deliverable - ningapi.ning.com/files/haxkvxamtpixmzsxsegyh72ogvqolw... · 3 executive summary as...

T&C BUSINESS LABS: SETUP

TCBL 646133 DELIVERABLE 3.1

31 JULY, 2016.

DELIVERABLE

PROJECT ACRONYM: TCBL

GRANT AGREEMENT N.: 646133

PROJECT TITLE: Textile & Clothing Business Labs

D 3.1: T&C Business Labs: Setup

V 0.97, 16.09.2016

AUTHORS: Ista Boszhard (Waag)

Cecilia Raspanti (Waag)

Marc Boonstra (Waag)

Karen van der Moolen (Waag)

Besnik Mehmeti (Prato)

Silvia Pavlidou (MIRTEC)

Maria Adele Cipolla (eZavod)

Luca Leonardi (ARCA)

REVIEWERS: Francesco Molinari (CCA)

Thanos Contargyris (MIRTEC)

Joe Cullen (TAVI)

CO-FUNDED BY THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION IN H2020 TCBL: TEXTILES & CLOTHING BUSINESS LABS, GRANT AGREEMENT N. 646133

Dissemination Level

PU Public

Co-funded by

Horizon 2020Co-

funded by

Horizon 2020

Co-funded by

Horizon 2020

3

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY As the first report from Work Package 3 Business Labs, this document first presents an overall

framework for the concept of a Lab within TCBL, and then generic frameworks for the three

types of Business Labs originally envisaged: Design, Making and Place. The work is based on

an iterative series of interactions with potential candidate organisations, leading up to the

process of the first Call for Expressions of Interest (EoI) for each of the three Business Lab

typologies and results of the evaluation.

The approach followed touches upon literature, non-academic thinking, practice and outcomes

of social engineering tools, that together form a baseline towards building a Business Lab

Network. Working iteratively with all WP3 partners simultaneously, we developed a common

understanding of the principles and values that all of the WP partners could identify

themselves in, and at the same time examined the criteria and necessities of the Business

Labs and other similar networks and communities and the ways these operate and share

information. This document follows that process and reports on its outcomes to date.

Chapter 1 summarizes the scope and objectives of WP3 and its constituent tasks, all

active in this first year. In particular, it situates this Work Package within the context of

the TCBL project overall, given the central role the Business Labs play.

Chapter 2 clarifies the vision and approach towards building a network of Business

Labs. First, some key reference models (FabLabs, Maker spaces, Living Labs, etc.)

and on-line peer collaboration communities are analysed, and then the main

methodological elements for guiding the framework development process are listed.

Chapter 3 follows the main steps followed to build the Lab Network and, as a

consequence, define the framework. This process is on the one hand closely tied to

the definition of ethical/operational principles (that have then been applied project-

wide) and on the other paralleled the development of the Lab platform.

Chapters 4, 5 and 6 individually describe the three types of Lab: Design, Make and

Place, following a common structure. First, the definition resulting from the iterative

co-design process is presented, followed a discussion of the main elements that form

the theoretical framework. Then a listing of the active Associate Labs for each type

describes the structures that result from the first Call for Expressions of Interest.

Chapter 7 looks forward to the operationalisation of the Labs. First, the general

processes and common strategies for Associate Engagement are described, followed

by the specific accompanying actions foreseen by the Task leaders for each type of

Lab. Then, an overview of the preliminary service concepts proposed is presented,

with a hint on how these will be developed in the first cycle of pilot experimentation.

Chapter 8 closes with some concluding reflections on work to date.

The list of Associate Labs resulting from the Year 1 activities is as follows:

Type Name Country (via) Partner

Design 1. Athens Fashion Design Lab Greece HCIA

2. Lottozero / textile laboratories Italy Prato

3. Sanjotec Design Lab Portugal Sanjotec

4. Textile Centre of Excellence (Design Lab)

UK TCoE

5. TextileLab Amsterdam - Academy The Netherlands

Waag Society

6. Textile Museum of Prato Italy

Prato


646133 - TCBL Textile & Clothing Business Labs

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Make 7. Athens Making Lab Greece MIRTEC

8. Fabbrica ARCA Italy ARCA

9. FabLab Venezia Italy UCV

10. Lanificio Paoletti Italy UCV

11. Textile Centre of Excellence (Make Lab)

UK TCoE

12. TextileLab Amsterdam - Your Textile Tools

The Netherlands

Waag Society

Place 13. Etri Place Lab Slovenia eZavod

14. Hisa Sadezi Druzbe place lab (transitioning in)

Slovenia eZavod

15. Oliva Creative Lab Portugal Sanjotec

16. Palermo Place Lab Italy ARCA

17. TextileLab Amsterdam - Connecting Explorers

The Netherlands

Waag Society

18. Time Laboratory Italy Prato

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................ 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................. 5

GLOSSARY ................................................................................................................................ 8

1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 14

1.1 SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES OF WP 3 ................................................................................... 14

Objectives .......................................................................................................................... 14

WP 3 Tasks ....................................................................................................................... 15

1.2 ROLE OF WP3 IN TCBL ................................................................................................... 16

WP 3 in the Context of Broader TCBL Objectives ............................................................ 16

The Core Interplay Between WP 3 and WP 4 ................................................................... 17

1.3 OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES IN YEAR 1 ............................................................................. 18

Objectives for Year 1 ......................................................................................................... 18

Activities Carried Out ........................................................................................................ 19

Business Lab Status as of Month 12................................................................................. 21

2. VISION AND APPROACH ................................................................................................ 23

2.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 23

2.2 CONTEXT AND MODELS .................................................................................................... 23

The Lab Concept ............................................................................................................... 24

On-line Creative Communities .......................................................................................... 27

2.3 APPROACH ...................................................................................................................... 29

Methodological Elements .................................................................................................. 29

3. BUILDING THE LAB NETWORK ..................................................................................... 33

3.1 DEFINING LAB PRINCIPLES ............................................................................................... 33

The TCBL Labs Video ....................................................................................................... 35

3.2 BUILDING THE COLLABORATION PLATFORM ...................................................................... 35

Platform Requirements ..................................................................................................... 36

Platform Structure ............................................................................................................. 36

3.3 MANAGING THE FIRST CALL ............................................................................................. 38

Expressions of Interest ...................................................................................................... 39

Outcomes .......................................................................................................................... 39

Future Application Procedure ............................................................................................ 40

Lessons Learned from the First Call ................................................................................. 41

4. DESIGN LABS .................................................................................................................. 43

4.1 DEFINITION OF A DESIGN LAB ........................................................................................... 43

4.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................................................. 45



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Fashion Design ................................................................................................................. 45

Design Thinking................................................................................................................. 47

Service Design .................................................................................................................. 48

Design for Sustainability .................................................................................................... 50

Relevance of Background Models to TCBL ...................................................................... 55

4.3 ACTIVE DESIGN LABS ...................................................................................................... 55

5. MAKING LABS ................................................................................................................. 57

5.1 DEFINITION OF A MAKING LAB .......................................................................................... 57


Maker Movement............................................................................................................... 58

Recycling and Re-use ....................................................................................................... 60

Ecological Certification ...................................................................................................... 62

5.3 TRENDS IN TEXTILES AND PROCESSING ............................................................................ 63

Sustainable Textile Fibres ................................................................................................. 63

Functional Finishes ........................................................................................................... 64

Dry Processing Technologies ........................................................................................... 65

5.4 EMERGENT TECHNOLOGIES .............................................................................................. 67

Digital Inkjet Textile Printing .............................................................................................. 67

3D Printing ......................................................................................................................... 69

Laser Cutting ..................................................................................................................... 71

Intelligent Textiles and Clothing ........................................................................................ 72

Relevance of Background Models and Trends to TCBL ................................................... 73

5.3 ACTIVE MAKING LABS ...................................................................................................... 74

6. PLACE LABS ................................................................................................................... 76

6.1 DEFINITION OF A PLACE LAB ............................................................................................ 76


Territorial Innovation ......................................................................................................... 78

Industrialisation of Garment Production ............................................................................ 80

The Fast Fashion Model ................................................................................................... 81

Issues for Relocalisation ................................................................................................... 82

Experimentation with the Organization of Production ....................................................... 83

Relevance of Background Models to TCBL ...................................................................... 84

6.3 ACTIVE PLACE LABS ........................................................................................................ 85

7. NEXT STEPS .................................................................................................................... 87

7.1 COMMON ISSUES FOR LAB ENGAGEMENT ......................................................................... 87

Interaction with the Business Pilots................................................................................... 87



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Interaction with the Platform Services ............................................................................... 88

Organisational Practice ..................................................................................................... 89

Community Engagement ................................................................................................... 89

Governance ....................................................................................................................... 90

7.2 ACCOMPANYING LAB DEVELOPMENT ................................................................................ 90

Monitoring and Interacting ................................................................................................. 90

Lab Development Potentials ............................................................................................. 92

Indicators for Success ....................................................................................................... 93

7.3 TOWARDS SERVICE CONCEPTS ........................................................................................ 93

8. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS ....................................................................................... 96

BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 97

Publications ....................................................................................................................... 97

Web References.............................................................................................................. 100

Television ........................................................................................................................ 100

LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... 101

LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................. 102

DOCUMENT INFORMATION ................................................................................................. 103

Revision History .............................................................................................................. 103

Statement of originality .................................................................................................... 103

Copyright ......................................................................................................................... 103

Disclaimer ........................................................................................................................ 104

Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... 104

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GLOSSARY

Term Definition and source

Additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D Printing

3D printing is a production method that produces 3-dimensional objects by combining very thin layers over and over to form the object using 3D scanners or via software, either private or open source1.

Bottom-up The bottom-up approach means that local actors participate in decision-making about the strategy and in the selection of the priorities to be pursued in their local area.2 In TCBL, we apply this term (from participatory planning and local development) more broadly to the relationship between citizen/consumers and industry/production.

Circular Economy A circular economy is one that is restorative and regenerative by design, and which aims to keep products, components and materials at their highest utility and value at all times, distinguishing between technical and biological cycles.3

Co-design An approach to design attempting to actively involve all stakeholders (e.g. employees, partners, customers, citizens, end users) in the design process to help ensure the result meets their needs and is usable. (also known as Participatory Design)4

Cradle to cradle Design approach through which the outputs (or waste) from one system become the inputs (nutrients) for other processes or products.5

Design activism Design approach explicitly supporting a particular social or environmental cause, which is outside the core concerns of mainstream6

Design for sustainability Design approach to reduce or completely eliminate negative environmental impacts through thoughtful designs.

Design Lab TCBL Design Labs are facilities exploring tools and methods for designing textiles and clothes, working with professionals, fashion students, or anyone, even working from home. Design Labs are focused on the ideation and conception of fabrics, garments, designs, etc., by an immaterial value and emotion-oriented point of view, providing specific support to home based design and production.

1 Reyhan K et al. (2015) “Production with 3D printers in textiles (review)” available at

http://textile.webhost.uoradea.ro/Annals/Vol%20XVI-Nr.%202-2015/Art.nr.109-pag.47-50.pdf.

2 http://www.elard.eu/en_GB/the-bottom-up-approach

3 https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy

4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_design

5 McDonough W., Braungart M. (2010) Cradle to cradle: Remaking the way we make things, MacMillan.

6 Ibid.

http://textile.webhost.uoradea.ro/Annals/Vol%20XVI-Nr.%202-2015/Art.nr.109-pag.47-50.pdf



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Design Thinking Discipline that applies designer’s sensibility and methods to problem solving.7

Digital textile printing Digital textile printing involves the use of printing systems to print out digital data and has the following characteristics8: (1) high reproducibility of fine gradations and subtle colour tones, (2) suitable for small lot production runs at low cost and high speed, without the need for the plates that are indispensable for analogue printing and (3) minimize the environmental burden due minimal wastage of dyes.

Dry-processing technologies Technologies that aim to help reduce the vast quantities of pollution generated by textile dyeing and finishing.

Eco-design Design process considering the environmental impacts of a product throughout its entire life: from acquisition of raw materials through production/manufacturing and use to end of life.

Ecological certification Certification processes applied to textiles and clothing related to organic production, energy usage, pollution, and biodiversity conservation; can also include social issues such as labor practices, worker health and safety, consumer health and safety, economic development and animal treatment. 9:

Emotionally durable design Design creating a deeper, more sustainable link between people and products, based on desire, love, fascination and attachment.10

Fast Fashion A term used to describe cheap and affordable clothes which are the result of catwalk designs moving into stores in the fastest possible way in order to respond to the latest trends11

Functional finishing Functional finishes include those aiming to improve comfort and performance, such as thermal regulation finishes, moisture management and soil release, softening finishes, enzymatic biofinishes, shrink resist and easy care finishes, self-cleaning finishes, superabsorbent, cosmetic and odour resistant finishes. Another category includes finishes for protecting the wearers and the textiles, such as insect repellent and antimicrobial finishes,

7 Brown T. (2009) Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires

Innovation, HarperCollins Publishers.

8 http://global.epson.com/newsroom/2015/pdf/150601.pdf

9 https://center.sustainability.duke.edu/sites/default/files/documents/ecolabelsreport.pdf

10 Chapman J. (2005) Emotionally Durable Design: Objects, Experiences and Empathy, Earthscan.

11 http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/fast-fashion

http://global.epson.com/newsroom/2015/pdf/150601.pdf

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/fast-fashion



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hydrophobic and oleophobic finishes, flame retardant finishes, ultraviolet protection finishes and antistatic finishes. 12.

