Multimorphic textile-forms, obtained through simultaneous thinking of material and form that change in design and/or use time, have the potential to elicit diverse performances in the use of textile artefacts, thereby extending their relevance in our everyday lives. We present AnimaTo, a multimorphic textile artefact designed for performativity that reacts to water exposure via the shrinking and dissolving of its fibres. Adopting a material-driven design approach, we engaged in material tinkering with these qualities to achieve changes in the texture, size, and shape of AnimaTo. Following this exploration, we conducted a pilot study to gain insights into AnimaTo's temporal behaviour and performativity in use. In the further development of the artefact, we highlight the challenges that arise in producing high-fidelity prototypes. This work grants insights into how designers can tune material, form, and temporal qualities of textile artefacts towards multiplicity of use and prolonged user-textile relationships.

MobiTouch is a wearable haptic device that integrates pneumatic and vibrotactile technologies to enhance touch sensations. The system addresses the slow responsiveness of small pneumatic components by compensating with vibrations, allowing for more diverse touch patterns. The wrist prototype operates wireless, is powered by a rechargeable battery, and features customisable touch patterns through an external controller. MobiTouch’s design improves portability and responsiveness for haptic pneumatic wearables, offering potential applications in affective touch and wireless tactile transmission.

We developed a shape-changing constructive kit, named Mimosa1. A key component of the toolkit is the modular hinges, each of which is equipped with two antagonistic shape memory alloy (SMA) wires. One wire deforms the hinge to approach its predetermined angle at high temperature, and another wire drives the hinge back when it cools down. Hinge leaves are available in different materials including acrylic, cardboard and textile, which increases the versatility of the toolkit. Every hinge weighs 2.1-5.4 g, and generates up to 5.7 N actuation force. A Bluetooth control module was developed, enabling remote control of the shape-changing objects. Mimosa aims to inspire designers to explore and create interactive shape-morphing objects with SMAs. A few examples are given such as a gripper, a rolling robot, a butterfly, an airplane and a self-closing pocket. A workshop study with 6 participants showed that Mimosa indeed motivated and inspired the participants to create new ideas.

Voice is a rich modality for conveying emotions, however emotional prosody production can be situationally or medically impaired. Since thermal displays have been shown to evoke emotions, we explore how thermal stimulation can augment perception of neutrally-spoken voice messages with affect. We designed ThermalWear, a wearable on-chest thermal display, then tested in a controlled study (N=12) the effects of fabric, thermal intensity, and direction of change. Thereafter, we synthesized 12 neutrally-spoken voice messages, validated (N=7) them, then tested (N=12) if thermal stimuli can augment their perception with affect. We found warm and cool stimuli (a) can be perceived on the chest, and quickly without fabric (4.7-5s) (b) do not incur discomfort (c) generally increase arousal of voice messages and (d) increase / decrease message valence, respectively. We discuss how thermal displays can augment voice perception, which can enhance voice assistants and support individuals with emotional prosody impairments.

The emergence of smart materials has urged design education to keep up and take part in introducing them to design students. There has been a great deal of work on teaching conventional materials like wood, metal and polymers in product design. Yet when it comes to learning smart materials, the sources are very limited. Our research group in Delft University of Technology has initiated a number of projects, particularly focusing on understanding technical and experiential characteristics of smart materials as materials of design. Our mission is to communicate smart material qualities through pre-design tinkering activities and functional demonstrators, which also serve as a source for inspiration. In this paper, we explain our approach through an example case on electroluminescent materials.