Engineered textiles

In terms of structures/construction and new materials, I suspect a good case could be made that the area of engineered textiles will be significant leader of future possibilities, largely because of their potential for integrating so many capacities into the one material.

An exhibition in 2005 at the Cooper Hewitt museum, EXTREME TEXTILES, explored some of the potential via some really interesting examples. Have a good look through the on-line exhibition. It’s worth the time. You can also browse the book that goes with the exhibition here.
There are examples in there that range from small, stick on wearable smart devices, to woven building structures or energy harvesting textile surfaces.

more here and the SOFT HOUSE here(which is somewhat like Corb’s Domino gone soft).

I would also recommend a browse of what you can get access to in this book on new materials called Ultra Light – Super Strong. Same bunch as the ‘Extreme Textiles’ exhibition and book above (Matilda McQuaid).

Engineered textiles and composites @ Manchester

This is an extremely annoyingly constructed powerpoint presentation, but it does give a good overview of the potential in engineered textile research and development.
Perhaps easier to watch is a video version of the same powerpoint presentation:
http://www.slideshare.net/mschongkong/smart-textiles

An article on Textiles in Aerospace applications.