My PhD research develops production processes incorporating origami folding, shibori, additive printing and fusing techniques to create textiles that sustain three-dimensional, adaptable form with little or no supporting substructure. In these materials the textile surface itself becomes structural. The controlled packing, deployment and structural stability offered by predetermined folds in planar surfaces are extremely beneficial in many situations e.g. engineering, architecture and product design. I have devised transferable templates of folding that can be reinterpreted in a variety of material weights and scales that have potential for application in a number of these areas. The inherent mobility of these structural textiles, combined with the judicious choice of substrate and materials applied through printing and fusing, enables properties such as thermal or sound insulation, electrical conductivity or light transmission to be varied, as the situation demands. The textiles created are not only autonomous physical entities but also speculative design models. Such developments more usually originate from material science, engineering and textile technology contexts. However, by building on research carried out by these disciplines to develop folded structures but emphasising a ‘poetic’, design-orientated outlook I explore the potential for a more intuitive, nonlinear approach to highlight hitherto overlooked elements in the design process.