textile school

What principles of the textile can inspire architecture?  Threads, knots, woven surfaces: textiles are networks of connection—fragile yet resilient. From line to surface to space, the structure holds together through its intersections. Applied to architecture, these principles create spaces that are both interdependent and flexible. The new Textile Institute in Paris takes this as a starting point, exploring how weaving can become a way of designing buildings, cities, and communities.

How does a new textile institute fit into the dense fabric of Paris?  The “Passage du Caire“ in the Sentier quarter has long been a centre of textile craft, yet today it stands fragmented and underused. Paris itself is a woven city—streets, boulevards and passages create intersections throughout the city. The project continues this logic, inserting the institute as a new “knot“ in the urban fabric. The intervention strengthens the existing passage, reuses its historic structure, and overlays it with a contemporary framework that connects the street, passage, and institute into a single spatial network.

What role do material, craft, and community play in rethinking the passage? The institute is not a factory but a place of exchange—where craft, research, and design meet under one roof. Recycled textiles from the city become raw material for experimentation, shortening production chains and giving waste a second life. Architecturally, the new structure grows from the wooden skeleton of the passage, wrapped in a translucent woven skin that resonates with the metal roofs of Paris. Old and new are stitched together, creating a building that is at once robust, porous, and alive.