Garment Manufacturing Systems

Since the 1930s, two systems are generally used: Progressive Bundle System (PBS), in which each worker is specialized in one, or at most a few sewing operations, and Standard Allocated Minutes (SAM), in which a specific time of execution of a given step is defined. 13

Green design Design process assessing and dealing with individual environmental impacts of a product rather than on the product's entire life.

Intelligent textiles and clothing

Wearable systems are be characterized by their ability to automatically recognize the activity and the behavioural status of their own user as well as of the situation around her/him and to use this information to adjust the systems’ configuration and functionality. 14

Laser Cutting Laser cutting is an unconventional method that has been widely used in many industries nowadays. Laser cut fabrics are used throughout the textile industry for everything from fashion items such as dresses, skirts, jackets and scarves to household products like curtains, sofa covers, cushions and upholstery15.

Maker Movement The maker movement is the name given to the increasing number of people employing do-it-yourself (DIY) and do-it-with-others (DIWO) techniques and processes to design, manufacture and create their own objects. The maker movement is therefore ultimately improving creativity in many fields. 16

Makerspaces A Makerspace is a collaborative work space hosted in a school, library or specific public/private facility for making, learning, exploring and sharing that uses high tech to no tech tools. The defining characteristic is the practice of a “maker mindset”: creating something out of nothing and exploring one‘s own interests. Some makerspaces also foster entrepreneurship, playing the role of incubators and accelerators for business start-ups, some with great success17

12 Paul R. (2015) “Functional finishes for textiles” in Functional finishes for textiles. Editor Paul R.

Woodhead Publishing Series in Textiles.

13 Abernathy F.H., Dunlop J.T., Hammond J.H., Weil D. (1999) A Stitch in Time: Lean Retailing

and the Transformation of Manufacturing, Oxford University Press.

14 Mattila H. (2006) “Intelligent textiles and clothing – a part of our intelligent ambience” in Intelligent

textiles and clothing. Editor: Mattila HR. Woodhead Publishing Series in Textiles.

15 http://www.cct-uk.com/laser_cutting_fabrics_and_textiles.php

16 http://www.edudemic.com/maker-movement-tools/

17 https://www.makerspaces.com/what-is-a-makerspace

http://www.cct-uk.com/laser_cutting_fabrics_and_textiles.php



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Making Lab TCBL Making Labs are infrastructures that explore issues related to the manufacturing of textiles and clothing, aiming to facilitate innovation and adoption of new business models. They are places for knowledge creation and transfer and prototypes manufacturing, closely interacting with other components of the TCBL ecosystem. Therefore, availability of infrastructure, in particular of innovative equipment e.g. for cutting and sewing is a common feature.

Participatory design Design approach encouraging the active involvement of potential or current end-users of a system in the design and decision-making processes.18

Place-based approach A policy approach whereby economic institutions are designed and shaped, on the basis of general principles, to suit the local context and to embody local knowledge, given the growing recognition that “one size does not fit all”.19

Recycling and re-use in textiles

Recycling and re-use in textiles, includes both pre-consumer (by-products) and post-consumer (discarded clothes) waste. Typically, recycling technologies are divided in primary (original form), secondary (melt processing plastics), tertiary (converting plastices into basic chemicals) and quaternary approaches (using the heat generated from burning). 20

Reframing To re-frame is to change the conceptual and/or emotional setting or viewpoint in relation to which a situation is experienced and to place it in another frame which fits the 'facts' of the same concrete situation equally well or even better, and thereby changing its entire meaning.21

Relocalisation The return of production facilities to a ‘home’ territory, following a period of having moved production facilities abroad, generally in the search for low-cost labour.

Service design Activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service in order to improve its quality and the interaction between service provider and customers.22

18 Chick A., Micklethwaite P. (2011) Design for Sustainable Change: How design and designers can

drive the sustainability agenda, AVA Publishing

19 Barca, F. (2009): An Agenda for a reformed cohesion policy. A place-based approach to meeting

European Union challenges and expectations. Independent report prepared at the request of Danuta

Hübner, Commissioner for Regional Policy.

20 Hawley J.M. (2006) “Textile recycling: A system perspective” in Recycling in Textiles. Editor Wang Y.

Woodhead Publishing in Textiles

21 Watzlawick, P., Weakland, J. and Fisch, R. (1974) Change: Principles of Problem Formation and

Problem Resolution, NY: Norton.

22 https://www.service-design-network.org/



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Sustainable textile fibres Textile fibres that are considered as eco-friendly and sustainable include natural fibres like organic cotton, bamboo, flax, hemp, jute, ramie, sisal, abaca, etc, but also synthetic fibres produced from natural resources, like Lyocell and PLA (Poly Lactic Acid). 23

Stigmergy A form of self-organisation observed by Pierre-Paul Grassé in termites: It produces complex, seemingly intelligent structures, without need for any planning, control, or even direct communication between the agents.24

TCBL Associates programme25

TCBL aims to gradually populate its ecosystem with T&C actors covering the entire value chain by means of yearly calls for expression of interest. There are four types of Associates:

Business Labs (Design, Making, and Place)

T&C Enterprises (Pilot Laboratories, later renamed as Workshops, and Pilot Factories)

Advisors (Associations, Consultants, Agencies, etc.)

Business Service Providers (mostly ICT services to be positioned on the TCBL platform).

Associates joining the TCBL ecosystem do not receive funding as such, but rather specific services from project partners (as part of the relevant work package activities) plus the TCBL label as being part of the network. There will also be a call for expressions of interest for Start-ups; like the Associates, they will be receiving services from TCBL partners (in this case, incubation services such as travel, consultants, office space, labs) rather than funding.

TCBL Business Labs26 Physical and/or virtual spaces in which actors involved in TCBL can draw on existing and emerging business models to freely experiment with new ways of designing, making, producing within specific locations in the countries covered by the TCBL partnership. TCBL includes three types of labs: Design, Making, and Place Labs. The essential purpose of TCBL Business Labs is to produce and transfer knowledge and innovation into T&C Business Systems, motivating potential pilots to emerge. By so doing, Business Labs freely explore more or less radical innovation trajectories in T&C, structured according to a coherent framework and relying on existing and emergent models.

TCBL Business Systems (Pilots)27

Pilot activities within TCBL are based on existing and concrete supply and value chains including social enterprises, primarily in,

23 Ali M.A., Sarwar M.I. (2014) Sustainable and Environmental Friendly Fibers in Textile Fashion: A

Study of Organic Cotton and Bamboo Fibers Master’s Thesis at University of Borås, available at

http://bada.hb.se/bitstream/2320/6729/1/2010.9.14.pdf.

24 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Paul_Grass%C3%A9

25 Adapted from the TCBL DoA, part B, pp. 13-14, and updated on the basis of the First Call.

26 Adapted from the TCBL DoA, various pp.

27 Adapted from TCBL DoA, part B, p. 8 and p. 35.

http://bada.hb.se/bitstream/2320/6729/1/2010.9.14.pdf



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but not limited to the T&C manufacturing sector, to establish methodologies for “innovation transfer” of business model elements. Members of Business Systems can be in particular Business Labs, T&C Enterprises (Pilot Laboratories, later renamed as Workshops, and Pilot Factories), as well as Advisors and Business Service Providers).

TCBL Ecosystem28 A socio-digital business experimentation framework for exploring innovations alternative to the three main strategies undertaken so far by the European T&C sector to handle global competitive pressure: cost-oriented, product/service oriented and productivity-oriented.

TCBL Pilot Scenario29 Innovative business process to be explored and implemented in realistic conditions by a selected number of TCBL Pilots. Several TCBL Pilots can work together to generate a Pilot Scenario. This uses existing business models or standard definitions for e.g. skills or business processes to start with, integrates them with one or more Service Concepts received from the TCBL Business Labs, and identifies one or more ‘points of customisation’ to satisfy new marketing, branding, design, manufacturing or distribution concepts.

Territorial innovation An integration between technology innovation and social, economic, cultural and institutional innovation based on the valorisation of Territorial Capital. 30

Value Ladder The laddering method of interviewing … is a technique that is particularly helpful in eliciting goals and underlying values, and therefore, possibly helpful during early stages of user experience research.31

28 Adapted from the TCBL DoA, p. 3 (abstract).

29 Definition created during discussions in the Athens meeting (26th – 27th January 2016).

30 Marsh J. (2008) “Living Labs and Territorial Innovation” in Collaboration and the Knowledge Economy:

Issues, Applications, Case Studies, IOS Press, Amsterdam.

31 http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2009/07/laddering-a-research-interview-technique-for-

uncovering-core-values.php

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1. INTRODUCTION

As the first report from Work Package 3 Business Labs, this document first presents an overall

framework for the concept of a Lab within TCBL, and then generic frameworks the three types

of Business Labs originally envisaged: Design, Making and Place. The work is based on an

iterative series of interactions with potential candidate organisations, leading up to the process

of the first Call for Expressions of Interest (EoI) for each of the three Business Lab typologies

and results of the evaluation.

1.1 SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES OF WP 3

OBJECTIVES

WP 3 Business Labs is described in the TCBL DoA as follows:

This Work Package defines and develops the core concept of the project – Business Labs – according to the three non-exclusive classes of Design Labs, Making Labs, and Place Labs. Each of those labs provides a focused context for exploring different types of business model transformations.

Business Labs are open concepts that are based on activities (research, design, incubation, etc.) already on-going or planned with the relevant project partners and TCBL Associates, that will: evolve through the interaction with the T&C Business Pilots of WP4 and other project activities, while converging towards a coherent framework that promotes networking and scaling up across Europe.

WP3 starts by building a hypothesis framework for the activities of the 15 startup Associate Labs, then tests this framework first through interaction with the 60 TCBL Associate Pilots of the first Call for Expressions of Interest, then scales up by a) bringing an additional 60 labs into the network through the second and third Calls and in parallel b) broadening the “client” base of T&C pilots to over 180 through the second and third Calls for Associate Pilots, and finally by consolidating the Business Lab model and its prospects for sustainability as part of the activities in WPs 6 and 7.32

It is clear from the above, plus the simple fact that ‘Business Labs’ is half the title of this

project, that WP 3 plays a central role in TCBL. At the same time, it is the activity with the least

clear starting point, as the Business Labs – ‘open concepts’ – are the main object of

experimentation. WP 3 is thus both an operational and exploratory activity that aims, through

bottom up interaction with existing structures and markets as well as with all other project

activities, to define through ‘discovery’ exactly what a Business Lab is.

WP 3 is substantially working in the unexplored territory between the creative and open-ended

exploration typical of different participatory lab models on the one hand, and the concrete

application of innovation concepts in operational businesses in the T&C sector on the other.

The above text describes Labs simply as “Contexts within which […] exploration will take

place”. Although this may seem pretty straight forward it is a definition that gives room to a

wide range of interpretations, some of them with quite demanding consequences.

The starting definition of Business Labs identifies three main types of Lab, not so much as to

impose a rigid classification but primarily to identify three key perspectives on innovation and

creativity. We could say that given a starting problem, a designer would approach it in one

way, a maker from another, and a place-based innovation community in yet another. The

hypothesis is that these three perspectives first need to be explored in their own right and

32 DoA p. 50



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each developed within the context of textile and clothing business models, before converging

into a unified model.

WP 3 TASKS

TASK 3.1 CONFIGURATION AND LAUNCH

Task 3.1 (Lead Waag, Collaborating partners: Prato, DITF, OU, OBU, MIRTEC, TCoE,

eXavod, ARCA, UCV and HCIA) is described in the DoA as follows:

This first activity refines the definition and coordinates the initial activities of the specific Business Labs for participating partners in order to prepare their launch as members of the TCBL network. This includes the definition of Terms of Reference including procedural, ethical and governance principles, quality assurance measures, and a common calendar for the first activities: communication and outreach to T&C Business Pilots, scheduling of joint activities and reciprocal site visits, thematic coordination for the first two cycles of workshops.33

This task lasts from the project kick-off through Month 12, and is thus the main activity

reported in this deliverable.

TASK 3.2 DESIGN LABS

Task 3.2 (Lead Prato, Collaborating partners: DITF, OU, OBU, Waag, TCoE, eZavod, HCIA

and Sanjotec), is described in the DoA as follows:

This activity brings together the Design Labs, which focus on the ideation and conception of fabrics, garments, etc. The Design Labs explore ways of stimulating creativity in parallel with new ways of co-design together with the processes of production. Design-for-one, self-design, designs based on cultural heritage, crowd-design, and collaborative design are all approaches that may be explored. In addition, the Design Labs will explore the creative potential of new materials, new technologies, and new production processes.34

Task 3.2 began activities in project month 9 (March 2016), as the First Call for Expressions of

Interest began to draw to a close, although the Design Lab perspective contributed

significantly to building the general Lab framework in Task 3.1, and outreach activities to

engage Design Labs were carried out in the context of Task 3.5. The reporting in Chapter 4 of

this document covers all of aspects.

TASK 3.3 MAKING LABS

Task 3.3 (Lead MIRTEC, Collaborating partners: DITF, OU, OBU, Waag, TCoE, ARCA and

UCV) is described in the DoA as follows:

This activity brings together the Making Labs, which focus on the material production of textiles and clothing. The Making Labs interact with the Design Labs especially as concerns the application of materials and technologies, but their focus is on the organisation of the physical act of production and its market role. Innovative equipment for cutting and sewing will therefore be a common feature.35

33 DoA p. 50..

34 DoA p. 50.

35 DoA p. 51.



16

Like Task 3.2, Task 3.3 began activities in project month 9 (March 2016. The reporting in

Chapter 5 of this document also covers the contributions to the general framework and the

engagement of Making Labs throughout the first Call process.

