Review: Expert workshop at the Textile Center Haslach: Designers develop creative approaches for industrial waste
15. - 17. March 2025 | Textiles Center Haslach
Following the successful network meeting on March 14, 2025, things got creative, experimental and future-oriented once again at the Textile Center Haslach: During the three-day expert workshop, seven selected designers worked intensively with textile production waste provided by 20 textile companies from Austria. The aim was not only to analyze the materials in terms of their usability, but also to develop concrete transformation ideas on how industrial textile waste can be prepared, processed and reused for new design and craft applications.
"I have to say, I was overwhelmed. I didn't expect so many interesting speeches. Things like the legal framework or topics from the industry are always neglected at universities because we focus so much on the design process. I have the feeling that there is sometimes a lack of reference to reality."
- Gerald Brandstätter
From waste to resource: understanding materials, discovering potential
In a concentrated workshop atmosphere, the participating designers used the diverse technical equipment at the Textile Center Haslach to practically examine the materials provided. In addition to textile technology issues, the focus was primarily on design and conceptual approaches:
- What properties make certain waste particularly suitable for new applications?
- How can industrial processes and craft techniques be combined in such a way that new added value is created from unused material?
The working method was interdisciplinary, open and collaborative.
"It was a very pleasant working atmosphere and it's totally inspiring to see so many people working on the same problem. I already had an idea of the direction it could take beforehand, but there was no time for such creative shenanigans until now. It's great to now spend these three days fully concentrating on working with these residual materials."
- Gerald Brandstätter
"I just like to work with what already exists. Apart from that, I like to simply use materials that other people might no longer see any value in and somehow deal with how to make them valuable again, which is why this workshop format really appealed to me."
- Julia Moser
Material as a starting point - and as an impetus for more
The designers not only developed initial sketchy approaches, but also formulated requirements for infrastructure, partners and framework conditions that would be necessary to pursue these ideas further. Particularly pleasing: all seven participants took the opportunity to equip themselves with further waste material after the workshop - as a starting point for further experiments, idea developments and possible prototypes.
"For me, working with the materials was extremely playful and intuitive and the difficulty was actually more that I didn't necessarily have a product in mind, but was more interested in the materialities. I noticed how this challenged me in a new way."
- Julia Moser
"The material (fire hoses) also appealed to me because it is so coarse and somehow also because of the colors, probably because of the neon colors, which we didn't have in our work yet. So we went for it and I found it an interesting remnant, because it's not the simplest material composition, what do you make of it?"
- Lil Petersen (from PetersenBoissel)
What emerges from this remains exciting.
SYMCRAFT continues to accompany this process - documenting the developments, promoting networking with companies and research institutions and ensuring that new approaches do not disappear in a drawer, but find their way into real implementation.
We look forward to the next steps - and will report when there is something to show again!
Website Textiles Center Haslach
