal was to foster an exchange of ideas for potential collaborations, emphasizing the shared goals and innovative approaches in sustainable architecture and material design. Key overlapping areas of interest include the reuse of materials, circular resources, economic potentials, and rethinking aesthetics in housing, and building culture.
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Copyright: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstgewerbemuseum / Gestaltung: cyan Berlin
More than Human Sketching 2
How can we reshape our perception of crafting as the more-than-handiwork of more-than-human makers? Inspired by textile artifacts used for encoding and conveying knowledge, artist and designer Nayeli Vegas will guide us through various perspectives on understanding the objects within Kunstgewerbemuseum's (Museum of Decorative Arts) collections as knots and networks of information. The SpecLab, affiliated with the Department of Neurosurgery at Charité in Berlin, will demonstrate how neurosurgeons navigate the complexities of the brain using maps of knots and streamlines. Imagine if we could map and weave insights from creating museum objects into textile-like diagrams. Using 3D sketching tools and drawing from the intricate informational structures of knotted systems and the brain, we will invite museum visitors to explore spatial methods of encoding movement and understanding. The workshop is part of a series of events of the new discursive platform »More than human. Design after the Anthropocene« curated by MoA member Claudia Banz.
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Detail Poster Weaving Study Day, Material Culture Forum, 11 June 2024. Copyright: University of Cambridge
Christiane Sauer Contributes to Weaving Study Day in Cambridge
On June 11th, MoA Member Christiane Sauer will contribute to a Weaving Study Day organized by the Material Culture Forum at the University of Cambridge (UK). Her talk will explore textile potentials for a novel design approach. The hierarchical structure of fibre, yarn, fabric offers multiple possibilities to »program« a surface for specific performance in an applied context. Experimental prototyping and bio-inspired design become the base for resilient and adaptive structures that examine the boundaries between softness and rigidity, between material and shape, and between functionality and structure.
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Poster Lecture Series 2024, Photo: Charlotte Linton. Copyright: Matters of Activity.
On 11 July, David Jeevendrampillai spoke about Extra-Terrestrial Anthropology: Design Thinking for a Post-Planetary Social Life
Rapidly increasing socio-ecological damage and the urgent need for care, repair, and recovery have led to renewed calls for regenerative design as a means of wayfinding towards new forms of just and sustainable life on earth, prompting critical questions concerning the reconfigured pasts they invoke to the possible futures they open up. Aiming to (re)design the way we live to support our interdependence on natural ecosystems, regenerative systems thinking is being applied to fundamental fields of human activity, from food production and agriculture to medicine, textiles, architecture, rural revival, and the urban built environment to other-worldly materialities. The lecture series organized by Lucy Norris, which started on May 2nd, will, among other things, explore how traces of former ways of being in the world and concepts such as ›indigenous knowledge‹ are referenced as ways to move forward and ask what futures are being imagined by whom and for whom, and how some forms of living are enabled while other possibilities are negated.
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Charlett Wenig, Bark Sphere, 2021. Copyright: Alexander Magerl
Matters of Activity und CollActive Materials starten Kooperation mit Futurium Lab
»Matters of Activity« und das Experimentallabor für Wissenschaftskommunikation »CollActive Materials« starteten im März eine neue Veranstaltungsreihe im Futurium Lab. Unter dem Titel »Materialzukünfte besuchen« fanden über vier Monate vier Workshops statt, die die Forschung des Clusters mit der Zivilgesellschaft zusammenbrachten und in denen gemeinsam über Materialzukünfte spekuliert wurde. Begleitet wurden die Veranstaltungen von einer temporären Ausstellung im Futurium Lab.
