Designing Matter 1

The MoA Design Research Studio »Designing Matter 1« investigated designed filaments and fabrics as architectural material systems.

»Designing matter« denotes the definition of the form and the materiality for the component elements of a material in order achieve a specific functionality. This process allows to utilize and enhance the inherent properties of a given material and ultimately to generate novel ones. Codes – either analogue or digital – are used to implement the design of the material by means of a systematization of this form-function interrelationship. In this context the MoA Design Research Studio made relevant contributions with respect to the development of designed filaments and the close adherence of the architectural designed fabrics to the production sequences and patterns observed in silk-cocoons.

The MoA Design Research Studio was structured in five phases. In phase 1 silk-cocoons, which can be considered non-wovens occurring in nature, were introduced from the perspective of Anthropology, Biology and Materials Science. Phase 2 and 3 focused on the design of filaments and spinning patterns which are suited for architecture-scale material systems. In phase 4 the notion of an architectural material system was introduced and participants developed design principles for a spatial installation based on the designed material they developed in the previous phases. In the fifth and final phase participants integrated the design research developed in the previous ones into a coherent thesis argument. This was supported by the overarching phase X on writing, documenting and archiving.

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