TASK 3.4 PLACE LABS

Task 3.4 (Lead eZavod, Collaborating partners: Prato, OU, OBU, Waag, ARCA, HCIA, and

Sanjotec) is described in the DoA as follows:

The Place Labs are the most exploratory of the Business Labs, and are centred on the relationship between knowledge, territory and production. The Place Labs thus explore a range of inter-connected issues of relevance: re-valorisation of artisan knowledge embedded in a territory, the creation of fabrics and clothing as an instrument for community development, the development of local zero-km value chains, etc.36

Task 3.4 operates in parallel with Tasks 3.2 and 3.3 and thus began activities in project month

9 (March 2016), The reporting in this document thus again covers the contributions to the

general framework and the engagement of Place Labs throughout the first Call process.

TASK 3.5 ASSOCIATE LAB ENGAGEMENT

Task 3.5 (Lead ARCA, Collaborating partners: Prato, DITF, OU, OBU, MIRTEC, Waag, TCoE,

eZavod, UCV and HCIA) is described in the DoA as follows:

This activity focuses on the selection and integration of the Associate Labs joining the network through the four yearly Calls for Expression of Interest (see Task 9.4). The activity includes extensive promotion of each of the Calls and the organisation and execution of the selection process in months 6-9, 18-21, 30-33, and 42-45. In addition, monitoring and evaluation of the engagement and integration process will feed into improvement of the Call procedures for the following year. Issues to address throughout the Associates Programme include extension and re-definition of the three Business Lab models, interconnection and network governance, and different sustainability approaches for the Business Lab system.37

Task 3.5 started activity in month 6, with the purpose of organizing the procedures of the first

Call, and included the call definition and outreach activities that are reported in the body of this

document. The strategies for the engagement and integration of Associate Labs following the

Call procedure are discussed in Chapter 7 of this document.

1.2 ROLE OF WP3 IN TCBL

WP 3 IN THE CONTEXT OF BROADER TCBL OBJECTIVES

Given the central role of WP3 in TCBL, it is useful to return briefly to the context in which the

Business Lab activities take place, namely their role in the project-level objectives. The

following text, adapted from the “About” page of the TCBL website, sums this up:

New and significant opportunities are emerging based on new production and distribution technologies, innovative organisational models, and new creative energies. In parallel, customers are showing increasing attention to ethical and environmental sustainability in the clothes they wear. The gap, however, between possible new business models and the

36 DoA p. 51

37 DoA p. 51-52.



17

reality of small and micro-enterprises is too wide and the risk they face in experimenting new models is currently too high.

TCBL aims to bridge this cap with the creation of a network of Business Labs that freely experiment the implications of potential innovations and their concrete impacts on business operations.

These laboratories interact with a substantial number of sector enterprises of various dimensions – “pilot businesses” – who compose innovation elements coming from different Business Labs to identify transition scenarios that can accompany their shift from current ways of working towards more innovative and competitive business models.38

This statement clarifies the role of the Business Labs play with respect to the broader TCBL

innovation model. On the one hand, they are expected to ‘freely experiment’ different methods

and technologies appearing on the horizon, without the pressure to directly transform

inventions into commercial products. Unlike an accelerator or incubator, the Business Labs

are thus not expected to create business themselves. On the other hand, they are expected to

generate business ideas that are relevant to the TCBL pilots, which means they need to be

able to establish a dialogue with them; it is then the job of the T&C enterprises to carry out

their own shift towards new business models. Defining exactly how the Business Labs will be

able to carry out this role of exploring innovation potentials and passing the baton to

operational businesses, is one of the main tasks of WP3.

THE CORE INTERPLAY BETWEEN WP 3 AND WP 4

As is evident from the above, there is in particular a strong interaction between WP 3 and the

activities for engaging T&C enterprises and building Business Systems in WP 4, as the key

dynamic in the co-design of the Business Lab model. The following scheme (also appearing in

Deliverable 4.1) proposes a starting model for the relationships between these activities and

how those of other WPs feed into this interplay.

Figure 1. Interplay between WP 3 and WP 4

38 http://tcbl.eu/about



18

The service design and innovation activities of the Business Labs identified and developed in

WP3 can be combined together in various configurations, but from the standpoint of WP4 their

prime purpose is the transfer/integration of new and innovative Service Concepts into existing

or emergent Business Systems (Pilots). This approach underpins the identification of suitable

Pilot Scenarios (being the object of analysis of other TCBL WPs such as 6 and 7) that may

provide the appropriate impulses to Business Labs’ innovative activities ‘from the demand

side’. Such scenarios are to be experimentally deployed during the project and foresee the

transition from current to future business models (or parts thereof), facilitated by a (set of)

business model transition scheme(s) that use the Business Pilots as inspiration and evidence

base.

Pilot Scenarios thus help identify key areas for innovation and generation of new business

models in existing Business Systems: namely supply chain innovation, localisation innovation,

business process innovation, skills innovation, and policy/regulatory innovation. To do so, Pilot

Scenarios use existing business models or standard definitions for e.g. skills or business

processes to start with, integrate them with one or more Service Concepts received from the

Business Labs, and identify one or more ‘points of customisation’ to satisfy new marketing,

branding, design, manufacturing or distribution concepts. In that sense, the activities of WP4

act as a ‘demand pull’ mechanism that contribute to define the areas of potentially relevant

investigation for the different Business Labs

1.3 OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES IN YEAR 1

OBJECTIVES FOR YEAR 1

The main objective for the first year of WP 3, primarily concentrated in Task 3.1, has been to

define a starting framework for the Business Labs. This implies setting in place the tools,

methods, and structures – namely a starting network of at least 15 Business Labs – that allow

the co-design interplay with T&C enterprises to concretely begin. In other words, the goal has

been to provide the set-up conditions for the first ‘internal’ phase of pilot experimentation that

will take place in Year 2 of the project.

The following operational objectives are implied in this process:

Operational Framework: The first goal was to build an operational framework, a

terms of reference for the activities for the three types of Business Labs – Design,

Make and Place – and with that a TCBL Lab in general.

Prescriptive Framework: A second objective was to identify the desired operational

and ethical qualities of a Lab, in terms of a set of principles against which to define the

evaluation process.

Collaboration Framework: A third objective was to define the means and tools for

collaboration between Labs, which in turn was addressed through the adaptation of an

existing platform to create a virtual space where Labs can apply as a TCBL Lab and

where Labs across Europe and their activities are visible.

First Call for Expressions of Interest for Labs: Once the framework and tools

were in place, the objective became the organisation and execution of the first

‘internal’ Call for Expressions of Interest for Business Labs. Differently from the

parallel Call for Business Pilots in WP4, this took place via the framework/platform,

adopting a collaborative evaluation procedure where Labs were approved after two

rounds of feedback and adjustments.



19

Starting Network of Business Labs: The ultimate objective for the first year was, as

a result of the above activities, to end up with a starting network of at least 15

Business Labs (18 were selected in the end) with which to begin the pilot activities

through the effective operationalisation of Tasks 3.2 (Design Labs), 3.3 (Making

Labs), and 3.4 (Place Labs).

ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT

As WP 3 has a primarily exploratory/constructive goal, the activities carried out to reach the

above objectives consisted in a series of interactive iterations rather than following a linear

sequence. The WP 3 (and Task 3.1) Lead partner – Waag Society coordinated this process,

which involved in a first instance the project partners responsible for the three types of Lab (ie

Tasks 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4) – Prato, MIRTEC, and eZavod – and then gradually extended to the

other WP3 partners hosting or promoting one or more Labs.

The general approach and method and tools adopted are the subject of a more in-depth

reflection in the following two chapters, but here we can synthesize the main phases of this

iterative process:

A first census of Business Labs and first reflections on the three typologies – Design,

Make and Place Labs – at the Prato Consortium Meeting in July, 2015, fed into a two-

day workshop in Amsterdam in September 2015 to better clarify the first elements of a

common framework.

This work continued interactively with the WP3 Task leaders to further develop the

framework, including a second two-day workshop in Esslingen in December, 2015,

jointly organised with WP4 to focus on the interactions between Labs and Business

Pilots.

The framework was then finalised as it took the form of a (currently beta) web service

to be integrated into the TCBL website, based on the open source fablaboratory.io

platform. The framework structured the definition of the first Call for Expression of

Interest.

The following table details the steps of this iterative process in greater detail:

Table 1. The iterative development process in WP 3

Iteration Where/How What

I Prato, July 14th - 16th, 2015

Establishing a common ground (Prato, July 14th - 16th, 2015)

First census of candidate labs (Prato, July 14th - 16th, 2015): WP3 members’ presentations

II Questionnaire and Skype Survey

Questionnaire (August 2015): WP3 members’ input

Skype Survey: One-on-one discussions WP lead - WP3 members

III Amsterdam workshop (September 14th – 15th, 2015):

Four Co-Creation Sessions with WP3 Members (+ WP4) Representatives

Interviews with all attending (for publication on website) on their first thoughts.

Follow up after Amsterdam: Skype calls per Lab typologies (November 2015)

Start ecosystem: online list of machinery etc. (November 2015)



20

Iteration Where/How What

IV Converging ideas towards Framework and Platform

Research existing participatory platform

Collaborative definition of the criteria for the platform

First mockups of the possible platform

V Turin WP6 technical meeting (November 2015)

TCBL – Platform concept was first presented by Waag Society

VI Brussels: Presentation to the European Commission

Approach presentation

Share the results and reflect on Amsterdam workshops

Presentation of the issues and insights concerning Labs

VII Stuttgart / Esslingen workshop (December 15th – 17th, 2015) on WP3 – WP4 interaction

Presentation of the interactive questionnaire (fullfils needs of the platform, framework and eoi)

Presentation of the Principles for the Labs

Update by task leaders on the development of their respective labs (DESIGN, MAKE, PLACE)

Examples by task leaders of service concepts that can feed into the Business Pilots (WP4)

Mapping of WP3-WP4 interactions

Steps to finalise the frameworks and move towards definition of the Call for the Expression of Interest (M6 – M9).

VII.i In between Forms filled in from the partners of WP3 of the online questionnaire

Feedback from all of the parteners of WP3 on the procedure and understanding of it

IX Athens Consortium Meeting (25 – 28 January 2016)

Principles at work (Reframing presentation)

Update from the task leaders on development of the labs

Interaction wp3 –wp4

Dervices concepts: labs to pilots, pilots to labs

IX.i In between Additional interviews requests to partners for Video

Design of the platform

Rework of interviews into a video

Labs developing more concrete ideas

X Venice Consortium Meeting (28 – 31 March 2016)

Presentation of the status of the labs

Feedback on filled in online forms of the labs

Steps of the call of expression of interest

X.i In between Platform becomes concrete

Test of expression of interest procedure - Partners fill in the platform

Test of expression of interest procedure – round 1 evaluations

Test of expression of interest procedure – round 2 evaluations

XI Huddersfield (20 – 23 June 2016)

LAB JAM Side session – get to know your labs/pilots

XI.i In between Telco task leaders (fill in platform, connect and get ready) Telco lab typology Fixing feedback on the platform



21

BUSINESS LAB STATUS AS OF MONTH 12

LABS THAT ARE VISIBLE ON THE PLATFORM

The following labs have completed the development and evaluation process in full and have

provided the main lab description on the platform.

Table 2. Lab status at month 12


Design 1. Athens Fashion Design Lab Greece HCIA

2. Lottozero / textile laboratories Italy Prato

3. Sanjotec Design Lab Portugal Sanjotec

4. Textile Centre of Excellence (Design Lab)

UK TCoE

5. TextileLab Amsterdam - Academy The Netherlands

Waag Society

6. Textile Museum of Prato Italy Prato

Make 7. Athens Making Lab Greece MIRTEC

8. Fabbrica ARCA Italy ARCA

9. FabLab Venezia Italy UCV

10. Lanificio Paoletti Italy UCV

11. Textile Centre of Excellence (Make Lab)

UK TCoE

12. TextileLab Amsterdam - Your Textile Tools

The Netherlands

Waag Society

Place 13. Etri Place Lab Slovenia eZavod

14. Oliva Creative Lab Portugal Sanjotec

15. Palermo Place Lab Italy ARCA

16. TextileLab Amsterdam - Connecting Explorers

The Netherlands

Waag Society

17. Time Laboratory Italy Prato

LAB ACCEPTED BY STILL IN THE MENTORING PROCESS

The following lab had completed the evaluation process and will participate in the first phase

of pilot experimentation, but is still being developed prior to publication on the Lab platform.


Place 18. Hisa Sadezi Druzbe place lab: not ready yet

Slovenia eZavod



22

LABS EVALUATED AND NOT BECOMING ASSOCIATES

The following Lab proposals were evaluated but for different reasons deemed not appropriate

to participate in the first round of pilot experimentation.


Make Secret Studio: had to cancel participation

Spain Jocelyn Whipple

Place E-zavod living lab Ptuj: agreed to be not a lab, maybe a pilot

Slovenia eZavod

23

2. VISION AND APPROACH

2.1 INTRODUCTION

A hundred years ago 'to be modern' meant to chase 'the final state of perfection' -- now it means an infinity of improvement, with no 'final state' in sight and none desired.

Zygmunt Bauman39

Starting a movement, changing an entire industry from the inside out, requires new ways of

working, new ways of doing research. As we will touch upon in this chapter, we need to

practice what we preach. This has resulted in the open and collaborative definition of a

specific approach and working method, which at its current state of development is one of the

key outcomes of this first year, together with the more tangible results described in the

following chapters. This chapter therefore outlines some of the reflections and steps taken, in

particular from the standpoint of the team at Waag Society, WP leader, towards defining an

approach for the TCBL Business Labs.

