Textile Research on the Agenda
| Send article |
On 25 September 2007 a new textile consortium was launched at Designskolen Kolding. The purpose of the consortium is to serve as common framework for a wide range of approaches to textile design and textile research. The consortium is to facilitate a synergy that will make the joint effort bigger than the sum of the individual participants’ effort.
By Mads Nygaard Folkmann
The Textile Consortium was launched in style at a seminar with representatives from a wide spectrum of Danish and international researchers and companies working with textile design. As a forum for many different approaches to textile design, the seminar actually reflected the way in which the consortium too is intended as a broad framework for the entire field. The seminar set out to ask open questions about where we are today in the field, and where we are headed.
The purpose of the Textile Consortium is be a forum for knowledge sharing, diversity and an open inquiry into the field; it should be a “conversation room” for a development of textile design, as Thomas Leerberg, head of research at Designskolen Kolding, put it in his presentation. The consortium was developed in association with the Danish Centre for Design Research and has been under development since 2005, when the report “Research i tekstildesign – en undersøgelse af potentialer” (Research into textile design – a study of potentials) by Anne Louise Bang and Kirsten Nissen was published.
 |
| Ger Brinks, associate professor at Saxion University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands. Among other things, he spoke about the collaboration between education and industry with the purpose of producing new visions for the use of technical, non-woven textiles. |
The consortium is an open framework for gathering knowledge and research in the field of textile design and, as it says in the presentation material from Designskolen Kolding, “enhancing quality in education, research, production, and the application of textiles in a broad context”. Placing the research into one common framework reflects the emphasis on synergy.
In addition, the consortium aims “to highlight the potentials in textile design unfolded as a visionary interaction of materials, aesthetic, techniques and technology”. Characteristically, textile design is currently undergoing rapid technological development, and it requires a strong research effort to embrace this development.
The consortium also serves as a platform for an encounter between research and business – and indeed, two private companies participated in the seminar: KVADRAT and Gabriel, which are both actively involved in research projects in the field of textile design.
Opening the Field
As background for the many presentations at the seminar on different approaches, Thomas Leerberg pointed to three main areas for the consortium within the field of textile design. The goals are to
• bring out the potential and unique quality of textile design
• expand the textile field to other areas, that is, develop new areas where methods from textile design can play a role
• work with new textile materials and textile constructions as a process where textile techniques can produce new, hybrid materials.
After Thomas Leerberg’s opening presentation the seminar had contributions from three different groups: a presentation from Gabriel and KVADRAT, that is, from the business sector; presentations by international researchers, all working in the cross-field of design and technology development in textile design; and a number of briefer presentations by researchers at the two design schools who are involved in developing textile design.
 |
| Anne Louise Bang, Industrial Ph.D. scholar at Designskolen Kolding. Her project, “Anvendte tekstilers emotionelle værdier” (The emotional values of applied textiles), has textile manufacturer Gabriel as a partner. |
The common platform for all three groups is the issue of innovation. For the textile manufacturers this issue is crucial since almost all production has been gradually moved out of Denmark, beginning in the 1960s, initially to Southern Europe and later to South East Asia. If Denmark is to have a textile trade we cannot be competing on price but on product development or, to use the term that both KVADRAT and Gabriel used: innovation. The main benefit in having the companies’ point of view represented at the seminar is that ultimately, it is the companies that bring the textile design into the world.
Mads Nygård, deputy director of KVADRAT, said that one of the company’s ’core purposes’ is to develop modern textiles and textile-related products, that is, an expansion of the field of textile design. He distinguished between ‘ongoing innovation’: developing existing product types with the involvement of freelance designers, and ‘radical innovation’: developing new product types and maybe, by uncovering the user’s habits, discovering new needs, product types and application contexts.
Working with Researchers is Essential!
The point is that this part of the development work can only happen in interaction with others, and here, collaboration with researchers is crucial. Mads Nygård pointed to Designskolen Kolding’s project on regulating daylight in public environments and to Cecilie Bendixen’s project at The Danish Design School on the acoustic effects of textile.
From Gabriel, Rikke Christensen, business manager and innovation master, spoke about “value-building partnerships” and described innovation as “successful creativity”. She mentioned that Gabriel operates with a product circle, which demonstrates that textile is much more than, for example, the furniture fabric that is one of Gabriel’s classic product types: it is something that can be viewed very broadly, and which is open to innovation. She also talked about decoding the users’ needs and about asking questions about what sort of functions and values can be embedded into the textile, and what technologies can be involved.
 |
Cecilie Bendixen, Ph.D. scholar at The Danish Design School, spoke about her project, “Formgivning af lyd med tekstiler i arkitektur” (Designing sound with textiles in architecture), which is co-funded by the company KVADRAT. |
The issue of value creation through textile design and the use of new technology as a potential and a challenge for future textile design were recurring features in most of the Danish textile researchers’ brief presentations about their ongoing projects.
