This thesis project is a research and design work created for the master’s diploma in Integrated Product Design, TU Delft, aiming to explore the relationship between woven textiles and product design in the context of interior spaces, through the lens of autonomous activation and motion for better living environment. Textiles can acquire shape shifting properties thanks to electronic actuators and other times thanks to the inherent properties of the materials themselves. In this case, using the Material Driven Design methodology, woven textiles were designed to be able to integrate Shape Memory Alloy wires acting as actuators without the use of electric current. The input is the heat from the environment and the output is the shape change and consequently the user’s experience while interacting with the product. Contribution to physical and psychological wellbeing is the ultimate goal of this interaction. The main tool for the exploration of the woven forms was the digital Jacquard TC2 loom which is known in the textile practice as a tool for quick iterations and intricate structures and patterns. After analysing the basic features of the materials through the tinkering process, four concept forms with different textile structures were created. These were tested on technical level to discover the biggest potentials of the system on shape change and on experiential level with user tests to distinguish the material qualities of the textile that promote wellbeing. Considering the findings from both of the studies, new considerations emerged and one final concept was created and manufactured. It represented an autonomous sun shading system to regulate natural light for interiors and thus provide thermal comfort. The project concludes with the final insights about weaving and shape change and any existing limitations and suggestions for further exploration and testing of the product.

In this graduation project the design process: the Potential to Value Circle, for designing from a waste stream is presented. The Potential to Value Circle creates a structured way of working in which the potential of a waste stream is translated to value. Value is generated by combining the perspectives of material, stakeholders and context around a waste stream into a concept direction. Through this process, The Bin guides their clients to take the next steps in becoming part of a circular economy. This project was done in collaboration with The Bin. The Bin is a startup in the circular economy. They help their clients to become part of a circular economy by creating circular concepts out of their waste streams and setting up a circular system around these concepts. These waste streams can be defined as products at their end-of-life or by-products from a production line. Currently, the Bin bases its process on the circular frameworks the Value Hill (Achterberg et al., 2016), R9-list (Potting et al., 2017) and the Butterfly diagram (EllenMacArthur Foundation, 2019). These frameworks give the bin a high-level overview of circular value creation. However, they want to have a more step by step process that helps to turn waste streams into circular concepts. This was the essence of their request for this graduation project and resulted in the Potential to Value Circle. The Potential to Value Circle approaches a waste stream from different perspectives, resulting in opportunities that get turned into a concept direction that uses the waste stream to move towards a circular economy. The Potential to Value Circle is built up in three phases, 1) Analysis, 2) Combining, and 3) Circular design goal. The first phase presents how an understanding of the elements around a waste stream can be created, by analysing material, stakeholders and context. Based on this, potentials are formulated. In phases 2 and 3, the potentials of phase 1 are combined, which allows translating the potentials of the waste stream into opportunities. With these opportunities, a concept direction is formulated that creates value. Three ways of applying the Potential to Value Circle are presented, on which the Workshop is elaborated further. The workshop shows how to work in three hours with the Potential to Value Circle to a circular design goal with the client.

The textile and clothing industry is one of the most polluting industries worldwide and requires the use of many resources.Textile-to-textile recycling can be crucial for closing the material loop and transition towards a circular textile and clothing industry. Currently, only 1% of textile waste is recycled into new high-quality textile items. The Netherlands has ambitious circularity goals and textile-to-textile recycling should be scaled up to reach a 100% circular industry in 2050. This research explores the textile-to-textile recycling niche in the Netherlands from a transition perspective.

The field of interactive textiles has many names, all describing textiles that interact with the environment, often using electronics to create interactivity. However, combining textiles with electronics creates hard to recycle materials. In this research, linen is proposed as a sustainable alternative, using its hygromorphic characteristics to evoke interactivity. Guided by the material driven design method, this research experimented with linen yarns and woven textiles, looking at their behavior when wetted. The results, showing which variables of a yarn and woven textile influence its behavior, are gathered in a design space overview and applied during the creation of a demonstrator. This demonstrator demonstrates how manipulation of the variables can create a piece behaving as intended. The design space overview provides designers who want to create interactive textiles using linen with design guidelines. Lastly, future product examples are presented showing the possibilities of using linen and its hygromorphic characteristics.

