In the presented collection of artefacts, textiles are seen as active elements in their environments – being able to react to environmental stimuli by changing their shape, colour, or other qualities. Drawing parallelism to biological materials, some of these changes are two-directional and thus can lead to reversible changes, whereas some are linear and irreversible, such as ageing. As examples of two-directional changes, textile designs based on UV reactive properties: colour changing, light emitting, and self-cleaning, as well as textile constructions based on newly developed yarns capable of reversible shape changes upon exposure to heat are exhibited. On the other hand, the colour changes of natural dyes dictated by the ambient environment and the heat-response of new PLA yarns bring about elements of irreversible change. When two-directional and linear changes coexist, the appearance (and thus aesthetics) of the artefacts is constantly altering. The timescales contained in these textile transformations vary significantly creating an interesting interplay of diverse and sometimes intersecting qualities. These concepts are approached from different viewpoints – from developing new advanced materials for making yarns, exploring different textile crafting methods for producing diverse textile structures, and to engaging with aesthetic sustainability. 

This exhibition shows work in progress in the Beyond e-textiles project which bases on interdisciplinary research work involving contributions from physics, crafting, materials engineering, and textile design. Partners are Aalto University, University of Turku, University of Borås, VIA University College, and Iceland University of the Arts. Employing methodologies from these various disciplines and conducting research at different levels of hierarchy of textile construction can help us to reimagine, materialise and finally realise new textile concepts and their changing aesthetics

The sample was exhibited at World Circular Economy Forum 2024 as part of the Beyond E-textiles research collaboration.

The World Circular Economy Forum 2024 event is organised on 15–18 April 2024 at the SQUARE Brussels Meeting Centre in Brussels, Belgium. The event brings together business leaders, policymakers, and experts to discuss current circular economy solutions. 

Aalto University’s and VTT’s joint bioeconomy competence hub, FinnCERES, hosts an exhibition stand in the WCEF2024 expo area on 15–16 April, highlighting recent intriguing scientific and technological breakthroughs, such as biofoams and folded structures for protective packaging, sustainable coatings and glues from lignin, and biodegradable electronics. 

The joint Nordic NordForsk booth features the Beyond e-Textiles project. This interdisciplinary research project develops sustainable textiles of tomorrow that respond to environmental stimuli by changing their shape, color, or other properties. The project involves Aalto University, University of Turku, University of Borås in Sweden, VIA University College in Denmark, and the Iceland University of the Arts. Assistant Professor Jaana Vapaavuori from Aalto presents prototypes of smart textiles from the research project. 

The World Circular Economy Forum WCEF is a joint initiative of the Finnish government and Sitra. The forum’s scientific partner is the United Nations International Resource Panel (IRP), which provides science-based information on material use to decision-makers, similar to how the IPCC provides information on climate change. 

The event is now being organised for the eighth time in collaboration with several other international partners.

Sustainable design thinking challenges perspectives on approaches to material development that are considerate of resources from the natural environment. This involves limiting energy consumption and re-purposing materials’ use, qualities, and functions for an extended life span. Using a practice-based research methodology, this research proposes an alternative framework for sustainable textiles with a strong emphasis on designing a material’s expressive qualities related to its extended use values: co-creation and wear. The experimental practice looks at the interplay between a material’s inherent properties and its craftmanship, as well as aesthetic and expressive values which could extend the duration of use. The research takes a bottom-up approach to sustainable design thinking and exemplifies the design of diverse material strategies through a curated library of responsive textile expressions. The responsive textile samples developed in this research illustrate rich ways of responding and adapting to user actions and their environmental surroundings. The textiles’ extended multimodal attributes suggest an alternative framework to design for prolonged lifespan, and exemplify materials that enhance daily life by conserving energy and allowing for customization and location-specific applications. 

