Recreate Textiles
Abschlussarbeit
Collection of recycling material made from waste textile products
Student
Katrin Krupka
MA 2017
Supervision
Prof. Alexandra Martini
Prof. Herman Weizenegger
Awards
Designpreis Brandenburg (1st prize Young Talent)
German Design Award (Nominee)
Lucky Strike Award (Special Mention)
Bundespreis Ecodesign (Nominee Young Talent Category)
Young Creations Award (Winner)
Ambiente Talents (Winner)
In her master’s thesis on Recreating Textiles, Katrin Krupka developed a collection of recycled materials made from industrial cotton waste in cooperation with the terry goods manufacturer möve, the Saxon Textile Research Institute (STFI), and BASF Designfabrik.
In this way, she combined design expertise and technical know-how in an innovative process to offer solutions for a problem that affects the entire textile industry.
Usually, industrial cotton waste is burned. This waste material is a valuable resource and so she began her research by looking at recycling possibilities. Based on the special qualities of the waste materials, she designed ways of processing textile flock, tumbler fluff, yarn remnants, and cut-off edges into composite materials in prototypical experiments and different processes. By making use of various bioplastics and the resulting non-woven and natural fibre, composite materials are not only biobased but also biodegradable. The material- and process-specific coloured surfaces with their marbled structures make the new materials attractive for application as visible elements in interior and furniture design.
