Craft & Material Research

Studies

A running series on material interfaces: how structure, tension, and stitch communicate action. Four propositions carry across the set — relief locates, freedom suggests gesture, direction guides movement, constraint makes action legible.

Hand-knotted macramé panel encoding GTPD safety data

Study 01 · Data Physicalization

Tactile Textile Interfaces

A crime map is something you look at once and forget. I encoded real GTPD safety data into a hand-knotted macramé panel, using knot density and bead placement so the data can be read with your hands.

Complete

Close-up photograph of twisted cord strands crossing and knotting against a clean grey ground

Study 02 · March 2026

Perceived Affordances in Knots

Which structural qualities make a knot's intended action discoverable through sight and touch?

Complete

Colored process drawing of a leather console control cluster with a stitched dial, a woven slider, and a recessed pad

Study 03 · May 2026

Quiet Controls

Can a secondary vehicle control be integrated into leather and textile trim so its location, gesture, and response are understandable through touch?

In Progress

Macro photograph of taut cord crossing over a woven textile surface, showing fiber twist and tension

Study 04 · July 2026

Tension as Feedback

Can differences in textile tension communicate a small set of system states without text, color, or a display?

In Progress

Close-up photograph of deep blue woven fabric, the weave lines converging in a V-shaped ridge pattern

Study 05 · September 2026

Data in Fiber

Can an engine's architecture — twelve cylinders, paired crankpins, a sixty-degree bank, a firing order — be knotted into a panel so the structure itself is the spec sheet?

In Progress