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This practice-led research will be accompanied by a dissertation which describes the research process and discusses the research questions and outcomes generated by the practice process. From an initial stage of laboratory and workshop experimentation with recycling High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) and General Purpose Polystyrene (GPPS), to a conclusion which brings experimental design practice to serve the needs of a specific user group, this research aims to show that the role of the designer in material-based research is multiple and complex. The significance of emotional experience is discovered to be of central importance to both material experimentation and the design for a specific user group. The initial context of sustainability becomes reframed through work with a community of residents, staff and relatives associated with a care home for the aged. From addressing the needs of a twenty- first century demographic challenge the designer finds complex meaning in the ecological, ethical and political agendas of sustainability. I employed a range of research methods in this project and conclude that qualitative research practice demands the integration of technical skills, sociological enquiry and an investigation into the ‘tacit knowledge’ of craftsmanship. I investigated the design potential of combining traditional craft and industrial technology to address the challenge of a future society and through this research into recycling plastics, polymers, textiles and other materials propose that material and meaning are closely interrelated. In my work the relationship between the visible traces of tactile sense and the presence of the hand is explored as a sign of ‘contact’ and transmission of emotion. The encasement and display of fibre, textile and personal objects in the plastic tiles is deployed as a medium of interior architecture with the potential to represent the meaning of the experience of end-of-life wellbeing. In this way the designer can make materials which encapsulate the sense of transition, departure, memory, presence and continuity for the old, their relatives and carers. Considering the principle of ‘Emotionally Durable Design’, this research finds new uses for old material.

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No description available.

Fabric as a flexible formwork for concrete is an alternative giving builders, engineers, and architects the ability to form virtually any shape. This technique produces a superb concrete surface quality which requires no further touch up or finishing. Woven polyole-fin fabrics are recommended for this application. A permeable woven fabric allows excess water from the concrete mix to bleed through the mold wall, and therefore reduce the water-cement ratio of the concrete mix. Due to the reduction in water-cement ratio, higher compressive strength in fabric formed concrete may be achieved, as also suggested by earlier research. The current research study was conducted to investigate and document the changes in concrete strength and overall quality due to use of commercially available woven polyolefin fabrics. Use of fabric formwork will contribute to decreased construction cost, construction waste, and greenhouse gas emissions. Two sets of tests were conducted as a part of this research study including comparison of compressive strength of fabric formed versus PVC formed concrete cylinders and comparison of be-haviour of the fabric formed reinforced columns versus cardboard formed reinforced concrete columns. Variables in this research were limited to two types of fabric with dif-ferent permeability (Geotex 104F and Geotex 315ST) and two types of concrete; concrete made with conventional Portland cement and no flyash herein called normal concrete (NC) and concrete with 30 percent flyash in its mix design (FAC). The laboratory results revealed that fabric Geotex 315ST is an ideal geotextile for forming concrete. It was also found that the effects of fabric formwork on concrete quality in a large member are limited mostly to the surface zone and the core of the concrete remains the same as a conventionally formed concrete. Even though fabric formed cylinder tests showed an average of 15% increase in compressive strength of the concrete samples, compressive strength of the reinforced columns did not dramatically change when com-pared to the companion cardboard formed control columns. This research confirmed that fabric formwork is structurally safe alternative for forming reinforced concrete columns.

Fabric as a flexible formwork for concrete is an alternative giving builders, engineers, and architects the ability to form virtually any shape. This technique produces a superb concrete surface quality which requires no further touch up or finishing. Woven polyole-fin fabrics are recommended for this application. A permeable woven fabric allows excess water from the concrete mix to bleed through the mold wall, and therefore reduce the water-cement ratio of the concrete mix. Due to the reduction in water-cement ratio, higher compressive strength in fabric formed concrete may be achieved, as also suggested by earlier research. The current research study was conducted to investigate and document the changes in concrete strength and overall quality due to use of commercially available woven polyolefin fabrics. Use of fabric formwork will contribute to decreased construction cost, construction waste, and greenhouse gas emissions. Two sets of tests were conducted as a part of this research study including comparison of compressive strength of fabric formed versus PVC formed concrete cylinders and comparison of be-haviour of the fabric formed reinforced columns versus cardboard formed reinforced concrete columns. Variables in this research were limited to two types of fabric with dif-ferent permeability (Geotex 104F and Geotex 315ST) and two types of concrete; concrete made with conventional Portland cement and no flyash herein called normal concrete (NC) and concrete with 30 percent flyash in its mix design (FAC). The laboratory results revealed that fabric Geotex 315ST is an ideal geotextile for forming concrete. It was also found that the effects of fabric formwork on concrete quality in a large member are limited mostly to the surface zone and the core of the concrete remains the same as a conventionally formed concrete. Even though fabric formed cylinder tests showed an average of 15% increase in compressive strength of the concrete samples, compressive strength of the reinforced columns did not dramatically change when com-pared to the companion cardboard formed control columns. This research confirmed that fabric formwork is structurally safe alternative for forming reinforced concrete columns.

