Design Map · Eindhoven
Soft Encounters
Graduation project by Daniela Monedero Simon at Design Academy Eindhoven, 2026. Shown during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven on Design Map, location F5.
This installation consists of three knitted tools of interaction that use textile to guide two people in playful encounters. It reactivates touch as a space for connection, vulnerability and shared presence. The textiles promote bodily awareness and attentiveness to one another through constant physical collaboration and negotiation. Playful encounters reawaken the emotional and social dimensions of touch, opening space for connection and vulnerability.
The textile pieces were developed from a series of studies on how people engage and move in relation to one another. Drawing inspiration from sportswear, the structural knits adapt and distort the form and movement of the body. Furthermore, the shape of the objects and patterns of the knit not only accommodate the human form but also subtly suggest how the pieces are activated. The knitwear operates as both material and mediator, guiding the relationships between form, body and movement.