MSc. Buso, A.
Alice Buso is a PhD candidate in Animated Textiles at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. Her research investigates the experience of Animated Textiles, which are textiles with active and responsive capabilities by means of textiles' inherent properties or by embedding digital, physical and biological components. Alice is intrigued by potentially rich experiences elicited by animated textiles, particularly their action potential in the use time, i.e., their performativity. She explores how these performative experiences are designed by tuning the qualities of animated textiles at matter, form, composition, and computation levels toward meaningful and prolonged relationships with textile artefacts.
Alice follows a hands-on material-driven approach which combines intimate making and systematic exploration of textiles' performativity in laboratory and longitudinal user studies. Her work contributes to design and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) communities by providing a vocabulary, techniques, and unique research artefacts to inspire and help explore this exciting and complex design space of animated textiles.
Academic Background
Alice Buso obtained a Bachelor's in Product Design from Politecnico di Torino, Italy. In 2017 she moved to the Netherlands to pursue a Master's in Integrated Product Design at Delft University of Technology. In her MSc thesis, in collaboration with BMW, she designed a soft robotic sensing and actuating unit for autonomous vehicle seats to improve their comfort. After graduating in 2019, she further worked on the project as a researcher in the Department of Sustainable Design Engineering.
Alice currently works on her PhD research within the same department, in the Materials Experience Lab and the Emerging Materials Lab.
Education
- 2020 – present
PhD candidate – Animated Textiles, Delft University of Technology - 2017 – 2019
MSc Integrated Product Design, Delft University of Technology - 2013 – 2016
BSc Design and Visual Communication, Product Design, Politecnico di Torino - 2015
Erasmus+ program, Elisava - Barcelona School of Design and Engineering
Experience
- 2019 – 2020
Researcher, Delft University of Technology
Research and development of soft robotic technology to improve seat comfort - 2018 – 2019
Graduate student, BMW
Master's graduation project. Thesis title: "Improving comfort of autonomous vehicle seats with soft robotic technology" - 2018
Industrial Design Intern, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
Embodiment design of the briefing concept "Blue Connect" for the renovation of KLM Crew Centre in Schipol Airport - 2016
Product Design intern at King Kong Design, Barcelona
Involved in the research project(s):

Alice Buso
- a.buso@tudelft.nl
- alicebuso.com
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Room 32-B-3-210
"If you are not curious, forget it." - Achille Castiglioni