Sustainable Design

I have loved learning about sustainable design and gaining more knowledge, it has always been a big part of what id like to achieve within my own projects. Textiles is an every growing specialism and i think if we don't start making a change to way things are made then there will be disastrous effects. Looking at some of the designers i have been looking at and realising how simple it is and how easy it is to just make a couple of changes to way we do things and the way we think. By taking part in the sustainable design sessions it has opened my eyes to how many different routes there are within sustainable design, weather it be the hands on taking part in using sustainable dyes within my garment making or sourcing proper fair trade, eco friendly fibres for my fabrics or simply supporting one of the sustainable design campaigns that i have looked at. Everybody can make a difference, its just making the public and designers more aware of the effects of there processes. 

I am going to really concentrate on using sustainable products within my designing now and even when I'm out at the shops i will think about what I'm buying, where its been made, how its been made, what its been made from. Facts that need to be known worldwide. I hope to carry on research the different aspects and getting to know more about such an important aspect to us as young designers of the future. 

Sustainable Design; Design to reduce the need to consume, dematerialise and develop systems and services and design activism

We all like a bit of retail therapy, buying new things, wearing new things, both make you feel instantly a little bit happier, but as a whole nation are we buying to much and thawing to much away? do we need to buy a new dress every time we go out? how many times are we going to wear that one dress? All questions that are vital in this part of the sustainable design process. our 'want' for clothing defiantly takes over our 'need' for clothing but as a whole how can we change that? I myself love charity shops and old vintages shops! i may smell like stale old bread in a 30 year old cardigan but i love the originality and totally unique things you can find in a charity or vintage store! We all get attached to items of clothing that we can't get rid of, but shouldn't all our items of clothing be this personal to us maybe then we would not throw as many things away and carry on buying more and more. 

Continuum construct have come up with a way of making your clothes a lot more personal, with there design your own dress. you choose your motif/print/picture whatever you wish to have on your item of clothing and they will print it on. making that dress completely personal to you, something nobody else in the world will have or own. 

eugenia morpurgo's repair it yourself shoes can be easily taken apart and put back together to repairs can be very easily done. The canvas footwear is assembled with reversible and mechanical fixings rather than stitching and glue, therefore any repairs can be done at home, by yourself. saving on expense of buying new shoes, and throwing your old ones away.With the shoes coming with there own repair kit, in a way its a more personal way and relationship you may have with your shoes, therefore, keeping hold of them for longer and not resulting to throwing them away. 

dezeen.com 

Levi's 501 shrink to fit campaign takes the idea of everybody having that one pair of jeans that fit perfectly. well with shrink to fit, the 501 will be your perfect size if you follow the few simple steps below;

Step 1 Purchase your jeans in your true size, which for Shrink-to-Fit™ means 1" larger in waist and 3" longer in inseam.

Step 2 Wear them out of the store (after you buy them).

Step 3 Live in them as long as possible.

Step 4 Wash them as little as possible.

Step 5 When wash time finally arrives, soak for 20 minutes with a capful of Dr. Bronner’s Soap. Keep in mind, the hotter the water, the more they shrink. To preserve the color, turn your 501™ jeans inside out, replace the warm water with cold water and add a cup of vinegar.

Step 6 Let them drip dry until they are slightly damp.

Step 7 Put them back on – ideally on a warm day or when you can sit by a fire.

Step 8 As they dry, they’ll shape to your body.

Step 9 Enjoy!

levistrauss.com

By doing this, your jeans will be completely individual to you, fit you perfectly and last a lot longer. By campaigns like this, levi are trying to prolong the wear of jeans therefore less jeans being thrown away and less waste being produced. If something is personal to you, fits perfectly you are more likely to keep hold of this item and not just bin it when you do not want it anymore. 

One of my personal favourite vintage shops is Rokit in London, i spend hours and hours in there deciding which particular piece id like, and something that i will wear and wear again. I also have the pound a wear motto, if I'm buying an item of clothing, i think it myself will i wear it as much as I'm paying for it, so say a jumper is £30 i say to myself will i wear it 30 times, if yes then its worth the money but if not i tend not to buy. This stops me wasting lots of money on something id buy and not wear! 

