This research project addresses the human urge to sense and uses it to increase people’s awareness and understanding of sustainable textiles. The topic of sustainability in textiles includes a social, environmental and economic factor. (GOTS 2016) About Solving and Dissolving is embedded in a design program that focuses on the environmental aspects of a sustainable future and how the overall topic can be brought closer to the audience- the consumer. The project pushes the limitations of plant materials and questions what sustainability could mean for the designer and consumer. First experiments result in swatches for an archive of possible future surfaces. Here the core is to find possible textures and touches that are able to make the audience curious about its origin and ingredients. This is followed by combining these with 2D and later on 3Dstructures to form final devices or objects. The final device or design is used to promote ethical beliefs in local production and plant materials through representing installations. There for the audience plays a role during the design process and is later on motivated to interact with the final design.

The aim to create tangible and visual appealing designs is based on the belief that future interiors should not only be polished white panels and that the consumer needs to experience that sustainable textiles consist out of more than organically grown plain cotton. The field of sustainable textiles is in need of a bridge between speculative sustainable future design and the audience- the consumer. Therefore About Solving and Dissolving addresses the human urge to explore, touch and interact with its environment and tries to reconnect the consumer with the (raw) material.  Nitsche’s experiments create a new category of surfaces which targets this human desire to sense and understand. In future it could be possible to program plants to grow ordered surfaces on its own. Will the colour of textiles play a role in this future or are we going towards seeing all surfaces as purely hygienic areas? How could they still stimulate human brains in tangible and visual ways? Nitsche’s research shows that the topics of sustainability and how humans perceive and interact with textiles are closely connected and in constant change. Aiming for a high tactility, in sense of difference in heights and texture within a design, the audience is intrigued to come closer and interact with the textile surface or object.

What if we must teach plants to provide nutrition and textiles to survive in a future scenario? In this light Nitsche’s project could be seen as an early proposal for possible patterns and tools of later on biologically grown structures. Nitsche challenges her own traditional textile thinking to create new possibilities for textile materials and expressions that can be used for future interiors. About Solving and Dissolving focuses on the juncture of these speculative questions and a user.

Is the factor of tactility through difference in height and texture within one design enough to generate an intriguing surface? What role do structure, colour, overall size, shape and durability play when it comes to the establishment of a connection between a new and sustainable material and the audience? Does the potential future consumer need a visualisation, a recipe to imagine how these textiles could be used in the future? Could a video about the usage of speculative textile products in spaces also open up the discussion about sustainability and durability of interiors? About Solving and Dissolving explores the technical and visual limitations of plant based materials like bio plastic to generate a new category of future textiles. Furthermore experiments about the possible interaction of design and audience help to investigate the perception and connection between people and their textile surrounding through the factor of tactility.

The result of this research project consists out of three main design possibilities for bio plastic which all focus on colour, structure, texture and light. Material sketches in small format are done to find different ways to colour and shape the material. These sketches are collected in an archive of texture possibilities. Their potential is judged by photographing and drawing to find common patterns and the main design properties of the material bioplastic (transparency and biomorph expression). The findings are then developed, composed and tested in a bigger scale to find out if and how the material could be used in a room scale. If an experiment is successful is judged with the help of criteria like the balance between opaqueness and transparency (the ability to give a patterned shadow; light), durability of the modifiable structure (interaction), possibility to be expanded (scale) further, tactile factors (height differences and texture) and colour intensity.