Book excerpt: D_TEX presents itself as a starting point at a crossroads of ideas and debates around the complex universe of Textile Design in all its forms, manifestations and dimensions. The textile universe, allied to mankind since its beginnings, is increasingly far from being an area of exhausted possibilities, each moment proposing important innovations that need a presentation, discussion and maturation space that is comprehensive and above all inter- and transdisciplinary. Presently, the disciplinary areas where the textile area is present are increasing and important, such as fashion, home textiles, technical clothing and accessories, but also construction and health, among others, and can provide new possibilities and different disciplinary areas and allowing the production of new knowledge. D_TEX proposes to join the thinking of design, with technologies, tradition, techniques, and related areas, in a single space where ideas are combined with the technique and with the projectual and research capacity, thus providing for the creation of concepts, opinions, associations of ideas, links and connections that allow the conception of ideas, products and services. The interdisciplinary nature of design is a reality that fully reaches the textile material in its essence and its practical application, through the synergy and contamination by the different interventions that make up the multidisciplinary teams of research. The generic theme of D_TEX Textile Design Conference 2017, held at Lisbon School of Architecture of the University of Lisbon, Portugal on November 2-4, 2017, is Design the Future, starting from the crossroads of ideas and debates, a new starting point for the exploration of textile materials, their identities and innovations in all their dimensions.