Patricia Urquiola’s textile adventures at Heimtextil: ‘Design is not about controlling form’

This week, Patricia Urquiola returns to Frankfurt’s Heimtextil fair (until 16 January 2026) to unveil 'Among-all', an installation exploring the Milanese designer’s textile exploration through an immersive, experiential journey. It is a demonstration of the fair's bold approach in support of textile innovation and the opportunities for creativity within the field.

At the heart of the installation is a series of radical experiments, typical of the designer’s practice. Looking at the possibilities of recycled textiles, Urquiola has brought together several innovations in the field, which are placed in a visual conversation within the fair.

‘Form should not be the main objective of design,’ Urquiola tells Wallpaper*, describing her work as a designer as being like a ‘dialogue with matter’. The objects on view are connected by a shared material ecology, the result of new ways of repurposing and recycling in collaboration with fabricators and studios that are leading material experimentation.

Patricia Urquiola presents ‘Among-all’ at Heimtexil 2026

One of the core elements of the display is a series of objects made of different interpretations of Econyl, a material created from discarded fishing nets and textile-industry waste (a corner of the space is dedicated to the material's original form, and a screen explains its processes). The material comes in two forms, used by the designer to experiment with the possibilities of industry and craft. In its textile form, it appears as a fringed upholstery fabric, used to cover a large seating object created in collaboration with Moroso and CC-tapis, an evolution of a design from 2025 that also suggests new seating typologies.

Econyl also appears as the starting point for solid objects: in its pellet form, the material is used for a collaboration with manufacturing company Caracol, comprising sculptures that exemplify a true collaboration with a machine. Urquiola asked: what happens if we let the machine paint freely with the material? The result is a series of fluid forms that resemble textiles or three-dimensional paintings in their apparent softness, while also speaking the visual language of craft.

Urquiola emphasises the importance of working with recycled materials, of elevating waste and experimenting with the scope of new, regenerated material options, even though the result may be a less controlled exercise than we are used to in design today.

Working between digital, AI-powered images and the three-dimensional world, Urquiola also presents a new approach to the Euclidean grid, shown here both as a decorative frame to the installation (made of woven selvages from 13 Rugs, the German company which also collaborated on two felted rugs on diaplay) and as a visual guide for an on-screen figure that visitors can control with their body. But she is keen to stress the obsolete nature of such a grid in contemporary creation: 'It's part of our culture, but it doesn't carry the same value anymore,' she explains. 'For me, design is not about controlling forms anymore, it's more about a negotiation with matter, a dialogue, a process.'

Rather than providing a series of practical tools for designing domesticity, Urquiola's display reaches into uncharted territory to suggest how design can rethink old ways and explore a new dialogue between creator and material.

At the centre, visitors are welcomed by a silver creature, zoomorphic but abstract, made with Ohoskin, an Italian textile innovation created from discarded orange peel. Futuristic in its silvery guise, it's an interpretation of a digital object that Urquiola first presented at Heimtextil in 2025, and further developed for 2026.

'We are a nexus of coexistence between craft and industry,' concludes Urquiola. 'I don't believe in purity, and through my work, I propose a new dialogue of woven ideas. I don't believe in perfection, I'd rather strive for transformation.'