Topic
Comfort Zone
Body architecture serves as a medium to explore new design methods, materials, and fabrication techniques – shifting the focus from the architectural scale to the human body. As wearables are designed to be worn on the body, they provide a unique opportunity to investigate sensory perception. This thesis describes the design and fabrication of a wearable intended to bring awareness to the often-neglected tactile sense. A combination of analogue and digital techniques is employed during the design process. For fabrication, a bio-based material is developed with the aim of achieving properties suitable for robotic 3D printing.
The tactile wearable is designed to simulate a hug by applying pressure to the body through an inflatable. Hugging is a universally known tactile experience and a form of deep pressure stimulation known to have a calming effect, even reducing stress. By introducing this immediate contrast from deflated to inflated, the wearable aims to increase the wearer’s awareness of tactile sense.
To translate this concept into a design, a hug pressure map, captured through an analogue imprint, is applied onto a digital model, and further processed in computational design software using vertex colour information. The resulting shape features holes that vary in size and density according to the colour map intensity, which in turn determine the location and magnitude of inflation, thus the pressure applied to the body.
A series of tests is conducted to find a material with sufficient viscosity for 3D printing, and enough rigidity to locally withstand the force of inflation once dried. The resulting material is a gelatine-based foam, that is stabilized with xanthan gum and strengthened with the bio-additive wood flour. The wearable is extruded from this material, following a digitally produced path. The inflatable element is made from latex.
The thesis is part of the artistic research project Trans-Bodied Knowledge funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) in the framework of the Art-Based Research Programme (PEEK) with Grant No AR 802-G.
Supervision