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Copyright: Matters of Activity
Michael Friedman Presents 1st Transcription, Translation and Study of Jungius' Unpublished Manuscript »Texturæ Contemplatio«
Michael Friedman's book offers an analysis of Joachim Jungius' »Texturæ Contemplatio« - a hitherto-unpublished manuscript written in German and Latin that deals with weaving, knitting and other textile practices, attempting to present as well various fabrics and textile techniques in a scientifical and even mathematical framework. The book aims to provide the epistemological, technical and historic framework for Jungius’ manuscript, inspecting fabrics, weaving techniques as well as looms and other textile machines in the Holy Roman Empire during the Early Modern Period. It also offers a unique investigation of the notion and metaphor of ›texture‹ during this period, and explores, within the wider context of the ›meeting‹ or ›trading zones‹ thesis, the relations between artisans and natural philosophers during the 17th century. Save the date for the Book Presentation on Thursday, February 22nd, 2024.
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Exhibition view »Closer to Nature. Building with Mushroom, Tree, Clay«, Berlinische Galerie. Copyright: Photo: Harry Schnitger
Experimental Building by SciArt Collective MY-CO-X on Show at Berlinische Galerie
Architecture and nature inevitably compete for space. That poses a dilemma when resources are finite and the demand for space keeps growing. Besides, we know that the construction sector generates huge waste and emissions. All this has raised issues about the role of architecture: Does it need a shift in perspective? Could we build with nature instead of against it? The exhibition »Closer to Nature« at the Berlinische Galerie showcases three Berlin-based projects, that utilize the potential of mushrooms, living trees, and clay. This gives them an ecological quality, but also a completely new character: the buildings breathe, grow, and thus become alive themselves. One of the showcased projects is the experimental building MY-CO SPACE, which was developed, designed, and built by the interdisciplinary Berlin SciArt collective MY-CO-X, an initiative of the Department of Applied and Molecular Microbiology at TU Berlin under the direction of MoA member Vera Meyer with contributions by Dimitra Almpani-Lekka.
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»Yu Li, a diary of cooking a curtain« by Tin Qizhen Gao, detail of curtain. Copyright: Mareike Stoll for MoA Design Research Studio Beyond the Curtain
Documentation of the Final Presentations and Exhibition
The Final Presentations of the MoA Design Research Studio »BEYOND THE CURTAIN. Creating Transient Environments« took place on February 13, 2024, at the Foyer of the Weißensee School of Art and Design Berlin. The MoA Design Research Studio »BEYOND THE CURTAIN. Creating Transient Environments« explored curtains as active spatial elements. Within the framework of the semester project, numerous inspiring and convincing works were developed.
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Plektonik Structural Textiles column – continuous wooden ›Active Yarns‹ 40 mm diameter loops. Copyright: Daniel Suárez & Natalija Miodragović
Cluster Members Beyer, Miodragović, Mossé and Suárez Publish in Proceedings of the UIA World Congress of Architects Copenhagen 2023
The book provides new perspectives from leading researchers accentuating and examining the central role of the built environment in conceiving and implementing multifaceted solutions for the complex challenges of our understanding of planetary resources and circularity, revealing critical potentials for architecture and design to contribute in more informed and long-term ways to the urgent transition of our society. Bastian Beyer et. al. contributed with the article »Towards a Bacterially-Induced Textile Architecture« and Daniel Suárez and Natalija Miodragović an article on »Plektonik— Active Yarns for Adaptive Loop-Based Material Systems«.
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Poster Talk Series, HZK and CARMAH, 2023. Copyright: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
MoA Members Contribute to New Event Series Organized by HZK/CARMAH
On Wednesday, April 26th, the seminar series with the theme of WARP (Werkstatt für kulturelle Ausdrucksweisen und Recherche in der Praxis) will kick off with a tour through the exhibition »DAOULA | sheen« by one of the Co-curators and MoA Member Laurence Douny. MoA Pre-Doctoral Researcher Yoonha Kim will hold a talk on »Wearing Sallim« on May 3rd, and MoA Associated Member Lucy Norris about »Regenerative Fibre Cultures: Fashioning New threads of Connection« on June 14th. The talks and workshops will explore diverse forms of material knowledge in research, material culture, curation, technology, and art and are organized by Magdalena Buchczyk from the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH). They take place Wednesdays 4–5.30 pm (CEST) either at Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik or digitally on Zoom.
