In this DEMO, co-investigator members Miranda Smitheram and Alice Jarry, student member Francis Ouellette, with their guest Lucie Leroux, explore how bio-inspired folding can function as a research-creation practice bridging design, living systems, and soft robotics. Through practical experimentation with paper and textiles, participants in an April 2026 workshop transformed principles of growth, movement, and responsiveness found in nature into adaptive structures.
Combining biomimicry, origami engineering, and speculative design, this approach fosters an open, iterative process where folding becomes a dynamic tool for prototyping responsive forms and reimagining material systems. The workshop was part of the Milieux Institute Reimagining Research Workshop Series, four hands-on session offering students a chance to expand their skill set.
Folding as Research-Creation Across Design, Living Systems, and Soft Robotics
Ⓒ Francis Ouellette
Ⓒ Francis Ouellette
Approach
Bio-Inspired Folding Techniques was a hands-on workshop that positions folding as a research-creation methodology at the intersection of design, engineering, and living systems. Rather than viewing folding as a purely aesthetic operation, the workshop approached it as a dynamic and performative process that could be used to translate principles of growth, deployability, and responsiveness observed in biological systems into material experimentation.
Hosted by Lucie Leroux (Laboratoire Textile, Montreal), in collaboration with Alice Jarry (Speculative Life BioLab) and Miranda Smitheram (MaSH Lab), the workshop was part of Milieux Institute’s “Reimagining Research” Spring Workshop Series. It invited participants to engage with folding as a speculative and relational tool for exploring and thinking through structure, movement, and adaptability.
Ⓒ Francis Ouellette
Ⓒ Francis Ouellette
Theoretical Framework
The workshop drew on an interdisciplinary framework spanning biomimicry, soft robotics, textile practices, and speculative design. In this context, folding goes beyond mere representation, employed as a means of translation to materialize processes seen in nature such as expansion, locomotion, responsiveness, and transformation.
Influenced by origami-based engineering and deployable systems, the workshop incorporates a research-creation methodology, emphasizing prototyping, embodied knowledge, and material thinking. Folding becomes a process which enables new forms of adaptive and responsive structures, where biological intelligence and human fabrication unite.
Ⓒ Francis Ouellette
Ⓒ Francis Ouellette
This approach resonates with contemporary work in origami-inspired soft robotics, where folding patterns inform the development of flexible, lightweight, and deployable systems. Additionally, it connects to textile practices, where surface, structure, and behavior are interdependent elements of this system.
The workshop was developed as part of the project Origami-inspired Deployable Sensoriactuator Soft Robots, supported by the New Frontiers in Research Funds (NFRF), which explores the integration of folding principles into responsive robotic systems. It contributes to ongoing research bridging artistic experimentation and technological innovation, following biomimicry principles to inspire motion and form.
Ⓒ Francis Ouellette
Ⓒ Francis Ouellette
Process
The four-hour workshop was structured as an iterative sequence of demonstrations, hands-on experimentation, and final group reflection. Participants were first introduced to fundamental folding techniques derived from origami and textile manipulation. These techniques were contextualized through examples from flora, fauna and nature systems found in Quebec, such as the dynamic movement of a caterpillar, the intricate patterns of falling snowflakes, the pattern and locomotion of a fire-tornado, and the helical growth pattern of narwhals’ tusks.
Ⓒ Francis Ouellette
Ⓒ Francis Ouellette
Through guided exercises, participants prototyped a series of paper and fabric structures in groups and individually. These experiments highlighted the relationship between geometry and movement, folding as transformation, and how material behavior shapes and adapts itself under different levels of tension, compression, and deployment.
The workshop encouraged an open-ended, exploratory process, where participants were invited to combine techniques, test variations, and develop their own folding logics. The emphasis was placed on process over outcome, with special attention to how forms evolved through hands-on manipulation and creative iteration.
