embrace 2
Tessellated Support Structure
︎︎︎ back
This project builds on findings from the TMS research and is situated in a collaborative
design project developed by Silke Hofmann. In her research she is interested in the wearer-garment relationship and participatory design processes. Embrace 2 is situated in the female health spectrum and focuses on aesthetic and ergonomic bra needs of females affected by breast cancer after mastectomy. This directly results in wearable objects that materialize the participating women's needs in individualized garment solutions. Coming from different backgrounds we had individual research goals that benefited from each other’s specific competencies and profession.
Collaboration with Silke Hofmann, WINT Design Lab funded by Re:Fream
Method
In this participatory design approach designers from the field of fashion, textile, product and computational design worked together with the wearer as co-designer. The collaborative process peaked in situations that are called fittings, an established methodology in fashion design. A fitting is in itself a technical process in which all participants come together to evaluate the prototype on the wearer's body. Specialists from different disciplines with different vocabularies, ideas and knowledge came together to evaluate the respective work. Thus, the fittings were situations in which individual competencies stepped back and common interests were negotiated, discussed and evaluated. These communication and development processes was intensively negotiated in situ on the physical prototype.
Artefact based workflow
These communication and development processes was intensively negotiated in situ on the physical prototype. In these situations, the designers functioned as filters that looked at the prototype from their specific field of expertise, contributing to a larger body of work, functioning like one collective brain. In this joint development step, the ideas of each specialist were exchanged, not primarily verbally but directly on the prototype itself. Allowing to filter extremely efficiently and at the same time particularly finely what is technically feasible, aesthetically desirable and functionally durable. To this day, the developed prototypes contain all details and decisions of the held discussion, it is that each collaborator embodies the specific filter that is able to unpack this information which he or her turned into actions that have led to the final prototype.
Parametric workflow
To develop a parametric logic, material performance, aesthetic properties and the assessment of the wearer need to co-evolve. In our research group (MoA) scientists are investigating how tessellation changes within the growth phases of an organism. For example, how does the macroscopic pattern behave as the animal develops from a young to an adult organism? Are new tiles formed, do the tiles become uniformly larger, or does both happen simultaneously? In nature, these growth processes are usually governed by principles of self-organization; biochemical processes then regulate and control pattern formation. The goal was to develop a parametric definition containing quasi similar rules, which were specifically adaptable to the individual body shape, sensations and feedback of Viktoria as the wearer. Parametric design is, in effect, nothing more than a set of rules that describes how patterns must respond to a limited number of parameters in order to achieve a consistent result.
To develop a parametric logic, material performance, aesthetic properties and the assessment of the wearer need to co-evolve. In our research group (MoA) scientists are investigating how tessellation changes within the growth phases of an organism. For example, how does the macroscopic pattern behave as the animal develops from a young to an adult organism? Are new tiles formed, do the tiles become uniformly larger, or does both happen simultaneously? In nature, these growth processes are usually governed by principles of self-organization; biochemical processes then regulate and control pattern formation. The goal was to develop a parametric definition containing quasi similar rules, which were specifically adaptable to the individual body shape, sensations and feedback of Viktoria as the wearer. Parametric design is, in effect, nothing more than a set of rules that describes how patterns must respond to a limited number of parameters in order to achieve a consistent result.
Prototyping and iterations
My focus lied on the possibility of applying principles of tessellation in a concrete, user centred design scenario. An in-situ study of how tessellation can be applied as design method, exploring the trade-offs between functional, aesthetic and technical requirements. Differing from the workflow in design study the 3D knitted garment is laminated with a heat transfer foil. Instead of laminating hard plates on pre-stretched textile the relaxed textile is laminated, with semi-hard tiles. This leads to a reversed activation principle that activates when set under tension. The moment of wearing the garment applies tensile forces and the prescribed structural properties are activated. Natural morphologies regularly express gradual shift of tile sizes and incoherencies in tile shapes, which suggests a strategy to introduce functional gradients. What appears as pattern inaccuracy to the engineering eye turns out to be a functional feature in the natural system.
