Assignment 5 - Personal Project

Looking back on my previous assignments I quickly came to the conclusion I would like to base my personal project on buildings.

The Shard May 2012

Initially I wanted to concentrate on reflect buildings like The Shard. The building contains grid patterns for the windows and has a very angular structure which I thought I would recreate in panels.

Sketches of panelling of The Shard

Looking at grid structures

I produced samples with dissolving paper making a grid effect from machine embroidery and overlaying it on top of a collage.
I looked at how the structure of The Shard was divided by glass and metal and which was predominant from both near and far.

The idea of reflection in a grid structure led me to look at the window frames and how they over layered to create depth

The Turning Torso in Malmo was an interesting concept and I started to look at more quirky structures


I looked at a range of different buildings and the more I researched the project the more I moved away from concentrating on The Shard and more at taking the elements I liked from other structures and blend them in to my final piece.

The patchwork on the building to the right shows the dominance of the structure when colour is used boldly and works with the building shape.

Whilst very angular, the introduction of colour softens the building.

I then found The Dancing Building in Prague which was a huge source of inspiration. The two towers are dealt very differently but equally interesting to look at as a basis of a textile project.

Sampling ideas for the windows

I knew I wanted to create the structure out of felt but was not sure how I was going to do it so played around with different samples on flat felt initially prior to drawing up a resist. 

Sketches of how the structure may work

Handmade buttons to resemble bricks

I drew sketches of the structure I wanted to create and looked at how to embroider the windows which protruded from one of the towers.

Window frames

Embroidered window frames

It was important to me that the structure was plain white and the colour came from the window and their frames, the different coloured frames were to lighten the higher they were up the structure to represent the light hitting the top of the building.

 To create the building I followed the outline of the bendy tower and made an enlarged resist for the felt.


It would need a lot of shrinkage to allow for it to stand up. I used white merino wool and rolled and threw the wet felt to get it strong enough to stand but remain soft enough to keep the quirky feel.

I decided on smaller windows to get the feeling of a hidden depth to the structure.

However I would like to play around with further versions in the future with larger windows.

The window frames were important and I hand embroidered these in different shades of blue from light grey to dark navy to show the gradient of the building and how more light would capture the top.

I put different colour organdie behind the windows which created an interesting effect inside of the workings of the building. When shining light through it and placing the structure on top of a lamp the building takes on a dramatic effect very different to the one in normal light.