Architextiles
This project explores the boundary architecture and textiles, originating from a wearable structure designed to evoke a sense of spatial connection. Developing my architectural position of feeling connected to your space, my project became inspired by the movement and form of clothing on the human body, the central question arises:
Can a building be dressed?
The design translates this idea into an expressive form dressing three interconnected buildings- fabrication, hosting and exhibiting spaces. Each responding to daylight and metaphorically arranged like to core and limbs of a body.
Located at Kingsway Business Park, the project leverages passive environmental strategies through careful orientation, maximising natural daylight and reducing reliance on artificial systems. Material innovation is key, combining prefabricated hempcrete panels, timber frames and a tensile fabric canopy. The expressive canopy acts as an adaptable, performative skin- both a shading device and architectural garment. Inviting ongoing transformation in response to the community input, use and seasons.
The design is rooted in Manchester’s textile heritage while embracing cutting-edge fabrication techniques like 3D printing. Sustainability is integral, with renewable materials, low carbon strategies, and minimal landscape disruption. The project celebrates the emotional, sensory experience of space through elements like the huggable column, emphasising user engagement and physical connection.
This work embodies the ethos of CPU Atelier by fusing structure, identity, and innovation. It challenges traditional boundaries between garment and building, proposing architecture as a living, responsive form—one that is not only inhabited but also worn, reconfigured, and experienced as an extension of the body and culture.
