Tangling - Matters of Activity

Entangled – Architectural Yarns and Structural Textiles. Photo: Michelle Mantel, adapted with drawing: Natalija Miodragović, 2025

Entangled – Architectural Yarns and Structural Textiles

Workshop

Material Form Function | Object Space Agency | Weaving | ＿matter Festival 2025 | Biodesign | Textiles | Tangling | Science Communication »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! more

Visit Bauhaus Earth, 15 July 2024. Copyright: Matters of Activity

Mutual Exchange of Bauhaus Earth and Research Group Architectural Yarns

Material Form Function | Weaving | Bauhaus | Biodesign | Climate | Circular Economies | Hemp | Textiles | Tangling | Wool | Yarns/Fibers 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. more

Poster »The Interdisciplinary World of Tangling«. Copyright: Myfwany Evans

The Interdisciplinary World of Tangling

Conference Organized by Cluster Members Myfanwy Evans and Rhoslyn Coles

Weaving | Material Form Function | Object Space Agency | Tangling This week–long conference from 12-16 September 2022 brought together scientists from various backgrounds who spend a reasonable amount of time thinking about tangles, tubes, knots, filaments, fibers and other entangled structures, from the perspective of physics, material science, mathematics, chemistry or biology. Tangling is a key structural motif of a multitude of natural systems, from molecules to polymers, and has a distinctive relationship to functionality. Understanding tangling itself and the role that it plays in material properties is a complicated web of different disciplines and perspectives, and we hope to create a deep scientific exchange on this topic. more

The Pergola at Rundgang Weißensee School of Art and Design Berlin. Copyright: Maxie Schneider/ Matters of Activity

FriBriX @ Structural Paper Workshop

MoA Members Maxie Schneider, Jojo Shone and Lorenzo Guiducci Contributed to Bauwende Festival 2022

Material Form Function | Prototype / Model | Tangling On May 27th, the FriBriX team (Lorenzo Guiducci, Christiane Sauer, Maxie Schneider, Jojo Shone) organised the Structural Paper workshop @ Bauwende Festival. Here participants have explored playfully the potential of paper as building material for constructing interwoven structures, simply holding together through friction. We understand paper as a contemporary urban resource and use waste paper to design a bottom up building process. Aftre two intense days of collective work a large pergola has been erected. The structure can still be freely visited at the premises of the Atelier Gardens, BUFA. more

Building Tangled Structures through Experimental Geometry and Topology. Copyright: Myfanwy Evans, Institute for Mathematics, University of Potsdam

Myfanwy Evans: Building Tangled Structures through Experimental Geometry and Topology

A Zoom Lecture on 20 October 2020, 5.00 pm

Weaving | Science Communication | Tangling The interdisciplinary lecture series of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material«, which was continued on October 20th, presented scientific positions from the Cluster, starting the next chapter with Myfanwy Evans, Professor at the Institute for Mathematics, University of Potsdam. more

Poster »Past and Present in Mathematical Weaving«. Copyright: Matters of Activity

Past and Present in Mathematical Weaving

Zoom Conference on 25 September 2020

Weaving | Symbolic Material | Tangling Weaving, braiding and plaiting can be counted as one of the oldest cultural techniques belonging to human culture, much older than agriculture or writing. While an obvious connection between weaving and mathematics – or more precisely, computer sciences – arose during the 19th century, with the Jacquard loom and Charles Babbage’s reference to it, a comprehensive mathematical theory of braids did not appear before 1926. But does this mean that weaving techniques and practices were not considered mathematically before the 19th century, or were not considered as being able to prompt and deliver, explicitly or implicitly, any mathematical knowledge? more

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.

Weaving and Mathematics: An Impossible Interlacing?

Material Legacies | Tangling | Textiles | Writing | Yarns/Fibers more

Willow installation of the »Structural Textile Project« by Natalija Miodragović, Nelli Singer and Daniel Suárez at the exhibition »Stretching Materialities«. Copyright: Matters of Activity

Plektonik: Structural Textiles

Willow | Prototype / Model | Yarns/Fibers | Tangling »Plektonik« is a transdisciplinary project between architects, textile designers, microbiologists, and material scientists, analyzing and prototyping loop-based material systems made from continuous and formable hybrid yarns. more