Studio Samira Boon
Studio Samira Boon
Tsuru
Studio Samira Boon won the Architizer A+ Innovation Award in 2024 for its Archifold textile façade for Hermés. The textile was developed in the TextielLab in 2023. Over the past year, Samira Boon has created new origami structures in the lab with product developer Stef Miero. Commissioned by Krft Architects, Tsuru is a textile art installation for the theatre of the new Performing Arts Centre of Brighton College, United Kingdom. This 3D woven work was inspired by nature, growing across the white theatre walls like the ivy climbing up the chalk cliffs around Brighton.
The work uses a special folding technique that has been refined in the lab over several years. The technique gives the fabric a kind of memory. During production, the fabric folds itself through an ingenious interplay of weaves and twisted yarn. On the loom, the geometric surfaces are already visible in subtle shades of green. On the wall, they seem to come alive, constantly changing appearance like ivy leaves caught by wind and light. Besides its aesthetic appeal, the work also has a practical function: the fire-retardant textile sculptures have important acoustic properties.
Photos by Stijn Bollaert
Climate Action Collection
For Vitra, a furniture manufacturer, Simone Post created an iconic textile collection centred around sustainable yarn. She designed a 100% cotton blanket in three colour variations. Half of the yarn used is already recycled. In addition, the blankets are made from a single material, so that they can be recycled again. The blankets are an ode to the yarn Post inherited from her grandmother, who sewed, knitted, crocheted, knotted and embroidered her own clothes and accessories all her life. The knowledge of these techniques is disappearing with Post’s grandmother’s generation. As a result, fewer and fewer people know how much time, material and energy goes into producing textiles.
In the TextielLab, Post and Judith Peskens developed a woven fabric that celebrates textile craftsmanship. Each fabric has only four colours. However, by combining them in different ways using a variety of weaves, brightly coloured and tactile blankets were created that highlight the beautifully depicted bobbins, balls and skeins of yarn, cords and knots. The blankets were presented in Milan during Salone del Mobile 2024.
Kumo
In collaboration with Lightnet GmbH, Studio Samira Boon created the Kumo lighting collection, which is named after the Japanese word for cloud. The 3D-woven origami structure consists of a combination of squares and triangles. These form an organic sculpture that illuminates a room like a controllable cloud.
The monofilament warp provides transparency and strength. The technique used is based on the Folds that Studio Samira Boon previously developed in the TextielLab. Thanks to an ingenious interplay of weaves and yarns, the fabric folds itself as it is being made. For Kumo, the weaves were made in such a way that the light can have a rounded shape without losing the 3D effect.