Aims and Outcomes
The workshop aimed to introduce folding as a research-creation methodology, promoting interdisciplinary exchange between art, design, and engineering practices, provide accessible tools for prototyping adaptive and soft structures, and help to expand participants’ approaches to material experimentation and form-making. The collective outcomes included a series of experimental prototypes produced during the session, as well as the development of methodological approaches that participants can integrate into their own practices.
Ⓒ Francis Ouellette
Prompting experimentation and design speculation across fashion, textiles, interiors, architecture and built environment, the prototypes propose ideas for design and production of materials, forms and structures, and systems, that are modelled on biological entities and processes.
Ⓒ Francis Ouellette
Ⓒ Francis Ouellette
Technical Resources
The workshop utilized accessible, low-tech materials and tools, including paper and textile substrates such as silk organza and cotton, cutting and scoring tools, folding templates and pattern guides. No prior technical expertise was required. The emphasis was on hands-on engagement and material exploration rather than specialized equipment. The workshop took place at the Milieux Resource Room, within a research environment that supports interdisciplinary experimentation in arts, culture, and technology.
Lucie Leroux is a Montreal-based textile designer and founder of Laboratoire Textile. Trained in design and architecture in France, she began her career in architectural lighting before shifting toward textile practices after relocating to Canada. Her work explores the relationship between pattern, light, and material, informed by experiences on large-scale projects such as the Shanghai World Expo and costume design for Cirque du Soleil. Since founding Laboratoire Textile in 2012, she has developed a research-driven practice that bridges craft, design, and experimentation. Leroux has presented work across Québec, including at the Musée des Beaux Arts de Montréal and the Musée de la Civilisation in Quebec City. She has been teaching textile practices since 2014 and continues to contribute to contemporary textile discourse through workshops, research, and pedagogy.
Dr. Alice Jarry is an artist-researcher and Associate Professor in Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University, where she holds the Concordia University Research Chair in Critical Practices in Materials and Materiality. She is also Associate Director of the Milieux Institute and Director of the Speculative Life Biolab. Her interdisciplinary practice operates at the intersection of bioart, material science, and socio-environmental design, with a focus on responsive systems, biomaterials, and residual matter. Through installations, workshops, and collaborative research, she explores how material transformation, across site, technology, and communities, can generate adaptive forms and resilient socio-environmental relations. She is co-PI of the NFRF-funded project Origami-inspired Deployable Sensoriactuator Soft Robots.
Dr. Miranda Smitheram is a design researcher, educator, and artist, and Associate Professor of Material Futures in the Department of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University. She is Co-Director of the Textile and Materiality research cluster and Director of the MaSH Lab at the Milieux Institute. Originally from Aotearoa/New Zealand, her practice is grounded in tactile and embodied methodologies that center collaboration with environments, seeing ecosystems, socio-cultural matter, and more-than-humans as active participants. Her research explores decolonial material practices through an ethics of care and relationality. Working across biofabrication, textile surfaces and structures, and digital processes, she investigates how material transformation can propose localized, sustainable futures. She is a co-applicant of the NFRF-funded project Origami-inspired Deployable Sensoriactuator Soft Robots.
Providing research assistance for the workshop, Francis Ouellette is a multidisciplinary artist living in Montreal, embodying the roles of photographer, designer, musician, organizer, and archivist. He is a Computation Arts graduate and is pursuing a Masters in Design, with a focus on waste, contamination, and decay. He is a member of Interzone Editions and manages No Exp. He has played at Mutek, Centre PHI, La Cinematheque Quebecoise, Festival TransAmériques, Silencio Club, and more. He has worked with Centre CLARK, Milieux Institute, Applied AI Institute, Conférences Hypothèses, and has attended the SÍM Artist Residency in Iceland.
Acknowledgements
This workshop was part of the New Frontiers in Research Fund research project Origami-inspired Deployable Sensoriactuator Soft Robots, research team: Hamid Akbarzadeh (PI), Alice Jarry (co-PI), Miranda Smitheram, Marta Cerruti, and David Meger (collaborators). The event was supported by the Hexagram Network. Additional support provided by Milieux Institute and the Milieux Resource Room at Concordia University, the MaSH Lab, and the Speculative Life Biolab.
