Skin/Weave/Pattern

‘Fabric is the perfect mediator between the firm and the flowing.’ Nigel Coates celebrates the textile's rediscovery as a metaphor for the architectural envelope, liberating it from its reputation as having only a supporting, ‘comfort role’ in the interior. He describes his own experiments with textiles at Branson Coates Architecture and the Royal College of Art (RCA), in which they alternately become skin, weave and pattern operating at every scale from the individual body to the urban plan. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.