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Self-Shaping Textiles. Design: studioeins
On 24 November at Kunstgewerbemuseum
The Round Table »Self-Shaping Textiles at the Intersection of Fashion, Architecture and Technology« kicked off a new format series accompanying the exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum. The Round Tables represent each of the exhibiting project in a moderated dialogue with guests from different disciplines. The format brings a variety of perspectives to the exhibited works, its material legacies and entangled discourses and invites the public to engage. On November 24th Lorenzo Guiducci and Agata Kycia discussed their work with the architect Giovanni Betti and the fashion sociologist Antonella Giannone.
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Poster Material Legacies. Image: Dietrich Polenz and the Experimental Surgery Lab, 2020
Exhibition at Kunstgewerbemuseum
The exhibition »Design Lab #13: Material Legacies« at Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin explored contingencies and ruptures between traditional crafts and the most recent developments at the crossroads of material research, design, engineering, and architecture. It brought together artifacts from the museum’s collection with work-in-progress installations by designers and researchers from the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« in order to initiate a dialogue about the historical, contemporary, and future conditions under which materiality unfolds.
By engaging with a series of different materials and techniques the exhibition encompassed both the problematization of unsustainable pasts and presents as well as the imagination of speculative material futures. Taking materiality as a starting point, each of the exhibits investigated its sociocultural, economic, and political context in order to disentangle the multiple interrelations that arise from and with materials. more
By engaging with a series of different materials and techniques the exhibition encompassed both the problematization of unsustainable pasts and presents as well as the imagination of speculative material futures. Taking materiality as a starting point, each of the exhibits investigated its sociocultural, economic, and political context in order to disentangle the multiple interrelations that arise from and with materials. more
Poster PhD presentations 2022. Layout: Ada Favaron
Doctoral Presentations at the MoA Retreat 2022
The 2022 presentation of the Doctoral Program »Matters of Activity« at the MoA Retreat in September at Landgut Stober was both a review and an outlook of the doctoral research conducted at the Cluster between 2020 and 2022. Under the title »Scaling Matters: From the Lab to the Field, «Pre-Doctoral Researchers at varying stages of their research — from the very beginning to the final phase of their theses — presented their heterogeneous work whilst continuing to negotiate common themes, methods, questions and tools. The format combined talks and an exhibition and invited MoA Members to engage individually with the presentation and a selection of their research objects.
Thanks to everyone involved for making possible this all-around successful event. Enjoy some visual impressions of the exhibition, as well as the talks and have a look at the booklet.
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MoA Exhibition »Stretching Materialities«. Copyright: Offshore Design
Hidden Activities in Objects and Spaces at Tieranatomisches Theater
Matter is dead? Objects are lifeless? Think again! In the exhibition »Stretching Materialities« the liveliness and activity of matter could be experienced in a completely new way. From September 16th, 2021 to March 4th, 2022, the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin became an interactive playground: an actual cloud levitated in the middle of the room, reacting to body heat and movement, hovering around the visitors like a strange creature. Stones revealed their weathering as a dynamic process of change. Large willow structures, carefully co-crafted by humans and computers, were interwoven with the inhabitable space. Korean ›durumagi‹, a silk overcoat connecting the digital and physical realm, vibrated on the visitors’ skin as they interacted with diverse materials. Walking through the room with VR headsets on, visitors could enter a glass elevator and travel straight down into the materials presented – into the CT scan of a stone or high up into the clouds to interact with air molecules.
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Magic Circle Symposium weissensee school of art and design berlin, »Erosive Modeling«. Copyright: Kristin Dolz.
Symposium for Interdisciplinary Exchange on 25 February 2021
In the production of knowledge, design processes are fundamental, although the experimental settings in the sciences, in the arts, in design differ in assumptions, execution and conclusions. But the richness of the material, its property of being able to change itself, its active effect on the surrounding space as well as its reactive shaping to forces and energies allow other domains of knowledge immediate points of contact and give them stimuli for their own or joint knowledge production. The symposium »Magic Circle« was organized by the »Forschungskreis« of the weißensee school of art and design berlin (khb) in cooperation with »Matters of Activity«, under the direction of Prof. Dr. Jörg Petruschat with contributions from various Cluster members.
