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“From Loom to Room” investigates the spatial, conceptual, and performative possibilities of weaving in three dimensions. It is a study of how to translate material into space; movement into form; and design into collaboration.

As in the past, weaving provides an occasion to gather generations together.[1] It is a collaborative shared activity, traditionally done by women. Today, feminist scholarship recognizes the important contribution of women’s role as weavers to the history of our culture.[2] The systematic, repetitive interlacing of thread to form fabric is a collective form generating process.[3] In short, weaving materializes time. This inspires me to ask: how can the action of making inform and respond to design intentions?

To understand the relevance of this gendered labour in architecture, Naomi set off to weave a room. To do so, she moved back-and forth between digital and analog processes of design.[4] She began by using a rigid two-meter maple cube as the frame and then scored all twelve edges equally on each side and chose a highly elastic synthetic blend as the thread. She connected edges together by transforming lines into surfaces, networks into patterns, and layers into obstacles.[5] In this structural exploration, she reimagined corridors of movement by investigating new modes of knowledge production.[9]

In parallel, Naomi used parametric design to write possible thread intersections, and computational tools to script the logical sequence of the weave. This sequence generated a set of instructions that simulated bodily movement and translated it into a language that transcends the loom itself.[6] As iterations ensued, the warp and weft began to articulate a vocabulary of forms where openings, intersections, thresholds, and passages emerged. Together, they challenged our preconceptions about spatial boundaries, agency in design, and materiality.[7] Each thread was a negotiation between outside and inside, beauty and use, private and public, art and design.[8]

This experimental approach to crafting spatial instances with our bodies documents the exchange between people and materials. While this research does not propose an alternative to rigid building structures, weaving of this type could subdivide interior spaces by creating semi-transparent partitions, or connect building facades with filamentary canopies. Weaving can promote the implication of people with the built environment where a form comes into existence as the embodiment of a rhythmic collective movement.[10] The project highlights a single set of possible interwoven moments, using design and decision-making to drive an additive, iterative process of making.

[1] Albers, Anni, Magdalena Droste, T’ai Lin Smith, Minera María, Brenda Danilowitz, Jennifer Reynolds-Kaye, Priyesh Mistry, et al. Anni Albers. Edited by Ann Coxon, Briony Fer, and Müller-Schareck Maria. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2018.
[2] Christ, Carol P. “Weaving the Fabric of Our Lives.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 13, no. 1 (1997): 131–36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25002303.
[3] The new Oxford American dictionary, 2nd ed. s.v. “weaving.”
[4] Noel, Vernelle A. A. “Crafting as Inquiry into Computation: Exploring wire-bending in traditional practice and design education.” Complexity & Simplicity - Proceedings of the 34th eCAADe Conference, 10. (2016).
[5] The new Oxford American dictionary, 2nd ed. s.v. “weaving.”
[6] Cohen, Einya, Lila Namir, and I. M Schlesinger. A New Dictionary of Sign Language : Employing the Eshkol-Wachmann Movement Notation System. Approaches to Semiotics, 50. The Hague: Mouton, 1977.
[7] Studio Tomás Saraceno. “On Air.” Accessed December 13, 2021. https://studiotomassaraceno.org/on-air/.
[8] Architecture and Design. “Daphne Keraudren: Use at your own risk” Facebook, December 13, 2021. https://www.facebook.com/ArchiDesiign.
[9] Studio Tomás Saraceno. “On Air.”
[10] Ingold, Tim. The Perception of the Environment. London: Routledge, 2011, p. 346.
[11] Ibid.