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.

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.

When designing Woven Textile-forms, both the 3D object and the textile it is composed of need to be developed simultaneously, a process requiring an adaptation of currently established methods from both textile and fashion design. This paper provides an overview of existing examples for woven formconstruction approaches through the lens of fabric (non-)rectangularity. It subsequently presents the method of flattening a 3D form into a weaveable 2D format, and the alternative weaving methods of Modular Weaving, Non-binary Weaving and Multi-selvedge Weaving destined at constructing nonrectangular seamless Woven Textile-forms. It further describes a range of associated prototyping and visualisation techniques including Maps of Bindings, paper models, Thread Maps and miniature nail looms. These are destined at helping textile designers in conceiving textiles in the shape of the final object instead of flat rectangular surfaces, and at providing woven form designers with alternatives to conventional cut-and-assemble approaches, thus creating new grounds for cooperation between both disciplines. The utility of these methods and techniques was tested during a workshop for textile design Masters’ students at École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the results of which show that the integration of form-thinking into the textile design process is possible and generates new opportunities for form-making beyond cut-and-assemble. @en

A woven textile-form is a form that is constructed simultaneously as the textile is woven. Interfaces designed with this approach hold undisclosed potential for rich interactions. However, the design of woven textile-form interfaces requires specialised tacit knowledge, which is limited even in craft and practice spaces; and it is therefore inaccessible to HCI designers. To bridge this gap, we present the material-driven journey of a multidisciplinary team to design a woven textile-form interface using various techniques such as paper models and diagrams to design for multi-layer weaving. Replacing traditional yarns with conductive yarn, we achieved woven textile-forms with electronic sensing capabilities. By outlining our process, the pictorial highlights the challenges and opportunities of textile-form thinking for HCI designers. Additionally, its printed version serves as a ‘paper prototyping tool’ for designers to gain hands-on experience developing textile-form interfaces.@en

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 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.

Designers of textile-based interactive systems tend to treat woven fabrics as static materials and lack deeper understandings of how the textile can be designed for responsive behaviours in artefacts. As a result, in most studies across design and HCI, textiles are employed as substrates for computational, biological, or smart materials. This narrow view limits the potential of textiles that can be programmed to express responsive behaviour through their inherent material qualities. Our paper aims at bridging this gap in the design of animated textile artefacts. We present woven textile-forms where textile structures are programmed to tune the behaviour of low-melt polyester yarn that shrinks when heat is applied, resulting in complex topological and textural woven forms that can change over time. Foregrounding woven-forms as a medium for animated textiles, our work calls for design and HCI researchers to pay attention to textileness for prolonged relationships between users and animated textile artefacts while eliminating waste from production and end of life.@en