The clothing industry is one of the most polluting industries worldwide (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017). The current industry for producing garments is built on the overproduction of cut-and-sewn textile products, which are produced as fast as possible for as little money as possible. The denim industry is a major contributor, producing over four billion denim garments every year (Toepel, 2018). Over the last 150 years, the aesthetics of a pair of jeans and a denim jacket has barely changed, which is a result of this cut-and-sew fast fashion industry that still exists. A way to reduce the global impact of denim garment manufacturing would be to reduce the number of production steps. This research aimed to investigate 3D weaving to rethink the production process for a denim jacket. 3D weaving combines woven textile design and garment design in multi-layer textile forms. With 3D weaving, the number of production steps after weaving and the resulting cutting waste can be reduced by weaving parts of the garment as already connected pieces. This project is executed in a sustainable context of limiting pre-consumer waste and reducing the number of parts to assemble the denim jacket. A change in the manufacturing process of a denim jacket will raise the question if the 3D woven denim jacket can and also has to look the same as a denim jacket produced with the regular cut-and-sew method. The 3D woven denim jacket versions in this report show how and to what extent this is possible. These concepts also show how this new production method affects the aesthetic outcome of denim jackets. This report starts with setting the context of denim jackets, the industry and its polluting side. After introducing 3D weaving and setting the criteria the process of experiments is explained and visualised. Research through design has been the basis of this research. This iterative research led to three 3D woven versions of a chosen concept. These prototypes were developed at Diamond Denim during a visit to their factory in Pakistan through many weave cycles. One of the outcomes is a zero-waste 3D woven jacket. The aesthetic of the 3D woven jackets was found to fit the description of a denim jacket but was different due to the fabric density, texture and raw fraying seams. Change is inevitable. Let’s wear the change!

India is burdened by a variety of waste streams originating from both domestic and non-domestic sources, as a result of both production and consumption activities. The current infrastructure presents a challenge in handling these waste streams, resulting in a substantial volume of waste being mismanaged, losing value, and more concerningly, harming local communities and the environment. This project employed systemic design to explore a circular approach to this issue, namely to create value from textile waste, and how these activities may be enabled through a communication means. Cotton-based textile waste generated by first-tier garment manufacturers in India was placed as a system of interest. Through primary and secondary research, further understanding of the system was gathered. Three methods of analysis yielded insights on the stakeholders, (value creation) activities, material flow, as well as barriers and drivers of value creation. Ideas collected from creative brainstorming sessions, combined with research insights, produced potential leverage points for interventions in the system, that led to the formulation of a design direction and a future vision. An intervention in the form of an online knowledge base was conceptualised with the intent of closing knowledge gaps on circularity and the textile value chain, in order to propel informed circular actions from a system lens. It is targeted toward (potential) value creators with an existing motivation to create solutions for textile waste. The way of communicating information was built upon learnings from card sorting activities and the Three Horizons framework. Evaluation with the potential audience showed that the concept offered a valuable knowledge foundation in developing textile waste solutions. Additionally, it highlighted that more interventions would indeed be necessary to translate motivation into action. Learnings from the evaluation sessions were then incorporated into the concept iteration as well as future recommendations. This project was organised with Enviu as client partner, as part of the Putting Waste to Work project in partnership with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Concordia Textiles, and Purfi Global.

Current practices in the textile industry significantly contribute to environmental and social issues. Textile-forms have potential to support the transition towards a more sustainable system, but woven textile-forms are currently rare due to most looms being designed to solely create flat sheets of fabric. The possibilities for woven textile-forms, if the fabric could be shaped directly on the loom, have therefore been left unexplored. This project proposes a way to change the weaving process and the loom to enable the creation of 3D and non-rectangular 2D fabrics. An add-on is introduced that can provide standard looms with the required functionalities, which was validated with a functional prototype for a Magic Dobby shaft loom. The assortment of 3D and non-rectangular 2D fabric samples created with use of the add-on prototype show the potential of the proposed method and tool for creating textile products while requiring less post-processing and eliminating waste.

