Zoirotia (vivid in Greek) explores making of a new textile architecture exploring a soft immersive space. Knitted in vivid colours, the installation creates a new sense of tactility and connection as visitors are enveloped in a vivid colour-scape. Zoirotia moves. Flexing and unflexing across deep timeframes, the structure moves in a slow rhythm, recomposing the structural forces of its form-found figure. Like in nature, the structure is dynamic and changing.

Zoirotia is made as a bending active structure supported by bespoke knitted membranes. By orchestrating the structural interaction between bent glass fibre rods braced by a stretchable knitted membrane, Zoirotia exists as a balance between forces. As a light-weight and resilient structure, the material system operates through redundancy and is able to absorb energy and shape change. The knitted membranes are graded creating a differentiation in their three-dimensionality, colour intensity and translucency.

The installation is developed through the making of a series of interfaces enabling the design-integrated simulation of the structure and the direct specification to CNC knitting. In Zoirotia, we are able to directly inform the bespoke knitting of every stitch in every membrane. Each membrane is unique, changing in shape, colour and density in response to local performance demands and global design intent. The project is a result of a series of interdisciplinary collaborations with textile design and structural engineering.

Zoirotia was commissioned by Zentrum Für Kunst und Medien (ZKM) Karlsruhe for the exhibition Bio-Media.