Crafting the Future : 3D Printing and Textiles

Dutch Electronic Arts Festival 2012. Rotterdam

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3D Pritning and Textiles was a workshop conducted to explore the possibilities of 3D printing as a tool in textile making, and textiles as a material for 3D printing. The 3D printer used was Ultimaker and techniques such as embroidery, knitting, crochet and tatting were used for exploration.

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Participants were encouraged to see how the technique of 3D printing could support the making of 3D-textiles where the making of the textiles could be combined with the object produced by the 3D printer. Another idea was to create 3D printed objects which then lend itself to be transferred into 3D textiles through various textile techniques. They also explored ways to combine the hard plastic of the 3D printer with soft textile material to create objects that were both hard and soft, stable and flexible. In one case the 3D printer itself was a member of the 'knitting' circle, producing 'threads' that were used by the others in the circle to combine into their knitting.

​Using the 3D printer to print directly on the textiles also resulted in very interesting findings such as enabling the textiles to fold and pleat into various 3D shapes and create 3D shapes emerged from the textiles. 

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Explorations from the 2 day workshop highlighted the potential for new possibilities with the combination of 3D printing and textiles and the need for further in-depth research in this area. This could be in finding new ways to create textiles and introduce a new aesthetics to the field. It could also push the 3D printer further in making it a printer that prints objects in textiles or where textiles can act as a support material for 3D printers such as the Ultimaker and enable it to print more complex objects that higher end 3D printers can print.



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​In collaboration with V_2, Joris van Tubergen (and team) and Mika Satomi.​​