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 Fabricademy’s 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
Step 1: 3D Printing¶
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.
...
My final model for printing is ...
The STL model 3 was obtained by..
Print with file [^4] was created using..
footnote fabrication files
Fabrication files are a necessary element for evaluation. You can add the fabrication files at the bottom of the page and simply link them as a footnote. This was your work stays organised and files will be all together at the bottom of the page. Footnotes are created using [ ^ 1 ] (without spaces, and referenced as you see at the last chapter of this page) You can reference the fabrication files to multiple places on your page as you see for footnote nr. 2 also present in the Gallery.
3D Models¶
upload the 3d models of MakeHuman, Final 3d modelled body, 3D Scans, etc use the fabrication files at the bottom of the page to link and upload models, referencing them with a footnote