The quote above from Zygmunt Bauman well describes the mindset from which this work was

developed. It results in an iterative approach that sometimes by nature fights its own battles

when being captured in a linear fashion as in this document. Nevertheless, that is what we aim

for in the following chapters. We touch upon literature, non-academic thinking, practice and

outcomes of social engineering tools, that together form a baseline towards building a

Business Labs Network. From there we follow the first steps of building the actual TCBL

business lab network itself.

Working iteratively with all WP3 partners simultaneously, we developed a common

understanding of the principles and values that all of the WP partners could identify themselves

in, and at the same time examined the criteria and necessities of the Business Labs and other

similar networks and communities, and the ways these operate and share information.

2.2 CONTEXT AND MODELS

Being no different from any other EU project consortium, the TCBL partnership is a

heterogeneous group by nature. To establish a common ground in terms of both content and

organization and create a baseline from which to all start moving in the same direction,

embracing each others’ strengths and weaknesses, the partners used several so called ‘social

engineering tools’ or ‘workshop formats’ offered by Waag Society, one of which is the Value

Ladder.

The Value Ladder is a method used to come to a common understanding of values on a

certain topic, without getting lost in long conversations in which some actively participate while

others step out. Depending on the number of participants, there will be two or three groups

each with five core values that are shared and grouped on a flipchart. The values are then

rated and placed in order of importance. Through this exercise, project partners identified the

following five core values for the TCBL project:

1. Freedom / exploration

2. Endurance / resilience

3. Vitality

4. Empathy

39 Baumann, Z. (2000), Liquid Modernity, Wiley.



24

5. Transparency

It is with these five core values in mind that we started our journey. Additional co-design sessions

– defining hopes, dreams and criteria for the Business Labs, the project and the industry as a

whole – resulted in an agreement on the essential characteristics for TCBL Business Labs,

which should:

● be interesting for all kinds of individuals, existing and emergent communities, institutes

of research and knowledge, small/medium/large companies, and future Business Labs

and Business Pilots,

● support a global movement and create the space for an interactive network,

● give future Business Labs a direction, shared values, and the base for common

understanding,

● facilitate a clear view and entry point to the labs and their context as well as an overall

understanding of the project,

● set the bar for TCBL principles and values (DoA), and

● become self-regulating over time.

As TCBL is not conceived nor will operate in a vacuum, we simultaneously looked at the Lab

concept, existing lab types and their online representations. These are described in the

following paragraphs.

THE LAB CONCEPT

In general, the Lab concept draws on a number of initiatives appearing over the last years in

which individuals self-organize in collaborative groups or communities to produce cultural

content, knowledge, insights or information as well as physical goods. Often these activities

are based on commons-based peer production, meaning that participating individuals share

the results and products as well as the means, methods and experience gained from

collaboration as a resource for further development40. Where possible, experiments are made

tangible and prototypes are tested in real life settings early on, to facilitate qualitative dialogue

and keep up to pace in developments. Since there is a positive attitude towards “failure”, there

is also a search for the best balance between the known, the ‘known unknowns’, and the

‘unknown unknowns’. Commons-based peer production has been widely practiced in the field

of software development for many years and in recent years has found its way into our

physical world through practices such as open design and digital fabrication.

In defining the framework for the TCBL Labs, we took a closer look at the socio-organizational

models of four commonly known existing lab concepts. Each draws more or less directly on

the model of commons-based peer production: FabLabs, Hacker spaces, Maker spaces, and

Living Labs.

FABLABS

FabLabs aim to provide widespread access to modern means for invention. The Fab Lab

movement began as a rapid prototyping facility for students at the MIT’s Center for Bits and

40 Troxler P. (2011) “Libraries of the peer production era” in Open Design Now: Why design cannot

remain exclusive. BIS Publishers, Amsterdam



25

Atoms (CBA), and from there developed into a collaborative and global network41. Waag

Society is one of the earlier European members of the network.

A FabLab is defined as a fabrication laboratory, as well as a platform for learning and

innovation: a place to play, to create, to learn, to mentor, and to invent. FabLabs are based on

off-the-shelf, industrial-grade fabrication, electronics tools and open source software. This

includes a laser cutter to make 2D and 3D structures, a sign cutter that plots in copper to

make antennas and flex circuits, a high-resolution CNC milling machine that makes circuit

boards and precision parts, a large wood router for building in 2D and 3D (from furniture and

housing to moulds and three dimensional products), and a suite of electronic components and

programming tools for low-cost, high-speed microcontrollers for on-site rapid circuit

prototyping42.

However, the true value of a Fablab is that it is part of a global network, a distributed

laboratory for research and invention; Local Fablab participants are thus members of a global

community of learners, educators, technologists, researchers, makers and innovators. As its

fundamental concept is digital fabrication (digital files to make physical objects) and since

FabLabs share inventory and use open source software, FabLabs world-wide are able to

share common tools and processes.

The FabLab movement has defined a Fab Charter43 - a manifesto setting forth the core values

and goals – as well as an educational program called the Fab Academy44. The latter started as

an MIT course on “How to make almost everything” and is now being taught in approximately

70 locations around the world, including at Waag Society.

Fab Labs today are looking towards becoming self-sufficient and self-producing laboratories,

designing and creating their own machinery, tools and materials. The network conducts

research in in-depth alternatives and solutions for locally productive, globally connected and

self-sufficient cities.

HACKER SPACES

Hacker spaces share a similar approach of peer production as the Fab Labs, but are much

less rigid in the definition of what they should have and how they should operate. In addition,

organizational contact between Hacker spaces as a community is absent or less formalized.

They are in fact self-defined as “community operated physical places, where people can meet

and work together on their projects”.45 Emerging from the counterculture movement, they aim

to provide a place where people can learn about technology and science outside the confines

of work or school. Equipment and funding are collective endeavours.

A hacker space is one of many local initiatives following a common pattern, and might use a

combination of membership contributions, course fees and donations to sustain itself.

41 https://www.fablabs.io

42 http://fablab.waag.org/i-want-to-make

43 http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/charter/

44 http://fabacademy.org 45 http://hackerspaces.org/



26

Activities in hacker spaces revolve around computers and technology and digital or electronic

art. The Hacker spaces ecosystem comprises several hundred member locations worldwide,

of which roughly half are either dormant or under construction.

Becoming a Hacker space is essentially a matter of self-declaration – an entry on the

hackerpsaces.org wiki is sufficient – which lowers the barrier to entry enormously, at least for

advanced computer users. (This low barrier to entry is probably also the reason for the

relatively large number of ‘registered’ but dormant hacker spaces.) Collaboration between

hacker spaces takes places in the form of hackathons46.

MAKERSPACES

A Makerspace can be characterized as a mixture of the Hacker space and Fablab models. It is

a collaborative workspace often hosted in a school, library or specific public/private facility for

making, learning, exploring and sharing. Maker spaces are open to kids, adults, and

entrepreneurs and have a variety of maker equipment including 3D printers, laser cutters,

CNC machines, soldering irons and sometimes even sewing machines. However, a Maker

space doesn’t need to include all of these machines or even any of them to be considered

such, as there is no prescription of which machines or software to use. Maker spaces like hack

spaces are less focused on creating a global network, from the technical point of few. The

defining characteristic is rather the practice of a “maker mindset”: creating something out of

nothing and exploring one’s own interests.

Similar to some (but not all) Fab Labs, Maker spaces have the goal of preparing those who

need the critical 21st century skills in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

(STEM). They provide hands on learning and aim to help with critical thinking and boost self-

confidence. Skills that can be learned in a maker space relate to electronics, 3D printing, 3D

modelling, coding, robotics and even woodworking. Some maker spaces also foster

entrepreneurship, playing the role of incubators and accelerators for business start-ups, some

with great success47.

LIVING LABS

Living Labs preceded the development of the Fab Lab and related movements, with the

European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL)48 having been constituted in Helsinki under the

auspices of the Finnish EU Presidency in 2006. Living Labs are defined as user-centred, open

innovation ecosystems based on a systematic user co-creation approach integrating research

and innovation processes in real life communities and settings. In practice, Living Labs place

the citizen at the centre of innovation, and have thus shown the ability to better mould the

opportunities offered by new ICT concepts and solutions to the specific needs and aspirations

of local contexts, cultures, and creativity potentials.

Five key elements must be present in a living lab:

● Active user involvement (i.e. empowering end users to thoroughly impact the

innovation process)

● Real-life setting (i.e. testing and experimenting with new artefacts "in the wild")

46 Peter Troxler, Libraries of the peer production era, p.90 Open Design Now

47 https://www.makerspaces.com/what-is-a-makerspace

48 http://enoll.org/



27

● Multi-stakeholder participation (i.e. the involvement of technology providers, service

providers, relevant institutional actors, professional or residential end users)

● A multi-method approach (i.e. the combination of methods and tools originating from

inter alia ethnography, psychology, sociology, strategic management, engineering)

● Co-creation (i.e. iterations of design cycles with different sets of stakeholders).

Today over 170 Living Labs are active in ENoLL49. Members all have their own approach and

solutions, but are always guided by the five elements above.

ON-LINE CREATIVE COMMUNITIES

Most of the lab types described above have a presence online; these however are not just

promotional websites but an integral part of how these creative communities are practically

organized. We thus explored the idea of a similar approach for the TCBL Labs, examining

relevant initiatives that could provide us with a working blueprint for the characteristics and

functionalities that our Business Labs might require.

We first identified basic requirements for the TCBL Labs and then translated these into

actionable characteristics and functionalities that an online platform would need to have. This

resulted in the following list:

● The embodiment of bottom up governance systems;

● The constant potential of evolving and growing networks;

● An almost self-sustaining structure that allows a platform to survive after project end;

● A space to encourage interaction between members of a network;

● A visual understanding of the impact of the network through the use of maps;

● A visual library of research projects and topics;

● A visual inventory of facilities, machinery and tools that highlights the possibilities for

end users and communities.

We then analysed five online platforms that all more or less fall into one of the above

described lab typologies:, Fablabs.io/labs, markerscene.io, maketour.fr, enoll.org, and

smartcitizen.me. Because of the fact that hacker spaces do not organize themselves in online

environments, we were not able to analyze any websites in that category, and in any event we

considered the grass roots, ‘hacktivistic’ approach to be too limited as a model to start a widely

supported movement.

Table 3. On-line communities and TCBL Lab requirements

On-line community Lab Typology Bo

tto

m-u

p

go

ve

rna

nce

Gro

wth

po

ten

tia

l

Su

sta

ina

-

bili

ty

Inte

raction

Imp

act m

ap

Pro

ject

libra

ry

Ma

ch

ine/t

ool

inven

tory

fablabs.io Fablab X X X X X X X

makerscene (NL+BE) Maker Space X X X X X X X

makertour (FR) Maker Space X X X X X

49 http://www.openlivinglabs.eu/FAQ



28

On-line community Lab Typology Bo

tto

m-u

p

go

ve

rna

nce

Gro

wth

po

ten

tia

l

Su

sta

ina

-

bili

ty

Inte

raction

Imp

act m

ap

Pro

ject

libra

ry

Ma

ch

ine/t

ool

inven

tory

ENoLL Living Lab X X X X

Smartcitizen Not connected to an official lab typology. Resembles Living Lab.

X X X X

This resulted in the above matrix. Evidently Fablabs.io and Makerscene fit best to TCBL

purposes, with that comment that the biggest difference between the two being scale.

Makerscene operates in Netherlands and Belgium and shows substantially less information,

projects, images, etc. whereas Fablab.io is a large worldwide community, and thus the most

appropriate model for the Business Labs. Needless to say that some of the platforms also had

other features that are very relevant for the purpose of the specific platform, but of lesser

importance to TCBL.

The outcomes of this exercise clearly indicate how TCBL can make use of lessons learned in

other communities, and contribute by applying them to the specific needs of the Business Labs,

in particular our emphasis on the principles (see below). Summarizing the above considerations,

the following table lists the different on-line communities and their related lab types and

described their relevance to the textile and clothing industry and TCBL.

Table 4. On-line communities, lab models, and relevance to TCBL

On-line community Lab Model Relevance to TCBL

fablabs.io FabLab High relevance – open global knowledge network with distributed open laboratories for research and invention. Includes striving for new business models and ecosystems.

No online community analysed

Hackerspaces Low relevance – Self declared organization, locally oriented. No collaborative online environment. Grass roots, ‘hacktivistic’ approach too limited as a model to transform an industry.

makerscene (NL+BE) makertour (FR)

Makerspaces Medium-High relevance – Focus on maker mindset and digital fabrication, but with locally oriented collaboration.

ENoLL Living Labs Medium-Low relevance - User-centred, open innovation ecosystems but operating on a very broad range of topics and using a very broad range of methods.



29

On-line community Lab Model Relevance to TCBL

Smartcitizen Not connected to an official lab typology. Resembles Living Lab.

Medium relevance – Interesting for the approach of creating a maker movement for the purpose of empowering people to take control of their environment. Less relevant in terms of online platform.

2.3 APPROACH

As demonstrated above, there are many ways to operationalise the concept of a Lab in terms

of social-organizational models and online presence. This faces us with the conundrum of how

to “define[s] the [Business Labs] contexts within which […] exploration will take place” when

the field we are working in is evolving dynamically due to technological developments,

pressing ethical and environmental questions, and changing consumer values. In addition,

what became clear from our workshops, surveys and discussions is that WP3 partners are

confronted with big differences in the role they play with respect to their local problems and

opportunities. This makes the definition of a ‘global’ frame that is both relevant to ‘local’

contexts and to be used across Europe one of the central challenges of WP3.

