Performative Morphology Studio

Within this ITECH Studio, we will investigate how tensile morphologies can respond to environmental and experiential stimuli and be modified through distributed robotics. The studio will challenge the boundaries between material behavior, structural performance, and robotic systems to create an integrated active/ adaptive lightweight textile system.

Our ambition is to move from passive morphologies to experience-driven transformation and performance-driven actuation, moving beyond pure structural or climatic optimization. We invite the students to investigate different means by which a material and robotic system might be adaptive and ask: How can distributed robotics actuators manipulate textile? How can active textile systems not only shape the atmosphere, perception, and interaction within architectural space, but also react to forces or conditions? How can small, localized actions lead to large-scale, coordinated transformations / global reconfigurations? How to achieve minimal actuation for maximum architectural and spatial effect?

Students will design and prototype tensile systems that explore adaptation through distributed actuation. Using distributed robotics, multiple small, responsive agents rather than centralized mechanisms, they will explore how prefabricated tensile morphologies can be manipulated to deploy, reconfigure, or adapt in real time. The studio emphasizes both physical prototyping and computational design, with a strong focus on material intelligence, system integration, exploring the potentials for full-scale realization.

This ITECH Studio will build on past and ongoing research at the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE). It will draw inspiration from the work of Janet Echelman, whose monumental installations redefine the relationship between structure, motion, and perception.

Requisite for participation in the design studio is parallel attendance in the seminars “Computational Design Techniques and Design Thinking” as well as “Form and Structure”.