SoftMatters

is a post-doc project undertaken by Ana Piñeyro in the context of the Eco-design & creation Chaire supported by Décathlon at Ecole des Arts Décoratifs – PSL.

Crafting Behaviour explores structural design strategies for responsive and active filament-based material systems in the context of soft robotics, with a focus on the expressiveness of behaviour. The work frames variation as an inherent expressive feature of materials and harnesses its potential to generate instances of behavioural unpredictability as a means of imbuing soft machines with qualities associated with the natural and the living.

Following a crafts-based and material-led approach to textiles, the project explores the combination of heat-responsive active filaments (Piñeyro, 2020) with conventional, non-active ones in the design of two- and three-dimensional mono-material systems. Depicting behaviour as emerging at the interplay of material properties, structural configuration, and environmental conditions, the research identifies structural mechanisms that underpin movement expressiveness and contributes strategies and methods for the modulation of the temporal and spatial features of behaviour, as well as for the generation of diverse movement types.

Through the quality of their transformations, these filament-based bodies invite contemplation, drawing us into their rhythms. They reach out to our sensory experience, subtly mirroring aspects of our gestures and bodily expressions, which we recognise anew—ultimately inviting us to imagine how we might coexist with future forms of autonomous artificial behaviour.

Principal investigator: Ana Piñeyro

Advisory team: Samuel Bianchini and Aurélie Mosse (EnsadLab), Sabrina Oliveira (Decathlon Advance Design)

Funding: Chaire Eco-design & Création, Decathlon 

Acknowledgement: Emmanuel Mahé, Edith Buser, Martine Nicot, Caroline Dupré, Olivier Bienz, Christophe Pornay, Daniel Suarez, Félix Vanneste, Börkur Sigurbjörnsson, Martin Piñeyro, Abbey Muzatko, Clement Assoun, Laura Barthier, Mona Cara.

Related publications

• Piñeyro, A, 2025, Crafting behaviour: variation et imprévisibilité dans la conception des systèmes de matériaux actifs à base de filaments, In: E. Tibloux (ed.) Surface de réparation : Design pour un monde meilleur. Paris: Ecole des Arts Décoratifs – PSL, pp. 70–71.
• Piñeyro, Ana, 2020, Thesis, Animating matter: A material-led exploration into the kinetic potential of nylon monofilament, PhD thesis, Royal College of Arts, School of Design.

Showcased in

•  « Oscillation »,  curated by  Catherine Bédard, Alice Jarry, Samuel Bianchini, Marie-Pier Boucher,  Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, 16th of October 2025-16th of January 2026.
•  « Surface de réparation. Design pour un monde meilleur »,  curated by Alice Audoin, Magasins Généraux, Pantin, 5-16 novembre 2025.