Commissioned by MORE Architecture and AIM Architecture, Samira Boon designed curtains for the Lecture Hall of Jiaxing Island, a building complex in China. The design builds on Super Folds, a long-term study of 3D folding structures.
Jiaxing Island is located on the outskirts of Jiaxing, between Shanghai and Hangzhou. Jiaxing has developed rapidly in the last ten years, transforming from a rural to a densely populated urban area. The compact building complex houses offices, childcare facilities, restaurants, a hotel, gym and conference centre.
Boon has worked with the TextielLab since 2013 to develop textile structures inspired by the Japanese paper-folding art of origami. What began as a collection commission ultimately gave rise to Super Folds: complex self-folding textiles produced through a careful combination of yarn and weave. Once removed from the loom, the textiles assume the pre-programmed folds, creating a 3D structure.
The design of the curtains builds on the Super Folds project. It was adapted for the Lecture Hall in China, for example by altering the colour. This influenced how the fabric and folding structure functioned, as an extra thread was added to achieve the colour change. The folding lines also had to be adjusted for this design.
Boon trained as an architect at TU Delft and spent several years in Japan. There, she became fascinated by the 3D-folded structures in origami. In recent years, she has focused increasingly on innovative textile products and interior applications, with a particular interest in 3D structures. She creates her ‘Super Folds’ designs using Illustrator software. For more complex and irregular folding patterns, she uses a program developed by a Japanese mathematician. Boon has won numerous awards with her innovative textiles, including the Creative Heroes Award in 2017 and the Architizer Award in 2018.