Textile designer Anne Louise Bang, who is doing her Industrial Ph.D. project at Designskolen Kolding in a partnership with Gabriel, talked about her project, “Anvendte tekstilers emotionelle værdier” (The emotional values of applied textiles). The project addresses a number of fundamental questions about how we perceive and experience textiles, for example through a number of sensory qualities. The challenge is to identify how this knowledge can be implemented in products to differentiate them from other products through a form of emotional value. Anne Louise Bang indicated a variety of analytical approaches in her project: a study of the process in design praxis in case studies, a clarification of the character of tactile sensation – the ‘aesthetic’ aspect that is familiar to textile designers – and a focus on the users’ perception and reception. She talked about achieving a method that is both “user-oriented and design-driven” and openly asked how textile designers can contribute to the implementation of user-driven innovation in the company.
 |
| Computer-generated pattern as an experiment with the encounter between loom and computer. Design: Kirsten Nissen, Ph.D. scholar at Designskolen Kolding. |
 |
Experimental design that uses the flexibility of digital inkjet technology. |
Vibeke Riisberg, textile designer and an associate professor at Designskolen Kolding, shared some of the insights she generated through her work on the Ph.D. dissertation “Design og produktion af trykte tekstiler – fra analoge til digitale processer” (The design and production of printed textiles – from analogue to digital processes), which she defended in 2005. The dissertation focuses on the development of digital inkjet technology, describes its history and explores, also prescriptively, the new possibilities that this raises for aesthetics, production, communication, and the education of textile designers. Inkjet technology is still developing and is currently used especially for shorter lengths of textiles – the machines are slow and relatively expensive in use, but on the up-side they do not require expensive print templates. The inkjet technology challenges elements such as ornamentation, decoration and what Vibeke Riisberg calls the designer’s “aesthetic space”, that is, the visual and tactile dimension of the design and the degree of artistic freedom that results when one can print a single piece of textile, review it, maybe adjust the design and then print it again.
Vibeke Riisberg is also involved in a new research project: “Regulering af dagslys i offentligt miljø – dekoration og funktion” (Regulating daylight in the public space – decoration and function) which she is working on together with Associate Professor Joy Boutrup and Research Assistant Annette Andresen, both Designskolen Kolding. The project is aimed directly at improving the physical (indoor) environment in workplaces and other public environments through a study of the functional use of textiles to regulate light and heat while also considering the aesthetic dimension.
 |
The final section of the seminar consisted of three speakers from outside Denmark who had been invited in to provide inspiration and to offer a look at what is happening with textile design in other countries.
Ger Brinks, materials engineer and associate professor at Saxion University of Applied Sciences, focused on the ongoing challenges facing the Dutch textile industry since the 1960s production conditions changed, resulting in a loss of jobs. Brinks pointed to the necessity of initiatives to secure future development, highlighting technological innovation as an area that has received particular attention in The Netherlands. These efforts involve the development of novel materials with new properties, including materials that use nanotechnology, light-weight materials, and materials with “ambient intelligence”, that is, materials that respond to their environment. Thus, Brinks spoke about new functions that were built into textile fibres and rendered the textiles interactive and ‘smart’ (intelligent).
Brink’s approach to textile design may be seen as reflective of a particular trend that is focused on technology; some of the Danish projects are more explorative within a broad field of technical features, function, aesthetics and tactility. But Brinks also raised the question of how to secure the knowledge that we need to move on. He mentioned the need to generate many ideas as well as the need to have many sources for ideas. At this point, a diversity of partnerships with many differences players in business and research is essential.
Education on a Higher Level
He mentioned a number of specific Dutch initiatives for generating innovation through collaborative projects but also mentioned that there is a tendency for the creative sector in The Netherlands to be too separate from the business sector. Brinks also said that future challenges in relation to developing collaborative projects require changes in design education as well as in the design profession: Education needs to attain a higher level, and the profession needs to define itself more in relation to the use of technology and collaboration with companies.
Brinks pointed to the necessity of taking an experimental approach to the development of new types of textiles and new contexts of use; the experimental dimension was also the focus for the other two speakers from outside Denmark: Rachel Wingfield, research fellow at University of the Arts in London, who spoke on “Ornament and experimental design research”, and Linda Worbin, textile designer and Ph.D. scholar at the Swedish School of Textiles in Borås, who spoke on “Functional Styling” in relation to ‘smart’ textiles.
 |
|
Rachel Wingfield, who is also part of the ‘design research studio’ loop.pH, works specifically with incorporating processes from nature in textile design; her vision is to be able to create textiles that respond to the environment and enter into a whole, just as nature is an overarching, coherent system. This gives her a broad field of work with transitions between material forms, inorganic as well as organic. She also works with display and digital technique to achieve a structure that responds interactively.
Linda Worbin explores the potential in smart textiles, that is, working with new patterns and functions in a cross-field of aesthetics and function. This includes the use of textiles for storing and conveying information. Her main point was that design with smart textiles transforms both the design process and the use of textiles. Her approach to textile design is aimed at the future: In her own view of her explorative work, by drafting possible solutions and prototypes she is drafting possible visions for future textile design.
So, Where Are We Headed?
Thus, we may define a spectrum for textile design research that spans from usability to avant-garde: On the one hand it is essential to consider the usability of the solutions that one is creating, including seeing it in relation to the manufacturers in the area – it is only in collaboration with a company that the textile is able to reach a wide user group. On the other hand, it is essential to preserve a highly experimental research approach where the concrete application might be currently out of reach, but where there is room for a broad exploration of new possibilities: materials, techniques, contexts of use, ideological contexts, etc.
The consortium intends to make room for both endeavours – and to act as a meeting place for the two ends of the spectrum.
Mind Design #2, 2007
Reproduction allowed and encouraged with indication of source