This comes along with the idea of looking after the clothes and garments we do have, and finding ways to preserve these items so they last longer. There are ways in which we can exchanged clothing and ideas etc, for example handbag loaning companies, bag borrow or steal loan out designer handbags for various times, you can borrow for how long you like then take them back and choose another one if you wish. therefore rather than buying a new bag every time, you can loan one out and once you get 'bored' with it you can change it for another one and not just throw it away - www.bagborroworsteal.com

There are also many new groups popping up all over the place holding make your own workshops, Remakery in Broixton is a workshop space holding workshops for local residents to make new products out of old one, up cycling and recycling old materials into new usable things! A great way to get everybody involved in producing homemade, well made recycled products! Reducing waste and unwanted throwing away of well useable materials. Drink, shop, do in kings cross is also something very innovative and exciting, a cafe serving breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as daily workshops being taught with various different crafts, a great way to relax enjoy and take up a new homemade bobbie! 

googleimages.com 

Another aspect of sustainable design linking in with the above is design activism, design incorporating with doing something good for the community/world! Designers can put out very powerful messages, its the way the work so why not incude this with making a difference, a good positive difference. Doing a lot with charities and helping raise awareness for certain causes along with a powerful design message. 

Knit the city i think is a great cause and design activism, a london based group flooding the town with knitted pieces all over the city.By knitting these pieces they are enhancing forgotten spaces, dead, lifeless spaces that no one takes notice of, its incorporating the city we live in into the art and inspiring others to indulge in the space around them. Knit the city just want to put a smile on peoples faces, changing the world with happy souls and excitement. I love this cause, i think its a great way of including the city the enhancing what its already got. I think personally if i was walking down the street and i saw a random knitted cat sitting on a bench it would instantly make me smile and brighten my day, the exact point Knit the city are trying to get a cross. 

Knitthecity.com 

Pants to poverty is another powerful campaign attempting to stamp put world poverty, 5 years ago the pants to poverty campaign started, working closely with indian farmers producing cotton pants to sell across the world and putting money straight back into the farmers, supporting over 5000 farmers their work really has helped a huge amount. Working so closely with these farmers to produce pants to sell for a good cause it an absolute eye opener. Something as simple and designing a simple pant design, simply adding colour and getting so much positivity back. Helping both the 5000 farmers they are working with, also the locals and spreading the word about how easy it is to put a stop to poverty.

Panttopoverty.com

Sustainable Design; Design that explores cleaner/better technologies and looking at models from nature and history

Design that looks at cleaner, better ways to produce technologies and fabrics is the way forward for design sustainable textiles i think, within this lecture we looked at various designers and artists that have come up with there own ways of designing sustainable products from scratch.

A designer that puts cleaner/better technologies into practise is Liz Ciokajlo, a footwear designer that only uses natural fibres from coconut husks and flax to produce amazing individual shoes! she uses bio resin to bound the shoes together, a natural substance. Using her natural substances she experiments and binds to make her own type of fabric to make the shoes out of one piece of fabric, mixing both hard and soft materials. Felt is also used in her shoe design, producing hollow heels for more of a lightweight feel and to produce a air supply to the shoes. Liz also uses moulded hemp and hardened flax within her shoes design. Liz's aim with this project was to objectify the shoe, exploring how 3D printing could alter footwear architecture and change the designing process of shoes. 

Dezeen.com 

Markus Kayser's solar sinter is another invention using sustainable design to the max, the 'sun cutter' was taken to the egyptian dessert where it was powered by the sun on its solar panels to produce energy to work the laser cutting machine that was attached. The sun was directly thread through a glass ball to produce energy for the 2d low tech laser cutter. Incorporating the use of the sand within the dessert that the first operation of the solar sinter took place, sand at a certain heat can melt and then solidify just as glass would, this process is known as sintering and has become part of the design worlds major technique within 3D printing. By using the heat of the sun above and the sand below, two simple natural products can create and produce amazing 3D objects. 

Youtube.com/markus kayser.com 

Here i have uploaded the video of the sun sinter in action, an amazing creation and such a boost to sustainable design, using two completely natural substances that can be accessible from anywhere to create useable well made objects. 

Markus Kayser.com 

Designing that explores cleaner better technologies, is using only natural substances and natural ways of designing. not incorporating harmful chemicals, water pollution or air pollution, stripping back and cutting right to the basics. A far better way for the environment around us and designing as a future. If objects can be designed and made just like the above have without any unnecessary process then surely that would be a better thing for all designers, artists and architects to explore. simple ways of designing beautiful end pieces. 