METHODOLOGICAL ELEMENTS

These contradictions suggested that we work in a flexible way, using an approach that would

give Labs direction on the one hand, but on the other leave enough space for unforeseen

definitions and directions and different perspectives and understandings of the actual TCBL

topics due to local contexts. This led us to identify a set of elements for the approach to

building the framework:

● Process orientation

● Iterative / cyclic

● Co-design

● Bottom-up

● Value based

● Based on running activities

● Understanding by experiencing

● Reframing

PROCESS ORIENTATION

When developing a new framework, one needs to work through a method that reflects its key

values. This is a complex, iterative process that is needed to develop a common language and

shared understanding of the Labs. Such an approach aims to shape a certain culture through

which to build ‘a movement’ towards an alternative for the current industry. By cultivating a

culture step by step and developing a common language, it becomes easier to share a state of

mind with new people connecting to the network. So we worked on the framework, principles

and application procedure in a responsive way: thinking ahead, questioning and considering

different options together, seeing what happens and responding to that in a thoughtful way,

while keeping an eye on the overall picture and shared goals.



30

ITERATIVE / CYCLIC

In TCBL, we are dealing with a complex project where current structures need to be adjusted

or replaced. To make sure we are building something coherent, we grow the framework

gradually through an iterative or cyclic path. At every cycle, we go back to the values and

requirements and check the coherence of progress so far.

Richard Sennet’s The Craftsman50 describes open and closed systems / feedback loops as

follows: in closed systems feedback is selective: only information that fits the systems or the

frame is used. In an open system, unforeseen information can change the base parameters of

what you are doing; as Sennet says, it is like playing Jazz. We constantly look (and listen) at

how things are at a certain moment, we try to pin-point issues, we start prototyping (playing) to

make the ideas and assemble work to be more concrete and tangible (testing and redefining in

the field) while leaving space for the unexpected. That leaves us open to tweak the system for

people that use it and for the project as a whole in its different activities.

CO-DESIGN

Co-design simply means not designing it alone, but using the skills and knowledge of all the

people involved. We need co-design because we want to create a holistic system that takes

into account the many different perspectives of partners and stakeholders. What we develop

needs to be rooted in existing structures and understood by the people involved. The inclusion

of a broad range of parties in development will be the best guarantee for adoption of what is

made.

BOTTOM-UP

A bottom-up approach means that work is grounded in the understanding of the experiences,

ideas and skills of the people who intermediate, set up, coordinate or use the Labs. Partners

involved worked together to understand what is needed in a Lab framework to develop a

relevant, working outcome. In short: we start by defining values, characteristics and mapping

different contexts. From there we define general principles that can be used in a more top-

down approach in the next phase of the project.

VALUE BASED

In a complex project it is hard to maintain systems and structures that are subject to change,

so we need something as a reference point to hold on to or go back to. Since TCBL is about

transforming an industry, we can say the project is value based, rooted in moral-ethical frames

that are part of the work we do. We need make explicit those shared values (fairness, ethical

practice, open processes, etc.) and the shared vision based on them, in order to be able to

question our work and navigate safely through chaos and complexity. Underlying these values

is an awareness that the status quo cannot remain as it is, and other ways of working,

producing and organizing are necessary. Only this way can we explore the requirements for a

socially stable resilience for the industry, with the relevant (new) business models and viable

businesses.

Besides the shared values and vision, personal drivers and an intrinsic motivation are also

important for the Labs as spaces for experimentation, curiosity and research. People involved

and working in Labs should not only be able to solve problems, they should also be able to

50 Sennet R. (2009) The Craftsman, Penguin.



31

define problems. Engagement with the goals of the project overall is important for Work

Package 3 to be able to deal with the complexity and uncertainty of the process. Processes as

such can only be meaningful if value is assigned to the work.

BASED ON RUNNING ACTIVITIES

Some of the partners brought in existing Labs that are part of their organizations, while some

are building new Labs in their organizations and yet others invited external Labs to participate

as one of the TCBL Labs. The common feature is that all of them build on on-going activities

such as research, training and incubation programs and/or (partly) existing facilities though

differently equipped. These initial ideas constituted the starting point to develop, finalize and

confirm the Lab ideas together. Basing the Labs on on-going work is important for the

endurance, maintenance and the effectiveness of Lab results, but also for the definition of the

Labs themselves and for the viability of the concepts for the framework. It also gave all

partners involved a broader understanding of the field we are operating in. So instead of

building new Labs, we can build on existing labs and facilities by connecting, rather than

starting things from ‘new’ ideas. This gives us all the opportunity to learn from each other and

exchange knowledge concerning the local T&C industry and possible Lab approaches.

UNDERSTANDING BY EXPERIENCING

TCBL is about redefining an industry and with that cultivating a certain culture. But if we

expect the people and companies we work with to be open and to co-create we need to do

that ourselves. A common error is to ask people to change or do things differently through

existing structures, while working in a traditional way through abstract representations that

never become tangible. You cannot simply talk about openness, if you don’t understand what

that means for your own values or process, if you don’t feel the consequences yourself. We

simply need to practice what we preach.

REFRAMING

The Labs are about experimentation and innovation, which can be facilitated and motivated by

questioning, making, prototyping, problem finding, etc. Early on in the process, we identified

the key concept of reframing. In general, people have a tendency to solve problems using the

frames and the language they are used to; indeed, the question itself often sets the frame for

the answer. This however leads to only incremental improvements because familiar frames

limit the way we think and our ability to see ‘out of the box’. According to a well-known quote of

Albert Einstein, “you can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created”, you

need other frames and perspectives to solve the problem or answer the question.

Reframing aims to help unlock our imagination by understanding the problem and empathizing

with the end users. It is a design process approach and requires a constant mental attitude

throughout or at least during critical moments in which decisions are made.

Frames can be opened by using some of the following approaches:

● Empathizing with end users, you will be able to understand their perspective and you

can test Lab ideas and possible Lab assumptions. By doing desk research, observing,

talking to stakeholders about the ‘problem’, a better understanding emerges of the

actual needs of the people and the context we are setting up Labs for and in.



32

● Asking ‘why’: often the solution is already framed in a question. But by questioning the

question, a lot of possible answers can appear. Dorst says: “The problem presented to

you, is never the one to be solved.”51

● Turning around what is considered as a given. What happens for example, if we

replace the word “life cycle” for “performance life cycle” in relation to products?

Architect Thomas Rau suggests we should think of renting products, instead of

owning them.52 Or buying light, instead of buying a light bulb. The moment we start

renting or buying a service instead of a product, producers will design and organize

their production process and use of materials in a different way.

● At the broader level, trends like the sharing economy can give new ideas for the Labs

and possible business models. So instead of buying jeans, we can think of buying

style (and return the jeans once they’re ‘old’). Consumers as caretakers become

responsible for the product in ‘product service systems’. These concepts give us the

possibility to imagine new scenarios, raise more questions and be able to understand

the effect of different values and trends.

In synthesis, Work Package 3 has taken the approach of focusing on what is already in place,

building from there, and connecting. We go beyond the idea of creating awareness and take

on the task of coming up with alternatives. Building on the network we have in place, in the

coming year we can focus on exploring and collecting alternative narratives. “What are the

stories we want to tell ‘consumers’?”.

This non-linear way of working can sometimes feel chaotic. There were no fixed formats at the

outset and we have responded to what appeared to be necessary. We have strived towards a

balance between bottom-up openness and top-down procedures and deadlines. Next year

Labs will be active, projects will be initiated and collaborations between labs and pilots will

start. Then the framework will embed itself in practice, as a new base on which to keep

building.

51 Dorst K. (2015) Frame Innovation: Create New Thinking by Design, MIT Press.

52 http://www.rau.eu/thomas-rau/

http://www.rau.eu/thomas-rau/

33

3. BUILDING THE LAB NETWORK The methodological elements described above constituted the framework for building the

actual Lab network. The first step here was to agree on a simple descriptive framework for

each lab and type of lab, modelled on the elements we identified together in the first workshop

in Amsterdam, September 2015.

Table 5. Descriptive Lab framework.

Lab feature Brief description

Main activities The activities envisaged for the Lab to carry out on a regular basis

Facilities What kind of spaces and equipment are or should be available on premises.

Setting Important elements of the local context in which the lab operates

Service concepts First ideas of the kinds of services the lab could deliver to T&C businesses

Audience Target users of the lab facilities

Supervision Governance principles and practical aspects of supervision of activities

Sustainability & Environment

Ways in which the lab contributes to sustainability

Fairness Ways in which the lab ensures and promotes fairness

Openness Ways in which the lab is open to new developments, ideas, and people

This simple framework then accompanied the definition of the Lab types and the development

of the individual Labs, following the open and iterative methodology described in the previous

chapter. In addition, this constituted a starting structure for the definition of a specific Lab

platform for TCBL (see below), whose development process accompanied and underpinned

the framework development process itself, contributing to building an awareness of what a Lab

is and how it interacts with others. From there, as is common with many on-line value based

communities, it became important to first establish together the principles on which the Lab

network would be based.

3.1 DEFINING LAB PRINCIPLES

Inspired by the MIT FabCharter53 the initial idea was that the framework be associated with a

list of around ten principles that define TCBL and what kind of Labs we want to work with.54 By

seeing this list, people outside TCBL visiting the platform could understand quickly what the

values of the project are. For those inside the project it would work as a check list of

fundamentals. It is also useful to clarify our vocabulary, for instance by explaining how the

value 'open' refers to open data, an open attitude or open hardware, or the word ‘fair’ includes

fair materials, but also fair payments, etc. The principles should be coherent with the TCBL

DoA, the values elicited in the Amsterdam workshop, and also keep in mind the manifestos,

value lists, and quality criteria of groups and communities we want to connect with. We aimed

53 http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/charter/

54 FabChart



34

for principles that express the right balance between being normative and being open enough

that all kinds of Labs, based on common values and research questions, can feel welcome.

Common pitfalls we strived to be aware of while defining the principles included:

trying to capture too much in the principles;

making principles that were too broad or too narrow;

using words that do not mean much to people;

phrasing things in a way that it leads to a limiting frame (see reframing above);

defining principles that are not operational or have a preaching tone;

using language that communicates the status quo instead of inviting to people to work

on alternatives together.

With this in mind, the final framework was co-created will all participating partners in order to

work in an inter-subjective, intuitive way next to concrete matters that are easier to discuss.

The list of Lab principles, presented in the Lab-Pilot workshop in Esslingen in December,

2015, was then adopted by the project overall, which further generalized the principles to

seven key words. These were then applied not only to define the Labs, but also (in different

operational terms) to the Pilots, the TCBL data policy, and other specific areas.

The final set of principles thus maintains the original ones developed by the Labs, under the

common project-wide headings.

Table 6. Lab Principles

Principle Description

Curiosity Explorative, innovative character.

Outcomes feed into new, replicable business models.

Exploring new business models by reframing.

Viability

Economic sustainability of lab structure.

Value creation to the community: public events, communication and awareness.

Including monetary and non-monetary transactions.

Durability

Explore ways to reduce waste.

Work with low-impact materials and processes.

Work towards emotionally durable design.

Multiplicity

Open to both professional and non-professional competences.

Gender equivalency and open opportunity structures.

Exploration of un-met and un-expressed needs.

Openess

Open and freely accessible participation.

Sharing knowledge, findings and networks.

Interoperable and where possible open source technology and software.

Respect

Tools and processes that empower users.

Restore the dignity, value and satisfaction of productive making activities.

Fair and ethical operations.

Responsibility

Spaces and equipment in a safe and secure environment.

Availability of support knowledge for processes, machinery, etc.

Consultancy and follow-up to participants interested in business development.



35

THE TCBL LABS VIDEO

In parallel with these developments, it became necessary to communicate the emerging idea

of a Business Lab not only through a list of principles but also through a more human and

dynamic approach. To convey the essence of TCBL and encourage external parties to

become a Lab, we decided to produce a promotional video.

Developing the video, we could see how much partners are very passionate and driven about

the project. There is a shared feeling that the project is about urgent matters that we need to

address in an open and collaborative way, with partners and those who will be part of the

network. It also became clear that partners all have a lot of knowledge to share in different

fields and that there is a balance between dreamers and realists (business & creative’s).

The video is published at

https://vimeo.com/158630713/37440ce1e0https://vimeo.com/158630713/37440ce1e0

Figure 2. The TCBL Lab video.

3.2 BUILDING THE COLLABORATION PLATFORM

As work with the Labs developed, the option of developing an on-line community platform –

similar to the reference models we had examined at the outset – was explored as a means for

defining the framework in the kind of open and iterative process we were trying to follow.

Indeed, by needing to represent the network of Labs in an on-line platform, we by definition

would need to clarify the actual goal and form of that representation, which in fact became our

framework. It is the platform that lists the TCBL values and ideas, forces us to select the right

words, defines the form to be used to describe a Lab, provides necessary checklists, and so

forth, while still aiming to be open to accommodate unknown developments.

By using the platform development process as our design path for defining the framework, we

first set some preliminary design criteria:

● Become self-regulating as soon as possible to make it sustainable;

● Support a movement as well as an interactive network;

● Be interesting for all kinds of people, institutes and companies;

● Give clear guidance to new labs;

● Give a view of how the labs fit into the overall network and TCBL project.

https://vimeo.com/158630713/37440ce1e0

https://vimeo.com/158630713/37440ce1e0



36

PLATFORM REQUIREMENTS

From this baseline, we then transformed these design criteria into actionable characteristics

and functionalities for an online platform and conducted the research into existing online

communities as described above. This resulted in the list of requirements discussed in the

previous chapter: Bottom-up governance; Growth potential; Sustainability; Interaction; Impact

map; Project library; and Machine/tool inventory.

