Yvonne Hung

In the past decade, smart textiles have become a popular medium for scientists, designers, and engineers. In particular, sensors and actuators embedded in textiles are becoming more common in consumer products and research projects. In most of these projects however, textile is used as the agent, which holds the actuators and sensors in place. Less often examined is the potential for the textile itself to to be actuator.  

This project began with the question: what if textiles can move? The potential for textiles to be actuators – or 'textuators' –  that respond to different contexts, can have huge implications for a wide range of soft and semi-soft products, including apparel, sports gears, medical wearables and architecture.  

The goal of this project is to create shape-shifting textiles and demonstrate their potential for new applications. Through a series of material experiments, a library of passive bistable and compliant actuators was developed using spring wire, elastic yarns and traditional weaving techniques. These semi-soft mechanisms can be integrated into elastic textiles.

Bas – short for 'bistable automatic shoe' – snap onto the foot when the user steps into it, and snap open when a release trigger is pulled. This concept demonstrates a future where apparel can snap on and off the body, as well as many other potential applications for bistable textiles.