Printable smart materials offer textile designers a range of changeable colours, with the potential to redefine the expressive properties of static textiles. However, this comes with the challenge of understanding how the printing process may need to be adapted for these novel materials. This research explores and exemplifies the properties and potential of electroluminescent inks as printable smart colours for textiles, in order to facilitate an understanding of designing complex surface patterns with electroluminescent inks. Three conventional textile print methods – colour mixing, halftone rasterization, and overlapping – have been investigated through experimental design research to expand the design potential of electroluminescent inks. The result presents a set of methods to create various color mixtures and design complex patterns. It offers recipes for print formulation and documents the outcomes, offering a new design resource for textile surface pattern designers to promote creativity in design, and provides fundamental knowledge for the creation of patterns on textiles using electroluminescent inks.

In the textile field, digital crafting is a relatively unexplored domain that requires further investigation in relation to the tools of the field and the aesthetic consequences of their use on the design. Computer software such as SDS-ONE APEX4 and computerised flat-bed knitting machines made by Shima Seiki are examples of the digitisation of analogue textile processes, and make use of digitally controlled material-fabrication methods. In adopting an exploratory approach to textile digitisation, this research aims to: i) explore methods of digital craftsmanship with a focus on textile materials and tools for the design of smart textiles, and ii) test the aesthetic possibilities of sketching smart textile artefacts using a hybrid workflow.

This paper presents a hybrid workflow composed of methods emerging from the synergy between experiential knowledge of materials and experiments with digital media. One category of experiments addressed the material level. By utilising digital tools for the virtual sampling of colour-changing smart materials, two changes in textiles were explored: from white to coloured in response to UV light, and from bright to dark in light-emitting yarns being recharged by UV light. The different timings of the colour changes and dimming of the smart yarns were documented and digitised, resulting in a library of colour swatches of gradients based on dynamic material behaviour. The swatches were combined with multi-layered textile structures, digital textures, and simulations of smart and conventional yarns to design the surface of textiles using the knit and weave design software SDS-ONE APEX4. In the sketches, every pixel represented a knit stitch or meeting of a warp and weft thread, providing information about material, structure, and colour at a specific point in time. Another category of experiments addressed the relationship between material and form; the colours swatches were further mapped on three-dimensional objects in Blender software to generate new forms and explore how dynamic surface effects influence the perception of form.

The experiments presented in this case study suggest that digitising a process that is based on the physical behaviour of yarns and textile structures offers an alternative medium for exploring smart materials more sustainably, expanding physical experimentation into the digital. This hybrid process enables designers to move between software packages and collaborate across professional knowledge domains, with the potential to develop cross-disciplinary and more sustainable material practices.

In the collection of artefacts presented in this exhibition, textiles are seen as active elements in their environments – being able to react to environmental stimuli by changing their shape, colour or other qualities, exhibiting behaviours similar to e-textiles but without using electricity. Drawing parallelism to biological materials, some of these changes are two-directional and thus can lead to reversible changes, whereas some are linear and irreversible, such as ageing. As examples of two-directional changes, textile designs based on UV reactive properties: colour changing, light emitting, and self-cleaning, as well as textile constructions based on newly developed yarns capable of reversible shape changes upon exposure to heat, are exhibited. On the other hand, the colour changes of natural dyes dictated by the ambient environment and the response of new PLA yarns bring about elements of irreversible change. When two-directional and linear changes coexist, the appearance (and thus aesthetics) of the artefacts is constantly altering. The timescales contained in these textile transformations vary significantly, creating an interesting interplay of diverse and sometimes intersecting qualities. These concepts are approached from different levels of study – from developing new advanced materials for making yarns to exploring different textile crafting methods for producing diverse textile structures, construction and aesthetics, as well as moving towards shape-morphing 3D textiles, where exposure and disappearance of different properties as a function of changing textile shape can occur.

The transition to digital design tools challenges the crafts-manship of textile and fashion designers as part of the product value chain, opening for reflection on how textile craftsmanship should be taught in education due to the current trend of digitalisation. By looking at new forms of craftsmanship, this research expands on the idea of teaching students transdisciplinary methods which connect analogue and digital tools within textile and fashion design education. Based on analysis of a number of case studies, we propose a framework of different strategies for teaching textile crafts-manship in the digital design age, with the aim of integrating textile-specific digital environments—which have been designed primarily to maximise the efficiency of industrial processes, rather than to enhance design development with regard to artistic expression—and non-textile digital tools on the basis that these are exploratory in nature and open to more creative design practices