Through a renewed survey with partners, we identified in greater detail the existing lab facilities

and specific knowledge available. This ranged from machinery to tools to software, and included

inventories of equipment already on site and what was deemed necessary for the research and

experimentation goals of the labs. The constantly growing quantity of information and its rapid

development underlined the need for a more adaptive and self-sustaining process that could

keep up with the evolving structure and ideas, while still supporting both the shared and

individual visions of the labs.

On this basis, we developed a platform that aims to communicate the framework and its

principles in a way that is easy to understand for both project partners and the future laboratories

and network that we plan to grow within TCBL.

PLATFORM STRUCTURE

The first mock-ups of the platform were structured according to four different sections with the

following objectives:

● Home page: stresses the importance of a global network and its possibilities

● Business Lab main page: underlines the unique selling points of each laboratory

● Facilities page: stresses the technology, knowledge and processes available in each

laboratory

● Projects page: draws attention to the collaborative aspect of the labs network

At this point it became necessary to design the information flow, based on an in depth

understanding of how the different elements connect to share information and how users can

navigate the platform through different paths. This, once again, keeping in mind the broad

range of platform users we aim to address.

In the image below aims to represent how the information submitted flows to the different

pages, but also how this flow enables the different browsing and searching paths, with

different entry points to the information.

Figure 3. Information structure of the platform



37

The Labs main page conveys the essence of each lab, with a detailed presentation based on

the descriptive framework. These pages need to accommodate both casual visitors and active

users that take part in the network and are interested in its research activities. The main

questions it needs to answer include:

● Who: general information: name, location and employees, users, researchers.

● What: showcasing the Lab’s vision and ongoing projects, underlining the unique

selling points of each laboratory.

● How: facilities, services and opportunities, and how to get in contact.

● Why: how each Lab believes it will create impact with the TCBL project.

Figure 4. Laout of the Lab platform Home page



38

Figure 5. Applying the Descriptive Framework to the Labs page structure

3.3 MANAGING THE FIRST CALL

As foreseen in the DoA, one of the main objectives of WP3 for this period was to organize and

carry out the first Call for Expressions of Interest for the Business Labs, in order to identify the

starting network of labs for the first ‘internal’ pilot cycle of experimentation. This Call was carried

out in parallel with a similar Call for Business Pilots in WP4, although there the process followed

was very different. While WP4 was aiming to select a set of T&C businesses external to the

TCBL partnership, WP3 instead was working with a short list of candidate Labs that were either

already internal to partner organisations or generally closely associated with them. We therefore

used the Call as a means to carry forward the iterative process of defining the framework and,

in parallel, instantiating the collaboration platform.

In this context, the first Call for Expressions of Interest for the Business Labs thus aimed to start

a dialogue and begin actual collaboration. It gave us insights on the general concept of Labs,

the problems we face, and needs of the partners involved, while also helping to clarify the

diversity of these laboratories. The process highlighted the direction and vision behind each lab,

their unique selling points, and the impact of location and heritage that comes with the territory

in which the labs are located, and therefore also the diverse problems the T&C industry is facing

in different regions. It also identified a first set of ideas as to how the labs will operate, identifying

possible topics for research and experimentation, how they will be supported, and what links

they have with the local industry.

Throughout the Call process, we worked on the development of the Labs by using the

framework / platform and thus actively contributing to its co-design process. We tested the on-

line application procedure, reviewed each other’s applications and provided each other with

feedback in two rounds, allowing us to adjust and improve our applications and get familiar



39

with the procedure that others would be following in the future.

EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST

The candidate labs participating in the first Call were all associated with one of the lab

typologies – Design, Make and Place – although some covered more than one typology or

shifted their focus during the evaluation process. The initial expressions of interest were all

accompanied by one WP3 partner, more or less on the basis of the resources available in

WP3.

Table 7. Expressions of Interest by partner

Pra

to

DIT

F

MIR

TE

C

Wa

ag

TC

oE

eZ

av

od

AR

CA

UC

Ve

n

HC

IA

Sa

njo

tec

To

tal

Design Labs 2 1 1 1 1 1 7

Making Labs 1 1 1 1 2 6

Place Labs 1 1 1 1 1 1 6

Total EoI Received 3 0 1 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 19

EoI Planned for Call 1 2 2 1 3 2 2 2 1 2 2 19

OUTCOMES

The evaluation process described above, with two rounds of discussion and revision of the

applications, resulted in a final set of Associate Labs being identified from the first Call, of

which nearly all are fully represented on the Labs platform. The starting set of Labs has a

good geographical coverage across Europe and covers a broad range of understandings of

the role of the Labs in the TCBL ecosystem. The complete list of Labs as of month 12 is

presented in Chapter 1 above. Below is an image of how they appear in the Labs platform.

.

Table 8. Associate Labs appearing on the platform



40

A typical Lab page is shown below:

Table 9. Typical Lab page on the platform

FUTURE APPLICATION PROCEDURE

As stated above, one of the objectives of the procedure for the first Call was to take advantage

of the opportunity to co-design the Lab platform as an open tool for any Lab wanting to apply

for a future Call. This means that the platform should incorporate a sign-up procedure that

would essentially correspond to the submission of an Expression of Interest.

For the first Call, all the Lab applications evaluation teams and evaluations were managed

using the project’s internal communications platform (myMinds), since the Labs platform was

still at an early stage of development. Nonetheless, we were aware at every step as to how

the procedures we were using could be implemented on-line. This has in fact been integrated

into the platform specifications, so that next year the application procedure should work by

itself, with the year one Labs as evaluators.

The sign up for a future expression of interest on the Lab platform follows a five step

application procedure shown in the table below.



41

Table 10. On-line sign-up procedure for a new Lab

Description

Step 1 Lab name

Type of lab (design, make, place)

Referee lab

Terms and Conditions

Principles: List different ways through which you will implement the TCBL principles in your lab. (Here we refer to the Lab Principles)

Step 2

A brief overview of the lab, include what it specializes in.

In-dept description of the lab

Image: Add avatar, which will be shown next to your labs name

Image: Add photo, a large photo of your lab for the home page

Audience: Select labs focus groups

Services: List here five possible services your lab provides

Step 3

Lab Address: Provide lab address details

Contact details: Provide lab contact details

Links: Homepage, TCBL project, Facebook

Step 4

Your role: job title and description

Other collaborators: Employees, researcher and participants will be able to request to be linked to this lab once the lab is approved.

Relevant network and collaborating institutes: briefly explain your existing collaborations.

Step 5

Confirmation: please review your information and click “submit”. The partner labs will review your entry as soon as possible.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE FIRST CALL

Lessons learned from the experience of the first Call for Expressions of Interest are as follows:

● Partners had a lot interesting ideas with a lot of possibilities to expand.

● The Lab ideas revealed a lot of knowledge, know how, expertise and network and

many of the partners wanted to connect to others in the project team.

● Some Labs had ideas that were still a bit generic and not clear when it comes to

issues such as IP, planning and research.

● Most of the Labs focused on facilitating others, including participants & visitors

(students, unemployed, researchers, etc.), and wanted to connect academia, design

schools, local communities and industry.

● Labs need to find a balance between anticipating trends (working with scenarios) and

starting work from a shared, project-wide future vision (working with vision back

casting). Some of the Lab ideas were technology or opportunity driven, without a

critical eye.

● Some Lab ideas were based on assumptions. For example, the Waag Lab initially

aimed to fill the gap between industry and education, but soon realized that that

wasn’t the real problem. Often assumptions led to a top down approach with a lack of

understanding of the actual needs of Lab participants / visitors.

● Labs also need to find a balance between existing markets and business models and

exploration of and experimentation of new ones.



42

● For Labs in general it is hard to create the space to ‘fail’, although that is an important

part of experimentation and research. In parallel, it is difficult to measure and share

outcomes regarding ‘failure’ or ‘success’.

● We saw that indeed when we practice what we preach, we have a better chance of

attracting the right Labs and inviting more people to join the movement.

43

4. DESIGN LABS As described in the preceding chapters, we have created three different types of labs, which

represent the following perspectives:

Design labs: focus on research, experimentation and encouraging creativity

Making labs: focus on the material production of textiles and clothing

Place labs: are designed as a laboratory for persons and human interactions

The three labs together form a network of researchers, designers, consumers, and developers

who share knowledge and inspire each other and develop new ambitions. This is the starting

point to create change and improve the current situation through the design and

implementation of new concepts.

In this and the following two chapters, we now look at how each of these types of lab can

contribute to this goal, and the path that each has followed in identifying the starting

participants in the first Call. Each of these three chapters is structured in a similar way:

A definition of the type of lab

The theoretical framework, with the concepts and reference models that underpin that

lab typology

A description of the set of labs from that type resulting from the first Call.

The first type of labs we will look at are the Design Labs.

4.1 DEFINITION OF A DESIGN LAB

TCBL Design Labs are described in the DoA as follows:

The Design Labs explore ways of stimulating creativity in parallel with new ways of

co-design, together with the processes of production. Design-for-one, self-design,

designs based on cultural heritage, crowd-design, and collaborative design are all

approaches that may be explored. In addition, the Design Labs will explore the

creative potential of new materials, new technologies, and new production

processes.

TCBL Design Labs can be defined as facilities exploring tools and methods for designing textiles

and clothes, working with professionals, fashion students, or anyone, even working from home.

Their essential purpose is to produce and transfer knowledge and innovation into T&C Business

Systems, motivating potential pilots to emerge. In so doing, they experiment with technology

platforms, organisational and service innovations and design for sustainability. Design Labs are

focused on the ideation and conception of fabrics, garments, designs, etc., by an immaterial

value and emotion-oriented point of view, providing specific support to home based design and

production.

The table here below gives an overview of some of the many possibilities for activities and

features we have explored for the Design Labs, following the descriptive framework of WP3.

Table 11. Design Lab features


Main activities Development of creative ideas and their transformation into a design reality

Offering knowledge of and expertise in the use of technology and environmental concepts for innovation in design

Design office services to textile and fashion companies



44


Facilitation of production and product management to textile companies and fashion designers

Teaching and researching new possibilities in materials, design processes, prototyping processes, transmission of old craftsmanship techniques, branding, marketing, etc.

Building of design skills for unemployed people to enter the fashion and textile market as workers or small businesses

Creation of specialized libraries in fashion and textile for textile designers and design students

Building up archives, both physical and online, with textiles and materials, open to creative people, designers, artists, students, collecting and recovering company textile archives, and advice and counsel to textile companies to preserve and organize their archives

Experimenting production of zero km textiles

Prototyping facilities through connections with SMEs

Design Challenges to select talents from schools / territories

Online/offline social networking, events, exhibitions, workshops etc.

Facilities Ateliers; printers; sewing machines; cutting machines

CAD stations with 2D and 3D design and pattern making software, printers and scanners, cutting table

Equipment and on-site expertise with access to expertise elsewhere

Design challenge platforms, exhibition spaces

Extending the facilities of FabLabs and WetLabs with sewing machines, textile printers, knitting machine, mannequins and other tools

Setting In geographical areas that have been hit hard by textile manufacturing crisis

In geographical areas of high creativeness/skills/knowledge

Textile Museums

Ateliers

Factories

Social enterprises

Fablabs

Service concepts Offer design, manufacturing and business assistance

Design as a service

Prototype production

Applying design thinking to service design issues

Design challenges/ tech transfer promotion

The Waag Academy, separate lessons/workshops, model and consultancy, outcomes of the participants that will be attending the Academy

Audience Designers

Researchers (technologies, materials, etc.)

Artists

Students

Small garment businesses

Start-ups

Unemployed

Creative people in general

Local community

Supervision Shared ownership

Volunteer employees

Governance depending on the level of support: give more, ask more – give nothing ask nothing


Eco-design support



45


Raising awareness / educate / research, working on procedures, processes and techniques more sustainable and eco-friendly starting from the materials and the ways they’re developed and used

Transport reduction, local production

Fairness ‘Open’ approach, making technology more accessible and empowering people through knowledge transmission.

Research fair materials and fair processes.

Fair criteria to develop and communicate the opportunities to all potential interested actors

Fairness in governance: high ethical and moral values, low operational costs, social enterprise, oriented into support regardless revenue

Openness Open to all citizens; open-innovation paradigm

In principle everything is based on the open design and open source philosophy

Open to any business

Challenges are open to any design team

Opening up the design profession, processes and techniques

4.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

In the above definition, design is considered with a very broad scope and a wide range of

possible applications in TCBL pilot scenarios. In the following sections, we explore the

theoretical framework for Design Labs by looking at some of the reference models concerning

design itself.

FASHION DESIGN

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

Oscar Wilde

Fashion eludes easy definition. Broadly, fashion can be understood as shifting styles of dress

— that is, specific combinations of silhouettes, textiles, colours, details, and fabrications —

embraced by groups of people at a particular time and place. Such styles may be projected by

a designer or emerge from the street. Fashion can also be viewed as the entire system of

innovation, production, marketing, dissemination, and adoption. Fashion is both a creative

endeavour and a product; or, put in another way, it is an aesthetic practice that produces

useful, and sometimes lucrative, objects. On the one hand, a craft or an art form; on the other,

a multibillion-dollar worldwide business.55

Fashion theory tries to link scientific methods and creative design processes in a productive

way, in order to establish a self-reflective form of cultural practice. Complex value concepts in

fashion are transferred from the object to the viewer in a communicative way. This

communication is not realized in one direction but is based on reciprocal interaction between

the designer, object and viewer. Fashion incorporates categories of creative techniques and

innovative processes as well as the potential for social exchange.56

55 Kennedy A., Stoehrer E.B., Calderin J. (2013) A Visual Guide to the History, Language & Practice of

Fashion, Rockport Publishers.