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Hydroweave. Copyright: Stefanie Eichler & Juni Neyenhuys, weißensee school of art and design berlin
The Work was Realized at weißensee school of art and design berlin Within the Framework of the MoA Design Studio
»Hydroweave« by Stefanie Eichler and Juni Neyenhuys was awarded a recognition in the field of »Study« at the Raumprobe Material Award 2020. The project, which centers on a research-based design approach, was created in 2019 at weißensee school of art and design berlin as part of the MoA Design Studio »Scaling Nature (1): Wrinkles« under the direction of Prof. Christiane Sauer. Since 2005, Raumprobe has been a constantly growing online material database and physical material exhibition in Stuttgart. Raumprobe has been awarding the prestigious Material Prize annually since 2013, recognizing special materials.
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Poster Weaving Practices, Copyright: Matters of Activity
An Online Workshop on 29 October 2020
Weaving is an ancient practice that is found across cultures. It commonly designates a technique of making surfaces by interlacing two sets of materials that cross each other at a right angle. However, weaving as a manual, mechanical or digital technique of entanglement applies to a broad variety of vegetal, animal or synthetic materialities brought together to form a fabric by use of a frame such as a loom. Furthermore, weaving practices may also introduce hybrid techniques such as knitting, plaiting and braiding. This one-day, practice-based, interdisciplinary workshop brought together specialists who will highlight concepts and practices of weaving from various angles by emphasizing specific techniques, technologies, materials, patterns and design.
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Design Studio »Scaling Nature (1): Wrinkels«, Design: Juni Neyenhuys and Stefanie Eichler. Copyright: weißensee kunsthochschule berlin
at NuThinkers during Domotex Tradefair in Hanover
Students of the bachelor's program in textile and surface design investigated material activity in natural structures and developed new design strategies for active surfaces in a spatial context and showcase these at Domotex, Hanover, January 10th to 13th, 2020.
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»Architectural Yarns«. Photo: Michelle Mantel. Copyright: Matters of Activity
The Research group »Architectural Yarns« explores the possibilities of ecological regeneration and repair in architecture through textiles – by making temporary, provisional structures from fibrous, biological materials. Some of these are plants such as flax or linen, which are being rediscovered as a building material in today´s ecological crisis. Others emphasize the temporality of textiles and their climate modulating qualities using Phase Change Materials to create soft structures and thermal boundaries in the interior space. Architectural Yarns are a design framework for temporal and adaptive textile interventions within existing built space that question fixed spatial arrangements and provide variability in (re)use.
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Wild silk wrapper from the Marka Dafing in Safané, Burkina Faso (showing the sheen). Video still from the film installation at the exhibition »DAOULA | Sheen. West-African Wild Silk On Its Way« (Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin). Film installation by Thabo Thindi with film material from Salif Sawadog and others.
West-African Textile Craft Meets European Science and Design
Schematic drawing of a part of a warping board. Source: Joachim Jungius, »Texturæ Contemplatio«, fol. 55r; in: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Martin Fogel collection of Zettelkasten, folder: Ms XLII, 1923: delta 28 © Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek - Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek; Public Domain.
Open Space Event, 9 November 2023. Copyright: Matters of Activity
MoA's Showroom and Workspace
With the »Activarium«, we want to actively engage with potential partners from the industry, start-ups, NGOs, politics and society as a whole to initiate an exploratory exchange on active materials, bio- & culture-inspired innovation as well as sustainability approaches. We want visitors to experience our prototypes, making MoA’s intentions and research tangible and accessible. The »Activarium« serves as a work-in-progress showcase of different research strands and processes. Our visitors can dive into the research as it's happening before its published results.
If you are interested in a visit, please contact us via moa.activarium [at] hu-berlin.de to visit!
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