Biolace- Carole Collet has explored the biological manufacturing of the celluar programming of morphogenesis in different plant systems, Carole Collet has imagined what these type of plants may produce and look like, her first a hybrid strawberry plant that produces both strawberries and lace webbing at its roots. This type of experimentation and research could mean in the future the control of genetic morphogenesis we could design plants to do and make exactly what we wish. An amazing creation this could be, transforming an object or something so it can have more than one use, including enhancing medical nutrition. A versatile and flexible product design that could change the future of plants. 

Strawberry Plant and black lace, enhanced vitamin c and antioxidants. 

Tomato Plant and edible roots, protein rich and enhanced uv protection. 

carolecollet.com

Suzanna Lee is a fashion designer, founder of the boicouture consultancy, exploring how a natural made or natural substance of the earth can be transformed into an everyday product we can use. Using products of one thing and transforming those/binding them with the products of an entire new product. A few products biocouture have been exploring are the fungi into cap, materials being grown from the fungal of mycelia, binding with waste crop matter into safely compostable and biodegradable biomaterials that can be used in all sorts of fashion. Using nature as a base and creating renewable biodegradable fashion for the future. 

biocouture.co.uk 

Sustainable Design; To reduce energy and water use, chemical impacts and design for ethical production

This area of sustainable design in my eyes is the most important and the one that needs most change, the impact of chemical waste on the environment and on the people producing the garments or materials they are making. In todays lecture we learnt a few facts that i felt really hit home. The textile industry uses 25% of all the chemicals used worldwide which is a huge amount, 16% of those are used on cotton. The textile industry today is one of the largest producing greenhouse gases. There are many areas of the design process from beginning to end that have massive effects on environment and social issues including the different stages of the making process; Growing fibres, ship to spinners, create yarn, ship to dye plant, dye fibres, ship to factory, weave or knit fabric, dye and print/finish fabric, ship to factory, cut and sew product then ship to wholesaler/ retailer. a very long process with very important and harmful issues. All of the above require all these ways of working, labour,chemicals,water and transportation. all effecting the environment, the people making the clothes themselves and the future. should we be using water in our processes for dying clothes when there are less fortunate people that don't even have clean and fresh water to drink? somehow we need to reduce the use of harmful chemicals and working a way for less transportation during the design and making process. 

Hyun Jin Jeong 'Earth Dying' is something that really appeals to me, hyun uses natural products from the earth to dye her garments, she collected 45 different soils from south korea and the uk, after a lot of experimentation Hyun applied the soil based paints directly onto her fabrics resulting in beautiful hand dyed fabrics. 

www.ecouterre.com/soil-as-fabric-dye-earth-

Cara Piazza is also another very influential designer using natural ways of dying, her pieces are very unique and all ethically produced. using found materials to dye her fabrics within the area that she is in at the time, her graduate collection was based on london and mapping, she would walk the streets and on the way take everything in that she is passing by, becoming in touch with the outside and also making friendships with local produce shops along the way, she would collect weeds,flowers etc from the areas she was passing through and dye her fabrics with these creating a beautiful, unique collection. 

weareselecters.com

A print using red onion skins and blueberry from Cara Piazza

Rust and squid ink Print From Cara Piazza 

www.caramarienyc.com

This is a technique i tried using within my last project, i tired dying with different fruits and vegetables but they didn't now turn out how i planned them too, its something i would like to experiment a lot more within my next projects to see the different outcomes it produces. 

Another aspect of this area of sustainable design is the production of garments effecting our atmosphere and immediate environment, all these chemicals are producing harmful substances, an old new york train line has been converted into an urban garden and its quite magnificent, the locals wanted to bring a bit of nature and green to the urban streets of new york and this is how it turned out; 

An amazing space, created for people to socialise and walk among the urban,concrete jungle within a green jungle itself. Creating fresh air, a habitat for nature and an escape from the bust city life. 

