Soft Interfaces explores how textiles can sense and respond to touch. By embedding conductive liquid metals into stretchable fabrics, we created surfaces that are not only functional but also tactile, adaptive, and visually refined.
The year-long research partnership resulted in an interactive lamp with a textile screen that reacts to the gentlest of touch. By stretching the fabric, the cross-section of the liquid metal pathways changes. A subtle shift that the system reads to adjust light temperature or intensity.
This intuitive, touch-based control hints at a new generation of human–object relationship. Beyond the lab, Soft Interfaces could shape operating systems for cars, transform home textiles into responsive surfaces, or bring new levels of sensitivity to medical products.
Cedits
Deisgn & Concpet
@wintdesignlab
Technical Development
@fraunhofer_izm
Textile Development
@thecasestudies
Video and Photography
@michelle.mantel
Sound
Rain Over Kyoto Station - The Mini Vandals
Funding
Wissenschaft Kunst Design
Fraunhofer Gesellschaft
#SoftInterfaces
#MaterialInnovation
#TextileFutures
#SmartTextiles
#DesignForInnovation
#NextGenMaterials
#MaterialExploration
#AdaptiveSurfaces
#DesignResearch
ARA started as a creative exchange with @protoeditions.xyz , a platform exploring the intersection of technology, environment, and society.
This project aims to explore how working with air as a material can lead to more durable and efficient ways of creating spaces and protecting goods at various scales.
Inspired by natural tessellation patterns, this project transitions from the microscopic to the architectural scale. Structured into three chapters, the narrative explores a design methodology grounded in research, experimentation, and applied imagination.
#SustainableInnovation
#FutureMaterials
#Biodesign
#TessellationDesign
#ResearchThroughDesign
#ArchitecturalExploration
#MaterialEcology
#protoeditions
#WINTDesignLab
We envision a future where the synergy of technology and historic craftsmanship paves the way for new forms of aesthetic expression and production techniques.
Tracks is a playground for innovation, exploring diverse applications from installations to functional design products.
BSFZ certified research
Supported by @gmundpaper
#RoboticProduction #ProductsOnDemand #ParametricDesign
#ParametricPaper #SustainableCrafts #CustomLampshades #DesignResearch #designlab #gmund #recycledpaper #walllamp #lampshades #folding
We are looking for a graphic design intern to join our team 💫
Time:
Starting from May-June: 4-6 months
Focus:
Visual communication, interfaces, visions & concepts, material development sector, scenography
What you bring:
- Solid Figma skills (required)
- Interest in working in between physical and digital design projects
- Experience in Blender and Webflow is a plus
Open to students completing a mandatory university internship.
Send your portfolio to: [email protected]
Join us for the launch of @lessenzialestudiomagazine Special Issue during Milan Design Week.
April 21, 6:30–9 PM
FRAB’S, Via Giuseppe Sirtori 11, Milan
We are happy to show Soft Interfaces in great company! Looking forward to seeing you tonight✨
We partnered with Mimotype to design MESMER01, their first-generation bio-optoelectronic chip. The prototype integrates magnetically sensitive fluorescent proteins (mScarlet3–FMN) with advanced semiconductor substrates, enabling magnetic-field-tunable fluorescence and field-responsive electron transfer at room temperature.
Our role spanned product design, prototyping, and brand development, shaping the chip’s form, function, and how it would be demonstrated to the world. The result is a platform that combines biocompatibility, deep-tissue red emission, and quantum-level spin sensitivity.
#productdesign #bioelectronics #materialinnovation #designresearch #deeptech
Translating quantum biology into a tangible product vision.
Mimotype’s goal is ambitious: create the first hybrid bio-optoelectronic chip for tissue engineering and soft-matter systems. But cutting-edge biomaterials research often remains abstract, trapped in lab notebooks and academic papers.
Our challenge was to transform their breakthrough science into something tangible: a physical prototype that communicates potential to collaborators, investors, and research institutions.
#biotechnology #deeptech #i̇ndustrialdesign #medtech #hardware
Born from the constraints of handling fluid systems in a laboratory desktop environment, the biosensor reimagines the act of analysis as a physical interaction. The handle becomes both interface and instrument, a first of its kind. With a circular motion, the sensor opens and closes, initiating the analytical process. As the mechanism unfolds, a display is revealed, tracking time and visualizing the sensor’s development, turning an invisible process into a tangible moment.
Full project at wintdesignlab.de/mesmer01 or link in bio. @mimotypetechnologies
#BioOptoelectronics #QuantumBiology #DeepTech #Biomaterials #ProductDesign
MESMER01 - Translating quantum biology into a tangible product vision 🪼
For the team at @mimotypetechnologies , a deep-tech startup pioneering bio-inspired optical materials, we partnered to shape a distinctive product vision and brand experience that reflects their visionary research and innovation.
Mimotype’s vision is to create the first hybrid bio-optoelectronic chip for tissue engineering and soft-matter systems. MESMER01, their first-generation prototype, integrates magnetically sensitive fluorescent proteins (mScarlet3–FMN) with advanced semiconductor substrates, enabling magnetic-field-tunable fluorescence and field-responsive electron transfer at room temperature.
Full project at wintdesignlab.de/mesmer01
#BioOptoelectronics #QuantumBiology #DeepTech #Biomaterials #ProductDesign IndustrialDesign TissueEngineering SyntheticBiology
RECAP:
Studio Module EMERGENT MATTER led by @wintdesignlab
This module explores how familiar materials, from paper to textiles, metals, or composites can be rediscovered through emerging processes such as robotic manipulation, computational patterning, or novel fabrication techniques. Through these methods, we uncover new geometries, performances, and interaction patterns that were previously latent in the material itself.
Materials are never neutral , they carry histories, constraints, and hidden potentials. In design, we often think of materials as static inputs shaped into desired outcomes. But what if we turned this relationship around and treated materials as active agents, collaborators, and provocateurs?
By folding, bending, stretching, and programming materials, designers can unlock new possibilities while still negotiating the stubborn, sometimes surprising constraints of the medium. The material’s stiffness, grain, elasticity, and resistance become not obstacles, but guides that shape design outcomes. How do new processes reveal underlying material intelligence?
How can we learn from constraints instead of working against them?
What new forms, interfaces, and interactions emerge when we “listen” to matter?
- Students: @caja.peters@kerber.franziska@tjardt@karlsperhake@madeleinehykes@nathanaelboell@romanmeinname@michabagg@karya.anliak@mauricegrunder@ciaokishore
Tutors: Robin Hoske @robinhoske & Felix Rasehorn @felixrasehorn / WINT Design Lab @wintdesignlab
-
@zhdk_design@zhdkcampus #emergent #matter #material #hiddenpotentials #relationship experiment wint industrialdesign ma_industrialdesign_zhdk zhdkdesign zhdk
Kicking off 2026 with energy, curiosity, and experimentation.
The WINT team wishes you a creative year ahead! Let’s connect for more exploration and innovation.
🎥 Robotic dispensing developed at @wintdesignlab
#innovation #robotics #automation #designresearch #futureofdesign dispensing liquids 2026