This study primarily focuses on the reduction of salts during the dyeing of cotton. Cotton fabrics were pretreated with Chitosan and Cibafix ECO respectively, and then dyed with reactive and direct dyes with various amount of salt in a dye bath, to determine the optimum pre-treatment conditions of a reduced salt concentration. Cotton fabric was dyed with two different classes of reactive dyes and a direct dye with 100%, 75%, 50% and 0% of the recommended amount of salt. Various methods of pre-treatment application were trialed to determine the most effective and efficient method, as well as to determine the optimum conditions of the pre-treatments. Exhaustion levels of the dye bath as well as Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) levels were measured. Colour strength measurements were also studied along with colourfastness properties. It was found that cotton fabric pre-treated with Cibafix ECO and dyed with 25% less salt was more effective than fabric pre-treated with Chitosan and dyed with 25% less salt. Any greater reduction in salt has detrimental effects on the levelness of dyeing. When using only 75% of the recommended amount of salt, the pre-treated fabrics showed higher extents of exhaustion compared with samples dyed without the pre-treatment. At optimum pre-treatment conditions a saving of 25% salt usage was observed for cotton dyed with direct and reactive dyes. In addition these samples also showed moderate to very high fastness properties.

Since its inception in the late 1970s, the academic field of design research has lacked significant input from textile design. Textile design inhabits a liminal space that spans art, design, craft; the decorative and functional; from handiwork to industrial manufacture. This PhD by thesis, although recognizing this particularity, asserts textile design as a design discipline and seeks to address key questions that define a design discipline (Archer 1979). Specific factors have prevented the participation of textile design in the development of design theory: the universalism of the Modernist age decried many of the innate characteristics of textiles despite the fact that the versatility of textiles has made it one of the most appropriate mediums for its message. This suppression points to the femininely gendered nature of textiles and how this affected the participation of textile designers in the development of design research. Addressing this historical and cultural context necessitated the utilization of feminist qualitative research methods in a methodology that references matrixial theory (Ettinger 2006) and relationality. Encounters, conversations, stories, drawings, metaphor, meshing and restorying are all key research methods used in this study. In its autoethnographic approach, my position as a textile designer and as the researcher is frequently foregrounded, and is also blended with the experiences of other textile designers. The study unfolds and expands in a non-linear way, structure and outcome co-evolving through my contingent thinking and activity. Theory and texts are montaged from anthropology, philosophy, literature, cognitive psychology and psychoanalysis to define key characteristics of textile design and its associated thinking, both tacit and explicit. These characteristics are then placed into the context of the design research agenda, with particular reference to design thinking and problem-solving. This both strengthens the position of textiles as a design discipline and highlights its anomalies. Through analysing the articulation of textile design practice and thinking, this study proposes an alternative perspective on design thinking and problem-solving in design which contrasts with the notions of divergence followed by convergence which are predominant in design research literature. It suggests that textile design thinking is fundamentally dimensionally expansive yet set in tense relation to external forces of folding and rhizomatic breakage (Deleuze 1993/1999, Deleuze & Guattari 1987/2008). This paradigm of design thinking rests upon the significance of long-established textile metaphors for the embodied and interconnected activities of cognition and action, and is indicative of particular views of post- Postmodernist thought. Based on this, as well as on other key characteristics of textile design process and thinking that have been defined, pedagogic implications are discussed and specific areas of current design research discourse which would benefit from greater involvement from textile designers and theorists are explored.