The AA building Fashion workshop in Paris, as an effort of expanding the knowledge of architecture across other media, is growing rapidly and becoming a reference point within in its own educational field.This is a project created during this course. Course founder and director is Jorge Ayala. Elastic Spines is a research project developed during the ten-days workshop organized by the AA Paris Visiting School on the main agenda Building Fashion by Olivia Pearson (UK) and Giulia Conti (Italy).

Within the research on Self Assembled Prêt-a-Porter they investigated complex and multilayered spaces controlled by soft, elastic spines. While fashion is rapidly moving in the realm of every day life they believe in the need of rethinking the approach to traveling items. In this iper-connected world, where the post-contemporary urban traveler is a main character, they propose the next generation of backpacks, specifically tailored on the owner body, adaptable and flexible to any condition of movement, weather and storing need. While approaching the idea of multilayered spaces they looked at the process of layerization of the material in nature, driven by the environmental forces and the way it creates an amazing variety of geometries.

The research started with a parallel investigation into the physical and the digital on how to control the potentialities of elastic fabrics restrained by some soft spines sewn between the various layers. On the physical side they experimented on a set of tensioned three-layers elastic net models, which produces different configurations according to the mutual position and curvature of the spines. They isolated the middle layer and digitally simulated the transformation it undergoes in case of:

1. continuous curved spines
2. inverted curved spines
3. shifted curved spines

These simple simulations showed the great variety of spaces and curvatures we can obtain by tensioning and inflating the fabric between the spines. They digitally investigated the morphology of the human body and mapped its geography of movement by the mean of a point location color map in order to have a local interaction between body curvature and movement ability. This research was translated into a collection of points and lines where the denser represents the more flexible the backpack must become. From this diagram they extracted the elastic spines of that specific body.

An important aspect of the research and design process included the continuous feedback loop between physical and digital modelling. The overlap between these processes provided continuous design development and informed an evolving aesthetic demonstrating the application of the system. Fabric experimentation and test modelling developed an understanding of the fabrication process. Errors and faults in manufacture informed the final prototype.

Every outcome is specifically tailored on the owner individuality… you can choose the size, the color and the shape, it’s totally waterproof and its weight is less than 200 gr. Enjoy your Elastic Spines!

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