sensate surfaces: a developmental framework for computational textile application in fashion + architecture and its creation of an interactive surface typology

Abstract

Enclosure is a function central to both fashion and architecture, with both disciplines employing enclosure through the amalgam of surfaces providing essential structure and protection. However, in an increasingly complex and interconnected world, fashion and architecture have begun contesting the role of surfaces as static entities unreflective of inherent human dynamism.In both fields, surface contention can be understood through the shared material surface of textiles—their familiarity to the body, their protective shield against outside elements, and their ability to prescribe body behavior in space. The solution to static spaces lies in the development of a sensate surface system, which personifies body and building textiles so that enclosure becomes responsive to changing human activity. Technology has always played a role in advancing textile production and distribution, so the introduction of computation to fabric simply represents another phase of growth in the technology-textile relationship. With the body and building in constant contact, information exchange between computational surfaces creates customizable spaces that adjust to users’ present needs like health monitoring and habit tracking. Connected to the internet, computational textile systems forge a new narrative about bodies coworking with spaces to process and signal their specific needs. Here, surfaces become intelligent personal assistants to bodies through electronic settings connecting body to building to city. As people travel through different spaces, their textile monitoring becomes collective in the public domain, fundamentally changing the significance of gatherings in urban settings and the potential to create smarter cities. Sensate textile networks cultivate an invisible architecture that allows people to demand service from present infrastructure. To implement this system in reality, computational textiles will need to expand upon the aesthetic modularity and durability of visual products, be sustainably produced and powered, and develop secure forms of data management for privacy protection. Woven for durability, this system will employ an application-based control platform that permits users to choose their applications based on monitoring needs. Moving forward, computational textiles for bodies and buildings can reinvent the concept of utilitarian dimensions from the personal scale to the urban fabric.