Textile Logics in a Digital Architecture

This paper questions the representational logics of a new class of digital-material practices incorporating material performance. Presenting the concept of 'textile logic', the paper discusses how computational design tools that allow for a parametrisation of material behaviour are foregrounding the examination of structural principles that lie outside traditional compressive logic. By pointing to the structural thinking of Vladimir Shukhov, Buckminster Fuller and Robert Le Ricolais, as well as contemporary practitioners such as Cecil Balmond and Peter Testa the paper examines the precedents for incorporating tensile self-bracing as a structural principle and how textiles can become a model for architectural design. The paper presents the research by design enquiry 'Shadow Play' examining the involved traditions, methods and material practices of textile design and the here embedded systems of material specification can be advantageously ported to digital design.