Thinking by hands in education. Experimental actions on textile surfaces between interior and design

“The “skin” of the architectonic artefact becomes the interface between the vivid feeling of living and the constitutive material of living”.(Vitta, 2008) The paper documents a work developed between didactics and research, concerning the aspects of materials of surfaces. It gathers the results of progressive experiments on soft surfaces, giving a specific attention to their perceptual and sensorial qualities. The materials are used to describe the values of surfaces such as skin of interiors or, as well, skin of objects. The will to focus the attention on the sensorial, tactile and visual aspects of the surfaces, has defined the need to identify four main compositional actions, as follows: Folding, Sewing, Weaving, Stratifying and their endless combinations. Actions on surfaces describe the process that determines the formal value to the material: working on a progressive differentiation of matters in order to obtain a development of their perceptive and sensorial qualities, the surface represents the evolution from matters to manners (Deleuze, 2007). The progressive actions of contamination and manipulation, become part of a wider theatre of new materials. The actions on surfaces arise from laboratory experiments done by hands with a particular reference to the theme of softness, comfort and transparency. The will to classify the perceptual and sensorial values of surfaces belongs since a long time to the debate of contemporary design, and this research aspires to be a contribution to new application ambits within the world of design and interiors.