This research-through-design explores 3D knitting for load-bearing, transformable structures using a Material-Driven Design approach. 3D knitting is a low-waste textile production method that allows for highly adaptable designs and an iterative design process. Current literature is studied in various domains, exhibiting the knowledge gap on development of 3D knitted, load-bearing, transformable structures on the scale of a sitting object. A tinkering phase resulted in a Design Space, demonstrating the range of possible materials, structures, geometries and transformability methods. Multiple concepts are developed to define the relationship between the parameters. The final demonstrator is the ARCHETYPE.98, a sitting object showing the adaptability, load-bearing capacity, transformability, material expressions and streamlined, low-waste production process of 3D knitted, transformable, load-bearing objects. The ARCHETYPE.98 is a bending-active textile hybrid structure. The load-bearing capacity is evaluated through a technical evaluation which exhibited the framework material to require improvement. User research exhibited the novelty of the design. The transformability of the sitting objects allows for eight variations of the aesthetics within one product. The sitting surfaces are highly adaptable through the knitted material, enabling personalization of the aesthetics and ergonomics of the chair. The development and production process of the ARCHETYPE.98 show the need for modelling software for knit structures and textile hybrid structures to improve the technical performance and reduce the number of required iterations. Further research into the frame material and bursting strength of knit structures related to the yarn materials could improve the load-bearing capacities of the object and bring forward the limitations of the applied rigidifying method.

Textiles are unimaginable out of our lives - from the moment a human is born until existence stops - textiles are touched by wearing, seeing and feeling them. Where it once was fundamental for survival, today, the textile industry has grown towards a system that prioritises speed, efficiency and uniformity (Goldsworthy & Politowicz, 2018) while largely neglecting the impact of waste, mass production and material extraction. The industry designed a system that prioritises the desires of form, function, aesthetics and cost above the environment. A design process with a systemic lens acknowledges waste as an essential element in the system, enabling an execution providing for a circular economy. The exploration consists of technological, experiential and aesthetical research of woollen Woven Textile-form in which the shape-changing properties of wool fibres make them morphic Textile-forms. The potential for a circular economy, using biodegradable, recyclable, mono-material widens the scope towards multimorphic Textile-form (McQuillan & Karana, 2022). This research aimed to unfold techno-aesthetics emerging from material expressions through woollen woven Textile-form exploration in a circular economy. Experiential Characterisation (Camere & Karana, 2018) unfolds the material experiences of the created samples, identifying a new aesthetic formed by materiality. Techno-aesthetics (Dalmasso, 2019) questions the origin and nature of aesthetical values concerning technology, demonstrating the necessary value change of perception and expectations of the typical textiles and textile-based products and potentially beyond when a sustainable design outcome is a goal. All together, this should make us seriously question the appropriate perception and expectations of typical textiles and textile-based products and potentially beyond when a sustainable design outcome is a goal. Woollen Woven Textile-form and Morphic Textile-Form methods, together, may create a new understanding of materiality to move towards Multimorphic Textile-form. This research suggests embracing material traces induced by exploring methods such as Woollen Woven Textile-form methods to unfold ‘new circular techno–aesthetics’ to create an understanding of materiality and move towards a circular economy. Embracing ‘circular techno-aesthetics’ through materiality may bring about the needed global fundamental change of value and move towards a circular economy.

This IPD master thesis describes the process of developing the product-service of Maki. Maki is a startup with the focus of making the life of a beginning sewer easier. Currently, beginning sewers have a learning journey full of struggles. In this project, a design process is described that attempts to design an online learning platform for these beginning sewers. Through extensive user research, prototyping and exploring the field of sewing, the final concept was presented. Maki is a platform that provides sew-alongs where the user learns hands-on through making garments. The user first gets to design how they want the garment to be through varying modular elements, like sleeves, or collars. After this the sew-along guides them through a process where they learn to draw the pattern and sew it together. This is done with steps in text, illustration and video, so the beginning sewer is fully supported. Since Maki users have the desire to learn how to make and design the clothing that truly fit them, the sew-along teaches them how to draw their own patterns. This is done with the help of a set of printable rulers. The rulers and sew–along will help them build a skill-set that can serve as a stepping stone in making anything they want later in their learning journey. On the platform some collaboration with other users can take place. Users get the chance to inspire others with their work through sharing pictures of end-results. The sew-along also allows users to comment, so they can help each other out and a community of beginning sewers can grow.