Text: Ryohei Nomura, Graduate School of Architecture, Kyoto Institute of Technology

In August 2016, I took part in the Intelligent Textiles Workshop organised by the KYOTO Design Lab in collaboration with the Royal College of Art (RCA). This turned my attention to textile design. This summer school was a further unique opportunity to collaborate with product design students at the Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE), industrial designers from Portugal and Spain and textile design students at the RCA. From the perspective of an architecture student, I could not help feeling that it was a great opportunity to explore the possibilities of textiles, since not much attention has been paid to them as the materials or components for the spatial design.

Week One – Study Tour to the Tango Peninsula

As a design subject, textiles are full of unknown and known possibilities and are themselves extremely close and familiar to us. In the first half of the summer school, we visited the Tango peninsula to observe how chirimen – a traditional Tango silk crepe product is made and its advanced weaving technology. We encountered surprising findings and inspiration from conversations with producers who are actively developing new technologies and products, despite being faced with a lack of successors and the decline of the industry.

One technique for example, was to weave beautiful sliced abalone shell and thin pieces of wood into the weft; another added entanglement to the warp at regular intervals to give transparency to the textile, and so on. Looking at these techniques that the producers have created with a lot of trial and error, my understanding of textiles was decomposed and reconstructed. That is to say, that a textile is a three-dimensional structure of warp and weft which has the possibility of realizing extremely varied properties and surfaces depending on the combination of the physical properties of the yarn materials, the twisting method and the structure.

The study tour ended with a one-day workshop with the textile producers we had visited. They brought samples of their textiles and worked with us in teams to envisage new scenarios for them.

Tango Study Tour

One-day workshop with the textiles producers

Week Two – Workshop at KYOTO Design Lab
Textile design as consisting soft systems

On the first day of the summer school workshop at KIT, we had lectures on completely different materials pushing the view again from the chirimen and silk fabric that we had focused on during the previous week. These were opportunities to touch on the history and latest products of DuPont’s sustainable synthetic fibers, and on research to create fibers from bamboo, as well as various dyeing techniques such as Japanese traditional Kaki-zome dyeing techniques. Participants focused on various materials and organizations, innovative and traditional ones, and from these gained multilateral and cross-cutting inputs. It was a great feature of this summer school, that we were able to obtain knowledge not only from active producers but also from researchers and people from companies.

Lecture by Dr. Mureo Kaku, DuPont Industrial Biosciences

Michelle Baggerman from DAE and Marion Lean from the RCA, the summer school facilitators, led a one-day workshop to explore the possibilities of textiles in design on the second day. I joined the team with Adams from DAE and Nami Masaki and Rina Aoyama from Kyoto Saga University of the Arts.

Hygiene, Independence and Wellbeing, Social connectivity, and Extreme environments and sports are examples of the keywords proposed for considering new textile concepts. Our team members brought in ideas of textiles referring to those keywords. With reference to those ideas, we figured out the possible materials, organization and surface for realization. The whole team explored the possibilities of each textile as the scenario and then visualized them.

By the way, our team created scenarios called “Hygiene pocket” which uses “textiles that can be cleaned, sterilized and water absorbed once” for the inner fabric of the pocket, and “the textile which has thermal insulation and shock absorbing function inside”. We made a proposal for a wearable Yoga mat with it. Thus, we were able to experience the ideation, its expansion, and expression in a short period. It seemed to be a good starting point for the design process of the final product in the following days.

One-day workshop to explore the possibilities of textiles in design

A public lecture by Anne Toomey, Head of the Textiles Programme at the RCA was held in the afternoon on the second day. She gave an extensive introduction to advanced textile designs developed around the world. In the lecture, textiles that can recycle and recover resources and energy, designs that present concepts of new looms, etc. were featured. What was pointed out here was that textile design is not only about considering the material itself nor designing a product but it is about considering textiles as a soft system to construct them.

Public Lecture by Anne Toomey “Advanced Textiles: Surfaces, Structures and Soft Systems”

Since the summer school ended at 5 pm every day, we went out to dinner with the participants in the evenings. We visited local places such as small bars and the Kamogawa delta and also standard places such as ramen and turning sushi restaurants. From the conversations that happened in such occasions, the interests and thoughts of the individual members became clearer and clearer.

Can textile evoke our sensations, and what will it bring to us?

From the afternoon on the third day, the ideation for the final product finally began. We created four teams, two of them whose aim was to construct a design scenario with a speculative approach, the other two focusing on textiles as “materials” to create products. I formed a team with Adams from DAE and Fu from RCA textiles, Daigo majoring in product design and Waka in textile engineering at Saga University of the Arts, and Chiharu from Kyoto Institute of Technology’s graduate Department of Graphic Design.

In this summer school, it was generally required to quickly create ideas and concepts. I think that it was the biggest challenge for each member to do it in different fields and languages. As I was interpreting for the team, I took the role of team management, it was a hard but valuable experience for me.

We worked that day to establish a design question, to identify what textiles to consider, and make our concept clear. For that purpose, we started by sharing what each member felt was most interesting in the textile design and imagined the topic in our living environment in the distant future. Therefore, we created possible scenarios in the future such as a shortage of fiber raw materials, a decrease of individual occupied space in urban areas, and the expansion of the distribution of bacteria and the insects which mediate them. Especially, we looked at the decline in ability of the human body to experience sensation and its cognition. This was the most interesting topic to the members.

