TED's TEN

1 – Design to Minimise Waste

This strategy encourages designers to minimise the waste that is created in the textile industry, both pre and post consumer. It includes zero waste cutting and recycling but it also introduces the idea at the outset that we need to avoid producing stuff that doesnt work, that people dont want.

“Of the total textile fibre produced, up to 65% is lost, post-consumer, to landfill, incineration or composting, which represents between 400,000 and 700,000 tonnes per annum in the UK. Of this, at least 50% is said to be recyclable” (Allwood, 2006)

• Long-life textiles

• Recycle and re use of materials

• Re-working existing garments to produce up-cycled products

• Design multi-functional products

• Zero waste cutting

• Using new technologies to ‘re-surface’ pre-consumer polyester

2 - Design for Recycling / Upcycling

This strategy explains how when you design for recycling / upcycling, the thought process is very different, but totally connected to, the practice of recycling textiles. This strategy includes discussion of the polyester economy.

Design for upcycling is about "not merely conserving the resources that went into the production of particular materials, but adding to the value embodied in them by the application of knowledge in the course of their recirculation" (Murray, 2002)

• Designing for recycling/upcycling from the outset (pro-active approach)
• Responding to existing garments/materials to Recycling/ Re-engineering a product/garment (reactive approach)
• Upcycling – adding value through process or concept to existing garments/materials
• Transfer printing onto polyester to produce up-cycled products
• Closed-loop recycling (forward recycling) of post consumer polyester
• Monomateriality
• Borrowed materials
• Design for disassembly

3 – Design to Reduce Chemical Impacts

This strategy is about appropriate material selection and processes: consider using organically produced materials; use mechanical technology to create non-chemical decorative surface pattern; seek convincing alternatives to harmful chemical processes such as devore, chemical dyes, mordants etc.

“One cupful of pesticides and fertilisers are used in the production of the average t-shirt” (Observer, 2005)

• Consider using organically-produced materials
• Use mechanical technology to create non-chemical decorative surface pattern, such as laser/water-jet/sonic cutting and laser/sonic welding
• Seek convincing alternatives to harmful chemical processes such as devore, chemical dyes, mordants etc.
• Consider natural dyes and their processes

4 – Design to Reduce Energy and Water Use

Energy consumption and water usage in the textile industry are extremely high and occur at each stage of the lifecycle of textiles – at the production stage, in the use phase (where consumers use and care for textiles and garments) and at the end stage (which covers either disposal and/or re use of the material.

“ 60% of the total energy consumption in the lifecycle of a t-shirt occurs in the use phase. i.e washing, ironing, drying ” (Allwood et al, 2006)

• Innovative labelling to increase consumer knowledge about best laundry practices
• Digital printing
• Exhaust printing and dyeing
• Design for No or Low launder/Short life textiles
• Localisation
• Prioritise natural energy systems
• Dry patterning systems/Projected patterns
• Design for recovery of energy

5 – Design that Explores Clean / Better Technologies

Replacing systems of production with less energy consuming and smarter technologies to reduce environmental impacts.

• Dematerialising e.g. using sonic welding instead of threads
• Using new technologies like laser etching to ‘re-surface’ pre-consumer polyester
• Bio - GM technology, vanishing muslin, regenerated cellulose fibres
• Digital Printing - 2D and 3D
• Production Technologies such as 3D warp knitting
• Coating and Finishing - nano, colour technologies, Teflon
• Smart - Piezoelectric materials, shape memory alloys and shape memory polymers, magnetic shape, self-healing materials
• Smart Devices - RFID tagging, mobile technology

6 – Design that Looks at Models from Nature & History

How can the practices of the past inform textile design and production of the future? This strategy is about how much textile designers can find inspiration and information for future sustainable design from studying and reflecting upon textiles, habits and societies of the past.

“….the accumulated past is life’s best resource for innovation …reinventing beats inventing nearly every time.” Stewart Brand

• Learning from historic examples of extending the life of a garment
• Adapting traditional craft skills for contemporary contexts
• Consider local materials and production

7 – Design for Ethical Production

This is about design that utilises and invests in traditional craft skills in the UK and abroad. It is about ethical production which supports and values workers rights, and the sourcing of fair trade materials. It questions what ethical production means, and how it differs for each scale of production and manufacture.

“For making a $100 pair of trainers, the factory worker will receive just 50 cents” (www.cleanclothes.org)

• Design that utilises and invests in traditional craft skills in the UK and abroad
• Ethical production which supports and values workers rights
• Sourcing of fair trade materials
• Designers acting as facilitators of sustainable enterprise in traditional craft communities

8 – Design to Replace the Need to Consume

This strategy is about making stuff that lasts, stuff that we really want and want to keep and look after. It is about Emotionally Durable Design and Slow Design; and the design and production of textiles and products which adapt and change with age. This strategy is also about exploring alternative forms of design and consumption such as co-design and collaborative consumption.

“Clothing sales have increased by 60% in the last ten years”(Oakdene Hollins, 2006)

• Employ Emotional Durable Design/Slow Design
• Design textiles and products which adapt and change with age
• Celebrate vintage
• Personalise/Customise/DIY
• Recycle. Re-use
• Experience/User-centred design
• Explore Co-Design, mass collaboration, collaborative consumption, crowd sourcing

9 – Design to Dematerialise and Develop Systems & Services

This strategy introduces the concept of designing systems and services instead of, or to support, products, e.g. lease, share, repair. It is about multi functional products and temporary / non-invasive installations. It is about the development of on-line / local communities.

“Systems & services design illustrates how consumers needs can be met with services as opposed to tangible products, and at the same time provide economic and environmental benefits"(Manzini, E. 2001)

• Multi functional products
• Temporary/non-invasive installations
• Design systems and services instead of products e.g Lease, share, repair
• Develop on-line/local communities

10 – Design Activism

In this final strategy we encourage designers to leave behind the product and work creatively with the consumers and society at large. It is about designing events and communication strategies beyond product design to increase consumer and designer knowledge about the environmental and social impacts of fashion and textiles.

It is about making: exhibitions, conferences, festivals, publications, blogs, and open source networks. Here, the textile designer becomes a ‘Social Innovator’. We reflect on how much has changed for textile designers, and how much potential for the future there is!

“...new ways of thinking about how design can catalyse, nurture, enable and activate positive societal changes towards more sustainable ways of living and working….” (Fuad-Luke, A. 2009)

• Raising awareness of environmental and social issues
• Participatory engagement using web and open source platforms
• Extending the reach of the designer beyond making products
• Hacktivism approaches

TED's TEN 

http://www.tedresearch.net