6. Computational Couture¶

Research & Ideation¶

Computational Couture is an emerging design and fabrication technique that integrates additive manufacturing directly onto textile surfaces, creating hybrid materials that combine the flexibility of fabric with the structure and functionality of printed forms. Designers and researchers use this approach to build textures, reinforcement, functional elements, and interactive components that bond with woven, knitted, or nonwoven substrates. Depending on material choice and print parameters, 3D-printed elements can add stretch control, protection, ornamentation, or attachment points while maintaining fabric drape and wearability. This process expands the possibilities of textiles beyond flat surfaces, allowing fabrics to become active, customizable systems that support experimentation in fashion, performance wear, medical textiles, and wearable technology.

References & Inspiration¶

Anouk Wipprecht

Anouk Wipprecht is a Dutch fashion-tech designer known for pioneering interactive, robotic, and 3D-printed garments that respond to the body, environment, and human behavior. Her work sits at the intersection of fashion, engineering, neuroscience, and performance, treating clothing as an intelligent system rather than a static object. Wipprecht’s designs—such as the iconic Spider Dress—often incorporate sensors, motors, microcontrollers, and 3D-printed structures integrated with soft textiles. These garments can detect proximity, biometric signals, or emotional states and respond in real time, blurring the line between wearable technology and living architecture.

Photo from Make Magazine

Neri Oxman

Neri Oxman is an architect, designer, and researcher best known for pioneering the concept of Material Ecology, which integrates computation, biology, and digital fabrication to create materials and structures that behave more like living systems than static objects. Her work fundamentally reshapes how we think about design, moving beyond assembling parts to growing, programming, and fabricating materials with embedded function. As the founder and former director of the MIT Media Lab’s Mediated Matter Group, Oxman explored advanced fabrication techniques such as multi-material 3D printing, gradient structures, and printing onto flexible and textile-like substrates. Her projects often blur boundaries between fashion, architecture, and science, producing wearable and body-related forms that respond to environmental forces such as light, heat, and stress.

Photo from Yoram Reshef of Neri Oxman

Tools¶

- Blender/Geometry Nodes (https://www.blender.org)
- Monoprice MP Voxel (https://www.monoprice.com)
- Thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/)

Process and workflow¶

Rico Kanthatham’s Fabricademy tutorial introduces computational design through Blender Geometry Nodes as a way to think about textiles, surfaces, and structures as systems rather than static forms. His approach emphasizes process, parameters, and iteration, aligning closely with the philosophy of material experimentation and digital fabrication. Rather than modeling objects manually, Rico teaches students to build node-based workflows where geometry is generated through relationships—such as distribution, attraction/repulsion, noise, and instancing. These systems allow designers to control density, scale, orientation, and variation using sliders and values, making designs flexible and easily adaptable. Techniques such as noisy surfaces, attractor/repulsor fields, and instancing demonstrate how complex patterns can emerge from simple rules.

A key focus of the tutorial is non-destructive design. Geometry remains editable until the final stage, where instances are realized only when necessary for fabrication (e.g., exporting STL files). This mirrors textile logic—repetition, modularity, and responsiveness—and supports applications such as 3D printing on fabric, hybrid materials, and computational couture. Overall, Rico’s tutorial reframes Blender as a material system design tool, helping students understand how computation can expand textiles beyond flat surfaces into programmable, customizable, and performative structures

Blender Geometry Nodes

This Geometry Nodes system generates a procedural radial surface by instancing a star-shaped curve across a grid and converting it into a mesh. A Grid node establishes the base point distribution, functioning as a structured scaffold that controls where geometry will be placed. A Star curve is then instanced onto each grid point using Instance on Points, creating a repeating geometric pattern. To transform the curve instances into solid geometry, a Curve Circle is used as a profile and fed into a Curve to Mesh node. This extrudes the instanced star curves into volumetric forms, producing a dense, spiked radial structure. The final output is a parametric object whose complexity and density are controlled by grid resolution, star parameters, and curve profile size.

Step 1: 3D Printing¶

I orginally transferred the a hexagon star design from the Blender Geometry Nodes for 3D printing. The job was a 6 hour print and 55 layers; however, the filament keep pouring out sporatically. After a few attempts, I pivoted and found file from Thingyverse that created pentagons.

The Pentagon.gx file was printed from Thingyverse using the Monoprice Voxel 3D printer with FlashPrint (MP Slicer) as the transfer and verification tool. Because the file was sliced in .stl and had to transform it to a.gx format. I was able to create a star 3D print in geometry nodes in Blender but could not figure how to convert to be read for 3D slicing.

Step 2: Monoprice Voxel Printer¶

The Monoprice Voxel is a compact, user-friendly FDM 3D printer designed for reliable desktop fabrication. It supports PLA and uses the FlashPrint (MP Slicer) workflow, allowing files to be printed directly in the native .gx format. In this process, the printer was used to execute a pre-sliced file, emphasizing accuracy, material preparation, and first-layer adhesion rather than parameter tuning. Its enclosed build chamber, touchscreen interface, and straightforward file transfer (USB or Wi-Fi) made it well-suited for consistent prototyping and classroom or lab-based experimentation.

The print was sliced in 33 layers. After the first 3 layers were completed, I add a tulle fabric to the print. The print continued and my final model for printing below.