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Fluffy rocks and growing textiles

4/4/2022

 
It has been a while since I wrote a blog. I was caught up in daily life. I thought I was self-aware and mindfull, working in this sustainability industry. But it turned out I was still running the ratrace of project- and family-goals like many others. And one day I woke up realising I made a multiple years plan for myself with the idea of being in control, but the universe decided otherwise and turned my life upside down. I needed time to take a breath and reflect on my place in the world. Letting go of the idea that I was in control and trusting the universe again. My creativity, gardening, yoga and walking in nature helped me heal again.

And it took me a while to realise I already found my meaning of life during my art academy time only lost it out of sight along the way. In 2005, my first year at the School of Arts in Utrecht, the teachers asked us to make a prognose of what might be important in 2009, the year we would graduate.

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My team in 2005 came up with sustainability, natural materials, slowing down to natures rhythm, eating healthy, having fun and craftsmanship. From that prognose I developed a cress-suit and placed it in toxic environments like the meat-, sugar- and fastfood-industry.
And the year I graduated? 2009...I set up Refinity, a consultancy that helped designers to make eco-effective choices (thinking about the effect on the environment) by brainstorming and sourcing all sorts of flexible materials. Fits pretty well in the prognose don't you think?

After all these years we (the textile sector) have set good steps towards using organic fabrics, recycling and wearing secondhand clothing. It is getting mainstream. Hooray!

Now I think it is time to pay attention to local (natural waste stream) materials, slow down, adjusting to the pace of nature and minimalism. And that inspired me to make " fluffy rocks and growing textiles"
Can we live in harmony with nature? A more balanced live? The best of both worlds natural and artificial combined in our cultures.
  • Are we taking the time for living yet speeding up sustainability?
  • Can we be soft (feminine) and hard(masculine) at the same time?
  • Do we make products that are strong yet do not last eternally but biodegrade?
  • Can we source knowledge globally while using materials locally?
  • Is adapting a solution to the local needs possible?

These considerations inspired me to make the work of fluffy rocks and growing textiles. [Click for more photos]

Here is some more inspiration about growing textiles [30 minutes]:
Barcelona's fabricademy experimented with growing grass dress, algae shoes and kombucha textiles in 2020.
* I couldn't source back the artists of the shoes and table in my prognose picture from 2005. If you know from who they are let me know, because I always want to do right by the artist who inspired me.

It makes little sense to recycle a jacket: this is how we close the textile loop

24/3/2020

 
Curtains, bedlinen, pillow sheets, clothing, these are some examples of textile products that are produced to use and then thrown away. Makes sense, factories work in a linear system – a colbert is often not designed to recycle. After use it ends up on a pile of textiles. A pile that will be burned so it at least generates energy. I – and with me more textile companies – am convinced we can do better. We are able to reuse materials. And we can make the linear system into a circular one. With these five possibilities we close the textile loop.
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Self education of circular design

28/11/2017

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2018….is almost there, how about a new year intention: to learn about circular economy and how to integrate this in textile-product design? 
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More than two years ago I made a blogpost  with a few tools on designing eco-effective. But there are so many tools to help you out. Hereby I will share a few with you that caught my attention.

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Material passport for textile items

25/7/2017

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In the beginning of this year I compared different, freely available, material passports in the Netherlands for the infrastructure coalition of MVO Nederland, called Groene Netten. At that moment I started to question myself if this would work for the textile sector as well. I am curious what your opinion is. 

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The tetris of design: Zero Waste Pattern Cutting

26/2/2017

 
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Timo Rissanen
To create zero waste with a textile design there are multiple options. For example fully fashioned knitwear, 3D printing or not designing at all (probably not your preferred option). The most known option is Zero Waste Pattern Cutting (ZWPC) and in this blog article I am going to give a few examples.

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Tiny design improvements each day

29/1/2017

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How to deal with sustainability information overload and start improving your design?
In this blog article I am going give you some tips on how to deal with it, hoping you feel you can make a change and start with it today.

A few years ago circular economy was a new concept, just like Cradle-to-cradle before that
, now I believe we have the knowledge and tools available to make a circular economy happen. But why didn’t it happen yet? It is important that enough people start to understand the concept, find it important and act upon it. Knowing is a totally different concept than doing.

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9 shifts to make a circular textile economy possible

27/9/2016

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I am writing blog articles since January 2012. Cradle-to-cradle was the main subject, focussed on which materials and techniques make textile products suitable for biodegradation or recycling. Ones in a while it is good to take a broader view and see the shifts that are needed to make a circular economy possible, that is what I will do in this article.
Why a circular economy? Take a look at this (Dutch) video:

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ABC-X tool, improving a design

29/3/2016

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When improving an existing design, making it more environment friendly by choosing different materials, this tool might come in handy. The ABC-X list, developed by EPEA.
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Obstacle or temptation?

29/9/2015

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When you want to make a good product you have to set a goal and start somewhere. You cannot do everything good at ones but need to continuously improve step-by-step by doing research and making informed choices. Last year when I gave an eco-effective training a participant gave the group and me an interesting insight. Simple yet effective! Today I would like to share this with you.

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Tools for learning eco-effective designing

13/8/2015

 
You would like to know more about eco-effective designing, but you do not know where to get this knowledge? In this blog article I am going to give you some links to tools and books that you can use for self-education.
Eco-effective designing stands for considering the effect of a design choice on the ecological, economic and social/cultural environment. There are different names for this way of designing. Eco-effectiveness is a term that comes from Cradle-to-Cradle. But also biomimicry and circular economy have methods that can be used to reach the same goal.

A few months ago I wrote about the Cradle-to-Cradle online course (click here for the link) and now I would like to add more self-education options to this.
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The Ten
http://www.tedresearch.net/teds-ten/
An initiative from Textiles Environment Design (TED) in London. “These strategies have emerged out of a need for a toolbox for designers to help them navigate the complexity of sustainability issues and to offer real ways for designing 'better'.” Each strategy consist of a short text and a video of 2 minutes.

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Nature Inspired Design
http://www.natureinspireddesign.nl/
Nature inspired design combines 8 elements (concept, workings, recycling, health, foodweb, symbiosis, value, salecycle) with 8 disciplines (design, biology, engineering, chemistry, medicine, ecology, business and market) The authors advice to work with a team in which each discipline gets a role. The book gives design tools to come to solutions with these elements and disciplines.

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Products that last
This book  (Dutch version here) is used for the CIRCO trainings.
An initiative of Click NL for creating business through circular design. In the book you find design and business models that could work in a Circular economy. Interesting about this book in comparison to the other self-education options is that this book focuses more on the economy aspect but through design.

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