In the presentations on this day, we announced the concept “textile that responds to changes in external environment and specific stimuli, and its surface changes.” From the couches and professors, it was advised to clarify what kind of design question the concept can answer and to create many simple prototypes from the following day to realize the concept. By giving presentations to instructors and facilitators at the end of daily work and having feedbacks quickly, we were able to freely create ideas while clarifying the goal of the team.

Team discussion

From early morning on the fourth day, each team started to prototype in order to realize their concepts. We defined our design question as: “Can textiles evoke our sensations through changes in its surface feeling and what will it bring to us?” First of all, we used handy materials such as paper, cotton, water, etc to try out quickly the possibilities as much as possible. Even with those very simple prototypes, such as a two-layered paper with a prickly surface standing upright when pulled, and a sponge that had protrusions at the bottom so that one can feel them by pushing the sponge strongly, the concept became much clearer and the possibilities were expanded.

It was a pleasant time for the team members to see how lots of ideas and scenarios were backed up by the inputs and discussions so far. In particular, we focused on those two ideas of textiles, the one which has the structure with the honeycomb pattern which is collapsed by friction and compression, and another which has the sharpen protrusions on the surface appeared as stretched. Therefore we examined potential materials to realize them and construction scenarios in which those textiles could be adapted.

Furthermore, the working environment provided by D-lab was very suitable for making things, and it was possible to work on consistent environment from simple prototype to final product while using various softwares and machines like 3D printers, looms and layer cutting machines.

Prototype as textile in which protrusions appear by bending

Last day: Presentation

Our final design scenarios were “textile whose changes of surface feeling help us to perceive and rectify our own wrong everyday postures and movements.” In other words, the internal structure of the textile responds to a specific tension or weight distribution that is generated by a faulty way, for example, by the wrong way of walking or bent standing posture. The textile’s internal structure responds by changing its surface to stimulate us and contribute to recognition and correction of them.

As prototypes, we made the shoes and the T-shirts. In the idea of shoes which rubber plates are cut into the shape of a honeycomb structure with a laser cutting machine and bonded with cloth on which the protrusions are located, users place their weight on specific part of soles with frictional and compressive force from wrong way of walking or standing. Then honeycomb structure in that part collapses and the back of the foot touches the inner protrusions so that the one can tell that his way is damaging his body and can start fixing it themselves. The idea of a T-shirt using a textile combined with a soft cloth, which was cut with a pattern in which a sharp portion is exposed by stretching to the specific direction is combined with a stretchable cloth, when the user’s posture is bent, the sharp portion hits the back and softly prompts posture correction by giving a feeling of discomfort. In addition to these, there were several ideas that did not result in prototyping such as a chair that prevents sitting for a long time and a collar of a T-shirt that encourages hydration in the summer.

The fun of collaborating with people with different expertise and skills was felt by me particularly in that rushing period. Each person positively finds their roles and progresses towards the goal together while communicating closely with each other. I was involved in putting together the presentation while participating in prototype production at the same time.

Production of prototype

In the presentation of the day, each team had to complete designs that were unique and interesting. They used visuals and actual materials a lot in the presentation so that even the first-time people were able to follow the context and understand the design concept easily. Finally, the feedback from Professor Anne Toomey and Professor Julia Cassim for each team was given, and they pointed out that the fact that our team had tried to solve serious health problems brought on by bad posture and wrong walking form with simple materials and methods was valuable.

After the presentation, the audience went to the tables where the prototypes was exhibited. The students, visitors and the gold-decorating craftsmen of Kyoto who lectured in the summer school also came to our table and asked us questions and gave their opinions. It is one of the great significance of participating in this summer school that it is possible to meet people who are interested in these topics, to discuss and to connect and the presentation and the Wrap party were the perfect opportunities for that.

A part of the final prototype

Final presentation

In Conclusion

In writing the report, I looked back on the textile summer school and I am surprised how much content we went through in such a short period.

In the Tango part, we understood techniques by going to the factories and understanding the relationship of material, organization, and surface in detail. In one day at KIT, we acquired the basic knowledge of the vast world of textiles from an abstract perspective and had the experience of creating new ideas. In the end, we set up a design question, carried out iterative prototyping while touching the materials and delivered a design output. These helped us to deepen our understanding and interest in textile design that is abstract and difficult to grasp.

Also, I would like to point out that the textile design is a field where various possibilities can be greatly discovered by people working in various fields of expertise. In my team actually five people had different fields of expertise but when creating ideas for new textiles and considering scenarios about them, each approach from different perspectives interlaced so that we were able to create ideas that I would have not imagined.

Based on these, if this summer school will be held next year as well, I would like to encourage people who are interested in textiles to participate regardless of their fields. Those obtained from this summer school are not limited to understanding textile design itself and its possibilities, but the experience of various design approaches within the theme of textile design. It is a valuable connection with the people, lecturers students, producers of textile, and craftsmen. They were truly adventurous experiences that open up the horizon of textiles design for participants. I am sure that these experiences would definitely help me in my future design and research.

Thank you to Professor Julia Cassim, Anne Toomey, Marie O’Mahony, the facilitators and staff of D-lab and all the members of the summer school who gave us such a valuable experience.

Writter: Ryohei Nomura
An architecture design student in Kyoto Institute of Technology Graduate School. After researching on “Machiya” -old Japanese residence style, and the housing design method of an architect Junzo Yoshimura, went to Hochschule fur Technik in Stuttgart, Germany to study the environmental architecture. I mainly focused on the passive design technologies of wooden buildings. Recently I completed the product development program ME310 / SUGER by design thinking and start-up summer school at North Carolina State University to experience various design domains. Currently I am exploring the possibilities of designing new space and areas brought about by textiles.

Edited by Kouhei Haruguchi