Due to the current health crisis all planned physical activities at UAL have been cancelled and we are now connecting online. Circular Design Lab, an interest group run out of the Centre for Circular Design by PhD students Cathryn Hall and Laetitia Forst took up this opportunity to connect online with UAL post-grad students across the world and with the centre’s network.
This presentation fits within the Post-Grad Community series of webinars showcasing the research by PhD students across UAL. First in this series, Laetitia Forst talks about her Textile Design for Disassembly project. Watch the research presentation and Q&A.
The format for this presentation started with a 20 minute presentation of the entire PhD project, speeding through the different insights from the research to give an overview of the concept of Textile Design for Disassembly. This was then followed by 20 minutes of questions and answers. Participants could use the live conference tool to write their questions in the chat function, these were then addressed by the speaker.
Watch the video for the full description of the Textile Design for Disassembly project and questions on future applications.
Answering questions which were not addressed in the live session for lack of time.
What was the core sensibility you responded to with textile design for disassembly?
My PhD work came from my realisation that as a textile designer, I was creating materials that are difficult to recycle by assembling different resources. But I am still very interested in the aesthetic and texture effects than can be achieved when combining contrasted materials. I suppose this aspect of my ‘design personality’ has been a huge contributor to my PhD journey.
Do you think disassembly plays an important role whether it’s applied to a garment or a material, what was your approach to this?
In my research I really wanted to explore what happens when we challenge the way resources are assembled at a material scale rather than at the product level. A few designers have experimented very successfully with modular garments, I wanted to apply this thinking within material construction itself.
Is there a brand name for dissolvable threads?
The thread that I used is simply a water soluble thread as is used in temporary stitching for some types of embroidery of quilting. Obviously this isn’t an option when putting the material into use as it would dissolve in the wash, but it was useful for making models and testing techniques. Other threads exist or are being developed such as the Wear2 thread which is dissolved in the microwave (less likely to happen in normal use) or the start-up Resortecs is pioneering a heat soluble thread.
Register for the next PhD Webinar by Victoria Karlsson "Mapping Experiences of Inner Sound"
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