Marginalized as an outmoded domestic handcraft yet accepted as a prevalent industrial process, knitting's simple construction techniques inherently produce strong, lightweight, and elastic fabrics capable of curvature in multiple, simultaneous planes. Knitting is a self organizing process; its structures of pattern generate texture, surface, and form. A review of the past and current practice of knitting within textile production reveals knitting's paradoxical symbolic function; one that is simultaneously culturally loaded and ambiguous. Further exploration within the context of architecture highlights precedents for the architectural translation of knitting as method, material and metaphor. Knitting is proposed as a logical and topological model for architectural production with the capacity to generate an infinite variety of architectural solutions. Linking the ball of yarn with which one knits (a clew or clue) and the basic knit unit (a loop), the myth of the labyrinth provides the guiding thread for this investigation.
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