56 Loschek I. (2009) When Clothes Become Fashion: Design and Innovation Systems, Berg Publishers.



46

Fashion design operates as part of a structured, international fashion industry. Industrial and

technological innovations have contributed to the setting up of more and more efficient supply

chains, in which each business fulfils a price category to serve a fashion retail niche.

Fashion is frequently associated with seasonal trends. In the context of fashion design this

may be understood as a dominant ‘look’ or prevailing style or colour that give rise to a sense

of collective dressing at a given time. The visual impact of collective dressing might prompt a

defining silhouette for men or women. This is usually informed by a shift in body proportions or

the introduction of a new shape that might be defined by the cut of a jacket or coat. The

process is further informed and supported by media communication channels including

fashion and style magazines, advertising and the Internet. Fashion and styles change over

time in response to a mix of external and social influences or stimuli, so that being ‘in fashion’

becomes transitory. The fashion industry is not a passive bystander in this regard but is

motivated by a range of commercial interests towards supporting continuous seasonal

changes that, over time, may be viewed as cyclical stages.57

The creation of a fashion collection follows a cycle of design, construction, and production,

leading from concept to finished garment. Informed by the broader choices for their practice,

designers chart a course through myriad decisions and refinements, both practical and

intuitive. The careful selection of colours and materials, combined with ideas for overall

shapes and proportions, will set a strategy in motion for the development of a prototype that

manifests what has only been envisioned. Drafted or draped, a pattern emerges, and a

sample is stitched, fitted, and finished. If judged production worthy, the pattern is adjusted for

replication in different sizes and at scale. As the collection moves into the factory setting, new

samples test the quality and consistency of the work before commencing on production and

distribution. Some large fashion companies have successfully integrated design, prototyping,

construction, and distribution into a single operation. In most cases, however, production is

outsourced, often to factories in foreign countries. In the end, designers must balance issues

of cost, productivity, culture differences, technologies, delivery systems, and ethics.

The systems currently in place in the fashion industry are constantly being questioned and

reviewed to meet the needs of the industry, the public, and the planet. While the industry as a

whole has begun to address issues of sustainability, designers today actively engage in

practices that are altering preconceptions about the designed object.

Sustainability occupies an integral but still-evolving position in the fashion debate. The

fragmented nature of the apparel business poses real challenges to creating a sustainable

strategy. There are many possible, often overlapping approaches, each with advantages and

disadvantages for an industry that thrives on consumption. Considerations include practices

towards the reduction of energy use and toxic emissions, the promotion of durability over

disposability, the improvement of trading conditions in developing countries and advancement

of social equality everywhere, the promotion of local resources and local talents, the

elimination of waste through recycling or upcycling.58

Innovations are possible at several levels in the fashion system: at the stylistic, idealistic and

conceptual levels as well as in production and cutting technology or in materials. Meanwhile,

the accelerated pace of technological change allows designers to rethink the possibilities for

fashion with garments that are evermore innovative and extraordinary.

57 Hopkins J. (2012) Fashion Design: The Complete Guide, AVA Publishing

58 Kennedy, Stoehrer, Calderin 2013, op.cit.



47

DESIGN THINKING

Design Thinking is one of the most fascinating concepts currently under discussion in

management discourse: human-centred and based on new facilitation methods and spatial

concepts. The Design Thinking concept emerged at the Stanford University, in the heart of

Silicon Valley, where the combination of technology and human-centeredness has determined

the success of many tech enterprises and Internet giants. The evolution from design to design

thinking is the story of the evolution from the creation of products to the analysis of the

relationship between people and products, and from there to the relationship between people

and people.59

Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, one of the leading innovation consulting firms using Design

Thinking. from Palo Alto in California, defines it as “a discipline that uses the designer’s

sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and

what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity”.60

Design Thinking is interdisciplinary, based on knowledge and insights from engineering,

management, industrial design, anthropology, information management, and ethnography. It is

a design methodology integrating human, business, and technological factors in problem

forming, -solving, and -design blending an end-user focus with multidisciplinary collaboration

and iterative improvement to produce innovative products, systems, and services and allowing

design innovation processes comprehensibly. The term Design Thinking is generally referred

to as applying a designer’s sensibility and methods to problem solving, no matter what the

problem is.

This methodology offers a platform to answer different questions from areas such as problem-

solving, design of business models, facilitation, mediation, visualization, and innovation in one

process. The objective is to involve consumers, designers, and businesspeople in an

integrative process, which can be applied to product, service, or even business design.

Design Thinking is, despite its broad base, ultimately a pragmatic method based on a few

simple principles. Iterative development, contact with humans, and visualization of results as

prototypes are examples of these principles.

Design Thinking can be defined as:

a mindset, characterized by several key principles: a combination of divergent and

convergent thinking, a strong orientation to both obvious and hidden needs of

customers and users, and prototyping.

a process, as a combination of a micro- and a macro-process. The micro-process—as

innovation process per se — consists of these steps: “Define the Problem”, “Need

finding and Synthesis”, “Ideate”, “Prototype” and “Test”. The macro-process consists

of milestones manifested in prototypes that must fulfil defined requirements.

a toolbox, referring to the application of numerous methods and techniques from

various disciplines: design, but also engineering, informatics, and psychology.

Design Thinking is about the creation of, as well as adaptive use of a body of behaviours and

several key values:

59 Brown T. (2009) Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires

Innovation, HarperCollins Publishers.

60 Ibid.



48

Be visual/physical: design thinkers seek new ideas and refinement through making

visual drawings, or physical prototypes.

Iterate: build on different ideas, go through the design stages more than once,

prototype, prototype, prototype.

Be multidisciplinary: accept a multidisciplinary view of design, emphasizing

collaboration between people with different types of expertise.

Today, a growing number of companies, consulting firms, and universities use Design

Thinking, continuously enlarging and re-defining its meaning. In the near future, Design

Thinking is expected to be deployed as an innovative method in corporations and also become

an integral part of management education, particularly innovation. In addition, it will be

developed further at the interface of design, design management and engineering sciences.

SERVICE DESIGN

The Service Design Network defines its activity as that: “…of planning and organizing people,

infrastructure, communication and material components of a service in order to improve its

quality and the interaction between service provider and customers. The purpose of service

design methodologies is to design according to the needs of customers or participants, so that

the service is user-friendly, competitive and relevant to the customers.”61

In the developed countries, the service sector is about 75% of the economy. This is where

most of the new jobs are created. Service design focuses on the creation of integrated

services, rather than isolated products. It is becoming, to an increasing degree, a key

competitive advantage. Physical elements and technology can easily be copied, but service

experiences are much harder to be replicated as they are deeply rooted in companies’ culture

and based on the user experience. Just as industrial design fuelled the introduction of new

products to the masses in the industrial economy, good service design is key to the successful

introduction of new technologies. In the service economy, services can be redesigned on a

continuing basis to keep a competitive edge in the market. Some of the greatest opportunities

are found where a business model can be changed from a product model to a service model.

Service design follows a tradition of human-centred design, with roots in early manufacturing,

architecture and industrial design. It offers a clear set of solid principles and methods that

support service effectiveness and efficiency in creating holistic services contributing to

improve the citizen experience. It succeeds because it delivers a good experience for both the

user and the service provider. The services are designed with the users, who are directly

involved in the design and development of the service, through participatory design

approaches. Service design is all about taking a service and making it meet the user’s and

customer’s needs for that service. It can be used to improve an existing service or to create a

new service from scratch.

61 Service Design Network, https://www.service-design-network.org/.

https://www.service-design-network.org/



49

Service design is an interdisciplinary approach that combines different methods and tools from

various disciplines, ranging from ethnography62 to information and management science63 to

interaction design64 to service development, management, operations and marketing65 It is a

new way of thinking as opposed to a new stand-alone academic discipline. Service design is

an evolving approach, this is particularly apparent in the fact that, as yet, there is no common

definition or clearly articulated language of service design.66

In this context, a useful starting point are five principles of service design thinking:

user centred: services should be experienced through the eyes of the customer.

co-creative: involving stakeholders to explore needs and new processes, with the

customer at the centre of the scene.

sequencing: how the service impacts the mood of the customer.

evidencing: making customers aware of intangible services

holistic: keeping the mood and feelings of the customer in mind throughout the service

journey.

Service design is, in contrast to service development, described as a human-centred approach

and an outside-in perspective67. It is concerned with systematically applying design

methodology and principles to the design of services68. Service design integrates the

possibilities and means to perform a service with such qualities, within the economy and

62 Segelström F., Raijmakers B., Holmlid S. (2013) Thinking and Doing Ethnography in Service Design,

Linköping University, Department of Computer and Information Science Sweden. See also Ylirisku S., &

Buur J. (2007) Designing with video: Focusing the user-centred design process. London: Springer; and

Buur, J., Binder T., et al. (2000). "Taking Video beyond "Hard Data" in User Centred Design." Design.

Participatory Design Conference (PDC2000).

63 Morelli N. (2006) “Developing new PSS, Methodologies and Operational Tools”, Journal of Cleaner

Production 14(17), 1495–1501.

64 Holmlid S. (2007) “Interaction design and service design: Expanding a comparison of design

disciplines.” In Proceedings from Nordic Design Research Conference, Stockholm. See also

Parker S., Heapy J. (2006), The Journey to the Interface – How public service design can

connect users to reform, Demos.

65 Edvardsson B., Gustafsson A., Roos I. (2005) “Service portraits in service research: a

critical review”, in International Journal of Service Industry Management Vol. 16 No. 1, pp.

107-121. See also Mager B. (2005) Service Design: a Review, available through: http://sedes-

research.de/birgit-mager/; and Edvardsson B., Gustafsson A., Johnson M., Sanden B. (2000)

“New Service Development and Innovation in the New Economy”, in International Journal of

Service Industry Management, Vol. 12 Iss: 5, pp.522 – 528.

66 Stickdorn M., Schneider J. et al (2011) This is service design thinking. Basics Tools Cases, BIS

Publishers.

67 Mager B. (2005) op cit. See also Holmlid S., Evenson S. (2006) “Bringing design to services” Invited to

IBM Service Sciences, Management and Engineering Summit: Education for the 21st century. New York,

October.

68 Bruce M., Bessant J. (2002) Design in business: Strategic innovation through design. Design Council,

UK. See also Holmlid S., Evenson S. (2006) op cit.

http://www.nordes.org/opj/index.php/n13/article/view/157


http://www.demos.co.uk/files/journeytotheinterface.pdf


http://sedes-research.de/birgit-mager/

http://sedes-research.de/birgit-mager/



50

strategic development of an organization. A service designer can “visualise, express and

choreograph what other people can’t see, envisage solutions that do not yet exist, observe

and interpret needs and behaviours and transform them into possible service futures, and

express and evaluate, in the language of experiences, the quality of design.”69 Service Design

thus uses tools and methods that are not rigid protocols to be followed unthinkingly, but

frameworks that can and should be adapted to the task at hand. Some of these tools and

methodologies are shown below.70

Figure 6. Service Design Tools and Methods

DESIGN FOR SUSTAINABILITY

There are professions more harmful than industrial design, but only a very few… by

creating whole new species of permanent garbage to clutter up the landscape, and by

choosing materials and processes that pollute the air we breathe, designers have become

a dangerous breed…In this age of mass production when everything must be planned and

designed, design has become the most powerful tool with which man shapes his tools and

environments (and, by extension, society and himself). This demands high social and

moral responsibility from the designer.

Victor Papanek71

Design for sustainability offers a new and broader context for designing. It is about more than

recycling or using recycled materials. Design for sustainability has received considerable

69 https://www.service-design-network.org/

70 http://www.servicedesigntools.org

71 Papanek V. (1971) Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change, Pantheon Books.




51

attention in recent decades due to a range of worldwide crises which have manifested

themselves as political problems: climate change, famine, disease and poverty.

The concept of design for sustainability first emerged in the 1960s when Packard (1963),

Papanek (1971), Bonsiepe (1973) and Schumacher (1973)72 began to criticize modern and

unsustainable development and suggest alternatives. The second wave emerged in the late

1980s and early 1990s and coincided with the green consumer revolution.

Birkeland (2002)73 provides keys points by presenting a new vision for design which is:

Responsible − redefining goals around needs, social/eco equity and justice.

Synergistic − creating positive synergies; involving different elements to create

systems change.

Contextual − re-evaluating design conventions and concepts towards social

transformation.

Holistic − taking a life cycle view to ensure low impact, low cost, multi-functional

outcomes.

Empowering − fosters human potential, self-reliance and ecological understanding in

appropriate ways.

Restorative − integrates the social and natural world; recultivates a sense of wonder.

Eco-efficient − proactively aims to increase the economy of energy, materials and

costs.

Creative − represents a new paradigm that transcends traditional boundaries of

discipline thinking; to ‘leapfrog’.

Visionary − focuses on visions and outcomes and conceives of appropriate methods,

tools, processes to deliver them.

There is also a growing global demand for sustainability features in products and services.

Incorporating issues of design for sustainability into product design can offer organisations the

opportunity to enhance their sustainability performance, while simultaneously improving their

profitability, by reducing the environmental impact of their products/processes, improving raw

material consumption and energy use, cutting costs, satisfying user needs, increasing product

marketability and finally improving the image of organizations.