Another project similar to this is the Promenade Plantee in Paris, an abandonned railway again been transformed into a green space, the park follows the route of the old railway. The park was designed and landscaped by architect Jacques Vergely and Phillipe Mathieus. A space reused for a little bit of garden heaven in amongst the busy city. 

www.urbanghostsmedia.com

I think this particular area of Sustainable design is the area which needs to see the most change, people,designers and companies need to be more aware of the effects these processes are having on the environment and to the people producing these garments. I think the only way to do that is to get the bare facts out there and known, if people/customers knew the effects these processes are having on the environment would they carry on buying garments from these companies? Knowing these facts and researching into this subject has made me think very seriously as a designer the route i would like to go down when making fabrics and garments, if there is ethical, healthier ways to make things then this is the way to go, and everybody should be thinking about it. 

Sustainable Design; Cyclability and minimising waste

This weeks lecture was based on design for cyclability and Design to minimise waste. both very important things in the design process for the future. Cyclability is based on 5 points within a life cycle: The raw material (fabric) then the manufacture (the process in which it is made) , the distribution ( the fabric or material being distributed all over the world then the use of the material, whatever it may be used for then it comes to the end of its life, the question is what happens after that? what happens when people get rid of there old clothes and materials, can they be used for something else. 

Recycling by itself, only postpones the arrival of the discarded material at landfill, where it may never biodegrade, may degrade very slowly, or may add harmful materials to the environment as it breaks down.

A genuinely sustainable future depends on creating closed loops, or cycles, for all industrial commodities. In a closed-loop, materials would never lose their value and would recycle indefinitely.

Livingston, B (2203) Forward Recycling of Synthetic Contract Textiles: a vision of the sustainable future, The Design Tex Group 

Exploring this i have looked at a few designers that have thought about up cycling and recycling clothing and materials. 

Rebecca Earley and Kate Goldsworthy took up cycling into there own hands by setting up a specific project based on the up cycling of old charity shop shirts, they would buy these shirts and then transform them into totally new pieces of clothing, using there various known techniques they had learnt they gave these shirts a new lease of life. within this they use no harmful chemicals or glues whilst transforming the shirts, meaning they can be up cycled again and again. 

Ecofashiontalk.com 

Earley and Goldsworthy, transform out of date, unloved clothing into beautiful vibrant new pieces and that is what cyclability is all about, taking something old and making it into something that can be used over and over again. 

Another part of cyclability that interests me is the 'worn again' campaign, there is something so exciting about taking something that has one use then making it into something totally different. A technique that anyone can do to reduce waste. Eurostar took part in worn again and took old uniforms, that their staff used and changed them into luggage bags that the staff could use. As most big companies, uniform changes are a frequent thing, so by using old uniforms to make new bags, means less waste from the uniforms. They go through a process of design, deconstruction, cleaning and manufacture. Here is the end product; 

I also did a Workshop with Jane Bowler, back in the summer, she is a fashion/accessories designer based in london, she uses old, new and very exciting everyday objects that you wouldn't think of. mostly using everyday plastics and materials found around the house, she uses hand dying techniques and heat forming/molding techniques. Jane's eye see's something that can be changed and molded into making something else, she makes beautiful handmade pieces that are now known all over the world and i had the pleasure of working with her for a day. She gave us all different objects that we had to make something with, i had old curtain rings, scraps of plastic and plastic tubing; here is what i made; 

Here is one of Jane Bowlers pieces; 

I think everybody can take up up cycling in any form, weather it be transforming old pieces of clothing or simply reusing materials and objects for another cause, this as a whole can reduce massively the amount we waste and just forget about when we throw things away. 

Perception

So me and My friend Laura decided our chosen place to shop was Selfridge's this week, but with a bit of a twist, we wanted to know how differently we would get treated by the clothes that we wore into the store, I dressed in sort of wacky out there clothes, i tried to go for the more drab look but it didn't really go to plan and i looked more like a geeky Shorditch Art student! Laura however tried to dress as smart and perfect as she could! she looked well groomed in a dress and fur coat along with knee high shiny boots! To our surprise, we were treated exactly the same, both asked if we needed any help and I didn't feel out of place at all, I got a few strange looks mind you but i expected that and its pretty normal to me!
I think everyone has a perception of the sort of people that shop in certain places, but to me, its not down to what you dress like, its what you can afford and the sort of things you like to buy.

Stones and Sea

You cant beat the sea breeze, a sunny sky and vivid colours on a winters day, dog walking, one of my favourite things to do with my pal Boo