Design for sustainability can also provide a means for establishing a long-term strategic vision

of a company’s future products and operations. In general, sustainable design is an enabling

force to shape more sustainable patterns of production and consumption. It also provides the

opportunity for organisations to increase innovation, it can offer a greater ability to compete,

add value and attract customers, and enable them to become more cost-effective by reducing

environmental impacts and potential liability.74

By incorporating design for sustainability into product design and development, organisations

gain a fresh perspective on established practices, resulting in new ideas and solutions. For

example, this can result in:

72 Packard V. (1960) The Waste Makers, David McKay, Papanek (1971) op cit,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gui_Bonsiepe, and Schumacher E.F. (1973) Small Is Beautiful: A Study of

Economics as If People Mattered, Blond & Briggs.

73 Birkeland J. (2002) Design for Sustainability: A Sourcebook of Integrated, Eco-logical Solutions,

Earthscan.

74 Bhamra T., Lofthouse V. (2007) Design for Sustainability, A Practical Approach, Gower.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gui_Bonsiepe



52

New product and/or service concepts.

Alternative production techniques.

Increased employee participation and satisfaction.

Greater employee creativity.

Design for sustainability often identifies opportunities for cost-reduction across many stages of

a product’s life and ensures the greatest reductions are achieved. The results are often

reduced production costs, increased product quality, and increased return on environmental

investments.

Figure 7. The Sustainability Prism75

By decreasing a product’s impact on the environment design for sustainability helps

companies to ensure compliance with environmental regulations, reduce uncertainty with

respect to future environmental requirements, achieve better community relations and

contribute to a better local, regional and global environment.

Finally, there is also the opportunity with design for sustainability for an organisation to gain a

systems view of their business. Design that focuses on a product’s life cycle helps companies

create clear links between product design, supply chain management and sales/marketing,

providing a mechanism for multidisciplinary teams to continuously improve products. In

practice, Design for sustainability enfolds different approaches. The most relevant (often

overlapping) ones are described in the following paragraphs.

ECO-DESIGN

Eco-design is a design process that considers the environmental impacts associated with a

product throughout its entire life from acquisition of raw materials through

75 Ibid.



53

production/manufacturing and use to end of life. At the same time as reducing environmental

impacts, eco-design seeks to improve the aesthetic and functional aspects of the product with

due consideration to social and ethical needs.

GREEN DESIGN

Green design is a design process in which the focus is on assessing and dealing with

individual environmental impacts of product rather than on the product's entire life.

Green design encompasses different approaches to improve processes and products to make

them more efficient from an environmental standpoint. Every one of these approaches

depends on viewing possible impacts in space and time and using assertive design

approaches to prevent or ameliorate them.

CRADLE TO CRADLE

Traditionally, design for sustainability has focused on minimising environmental damage, with

the ultimate aim being to achieve zero-waste. However, McDonough and Braungart (2003)76

argue that the problem with this approach is that it results in destroying the environment ‘a bit

less’ rather than stopping the destruction all together. They propose a cradle to cradle

approach to design, through which the outputs (or waste) from one system become the inputs

(nutrients) for other processes or products. According to this approach, industrial products

must be designed to fit into one of two cycles: a biological cycle, where the loop is closed by

returning products harmlessly to nature through composting; and an industrial cycle, where the

loop is closed by recycling non-degradable materials and products completely and continually.

The cradle-to-cradle approach is also at the base of what is now referred to as Circular

Economy thinking.77

FROM PRODUCTS TO SERVICES

In order to significantly reduce their environmental impact, several organizations are looking

for alternative methods of delivering product function, moving from products to services. Many

authors agree that a move to services can provide the opportunity for the introduction of

concepts that significantly improve the environmental performance of production and

consumption systems.78 This shift in the manufacturer’s role from providing products to

providing services is also known as the ‘functional economy’, and has been linked to the

creation of a more environmentally sustainable economy. This is not only one in which

customers are users of function and services rather than consumers of product, but also one

76 McDonough W., Braungart M. (2010) Cradle to cradle: Remaking the way we make things, MacMillan.

77 https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy

78 Goedkoop M.J., Van Halen C.J.G., Te Riele H.R.M., Rommens P.J.M. (1999) Product Service

Systems, Ecological and Economic Basics, Report of Storrm CS Consultants commissioned by the

Dutch Ministries of Environmental and Economical Affairs.



54

where the economic objective is to create the highest possible use value for the longest time

while consuming as few resources as possible.79

PARTICIPATORY DESIGN

Participatory design has evolved independently of eco-design, a design approach that

considers the environmental impacts of the whole product life cycle. The two are brought

together in design for sustainability, which adds an explicit emphasis on social responsibility to

the environmental and ecological concerns of eco-design. The participatory design approach

fits with the Agenda 21 approach to achieving sustainable development, which emphasizes

the importance of involving whole populations in broad processes to achieve large-scale

change. The assumption is that without shared visions only short-term solutions are possible

and these are unlikely to be the most sustainable solutions. Shared visions, reached through

collaborative processes like participatory design, are most likely to deliver sustainable

solutions of long-term value.80

DESIGN ACTIVISM

Design activism encompasses a wide range of real-life, socially and environmentally engaged

actions. It includes processes that innovate forms of creative practice, providing models by

which designers might work, or challenge existing conventions of design knowledge. The

emerging notion of design activism attempts to account for the often radical ways in which

design is being used to transform our society and the way we live, both now and for the

future81. Design activism is characterized both by its clear intent (the social or ecological cause

being pursued) and the often radical nature of its practice (how design is used, and by whom).

Design activism is design that explicitly supports a particular cause, which is outside the core

concerns of mainstream, commercially driven professional design practice. A good example is

the ‘Who made my clothes?’ campaign of Fashion Revolution.82

EMOTIONALLY DURABLE DESIGN

Emotionally durable design explores the idea of creating a deeper, more sustainable bond

between people and products and extends their ‘use-career’. Product durability is as much

about desire, love, fascination and attachment. This approach reduces the consumption and

waste of natural resources by increasing the resilience of the ties established between

consumers and products, supporting not the design of durable ‘products’ per se, but the

design of durable meanings and values that products deliver. Emotionally durable design

provides a useful language to describe the contemporary relevance of designing responsible,

well made, tactile products which the user can get to know and assign value to in the long-

term.83

79 Stahel W. (1997) In the Industrial Green Game: Implications for Environmental Design and

Management National Academy Press, Washington, DC.

80 Chick A., Micklethwaite P. (2011) Design for Sustainable Change: How design and designers can

drive the sustainability agenda, AVA Publishing.

81 Ibid.

82 http://fashionrevolution.org/

83 Chapman J. (2015) Emotionally Durable Design: Objects, Experience & Empathy, Routledge.



55

RELEVANCE OF BACKGROUND MODELS TO TCBL

The following table summarizes the relevance of these models to TCBL in general and to the

Design Labs in particular.

Table 12. Relevance of Design background models

Model Relevance to TCBL

Fashion Design Fashion Design is clearly a central element of TCBL’s activities, but can also overshadow the importance of other aspects of design. Design Labs will strive to open the confines of fashion design as well as making the practice of design more accessible.

Design Thinking Design Thinking can be applied to pilot scenarios as well as Design Labs themselves, and demonstrates the broad applicability of the design approach.

Service Design Service Design may also be applied to TCBL services as well as new paradigms for the retail aspect of fashion, in a framework of ‘clothing as a service’.

Design for Sustainability Design for sustainability will be fundamental in linking TCBL to the Circular Economy movement and more generally for attaining our objective of a 20% reduction in the ecological footprint of the T&C sector.

4.3 ACTIVE DESIGN LABS

During the first year of project implementation, TCBL partners have defined, through the

internal evaluation procedure described in the previous chapter, six Design Labs. The

following table gives a brief overview of the selected Design Labs, based mainly on the

peculiarities and specializations of the partners’ territories.

Table 13. Active Design Labs

Lab Brief description

Athens Fashion Design Lab (Athens, Greece)

The lab's main features and services include: Product design (cad facilities, design software etc.), Small scale product prototyping facilities, Sourcing services, Fashion trends, information and analysis, Training services for SMEs and young designers (e.g. branding, export marketing, product cost analysis etc.), Social networking (designers, SMEs, retailers, schools, consumers etc.), Documentation at networking with heritage foundations, and Processing and preparation for clustering and new labs development. The main target Customers are: T&C SMEs, Designers and design schools, Heritage foundations, Research centres, and Prototyping SMEs.

Lottozero

(Prato, Italy) Lottozero is: Design Office: we design textiles on our own, we help companies and textile designers get in touch with one another, we search for the best new styles and trends. We also help with the practical production of many designs by up and coming textile and fashion designers. Textile Laboratories: Knitting, Silkscreen printing, felting, weaving, dying, sewing, laser cutting. In addition, we are planning an exhibition space, an artists in residence programme, and designers’ co-working spaces.



56


Sanjotec Design Lab

(São João da Madeira, Portugal)

Sanjotec Design Lab is focused on encouraging the development of new products based on inventions/patents/knowledge already available in Universities and R&D Centers from regional and international entities.

Textile Centre of Excellence (Design Lab)

(Huddersfield, United Kingdom)

The Design Lab has the full range of utilities to enable any designer or aspiring designer to research/develop and grow and achieve industry ready product and skills. Equipped with work benches/pattern cutting paper/card/pattern cutting tools, toile dummies and electrical connections/desks for laptops and great lighting, this space is ideal to transform ideas into reality. The space can be used effectively for every step of the design process. We also offer industry standard practical, creative support and training for peace of mind or to help candidates to gain essential skills/training in relevant areas.

Textile Museum of Prato

(Prato, Italy)

The starting hypothesis is to build on the Inspiring Lab developed in the Texmedin project, which developed a database of heritage designs that young designers can use as an inspiration for new textile patterns and clothing models. The idea is to dedicate a corner of the Textile Museum to setting up work stations equipped with CAD programmes and heritage databases. The main issue is to develop a service/business model to cover the long-term operations in addition to the necessary staffing and overhead costs. The challenge is to appeal to the textile enterprises in the Prato district, addressing their more strategic needs through a service design approach.

TextileLab Amsterdam - Academy

(Amsterdam, Netherlands)

TCBL Academy is a series of workshops which aim is to explore how digital fabrication in combination with old craftsmanship in the field of T&C can influence the process and work of the participants that will be following it. Bringing together experts, designers and researchers that are exploring new ways of producing and pushing the boundaries in this field and participants that are exploring new options.

57

5. MAKING LABS Making Labs focus on the material production of textiles and clothing. They interact with the

Design Labs, especially as concerns the application of materials and technologies, and with

the Place Labs, particularly as concerns the organisation of work, but their focus will be on the

physical act of production and its market role. Therefore, availability of infrastructure, in

particular of innovative equipment e.g. for cutting and sewing will be a common feature.

Therefore, the Making Labs are expected to interact with one another, as well as with the

Design Labs providing the designers with the opportunity to manufacture prototypes, but also

by consulting and providing inspiration to them regarding the available materials and

technologies. Interaction with Place Labs, especially those found in the same region, is also

anticipated. Further, each Making Lab of the TCBL ecosystem may provide, depending on its

exact nature, various services to Business Pilots, ranging from prototyping to consultancy and

testing.

5.1 DEFINITION OF A MAKING LAB

TCBL Making Labs are infrastructures that will be used to explore issues related to the

manufacturing of textiles and clothing, aiming to facilitate innovation and adoption of new

business models. They will be places for knowledge creation and transfer and prototypes

manufacturing, closely interacting with other components of the TCBL ecosystem, such as

Design and Place labs and Associate Enterprises. The table here below gives an overview of

some of the many possibilities for activities and features we have explored for the Making Labs,

following the descriptive framework of WP3.

Table 14. Making Lab features


Main activities Textiles production (spinning, knitting, weaving)

Textiles dyeing and finishing

Prototypes manufacturing

3D printing

Laser cutting

Characterization and testing

Research

Knowledge transfer (through tutorials, workshops, etc)

Facilities Spinning/Weaving/knitting machines

Dyeing and finishing equipment

3D printers

Laser cutters

Testing equipment

Sewing and cutting

Setting Fablabs

Technological centres

Research/academic institutes

Enterprises

Service concepts Prototypes manufacturing and testing

Consultancy

Training

Research

Audience Entrepreneurs



58


Students

Researchers

Designers

Makers in general

Supervision Depending on the lab’s specific governance model


According to TCBL principles, Making Labs will promote sustainable textiles production

Fairness Promote fair production and trade

Openness Certain degree of openness (ranging depending on the lab type from walk in/walk out to open after arrangement)


The theoretical framework includes a short introduction to the Maker movement, textiles

recycling and re-use, and ecological certification of textiles. In addition, since the Making Labs

(as compared to Design and Place Labs) are more directly affected by technology

developments, we provide an overview of emergent trends. The first has to do with textiles

and processing, including sustainable textile fibres, functional finishing, and dry processing,

while the second regards emergent technologies as applied to T&C: digital inkjet printing, 3D

printing. and laser cutting. The diversity of the issues covered already indicates that each

Making Lab may have a different focus and act complementary to another one within the

TCBL ecosystem.

MAKER MOVEMENT

The maker movement is the name given to the increasing number of people employing do-it-

yourself (DIY) and do-it-with-others (DIWO) techniques and processes to design, manufacture

and create their own objects. The maker movement is therefore ultimately improving creativity

in many fields. In a way, the tools used in this movement are taking us back to a time when

every person was a craftsperson — except now technology is an additional tool84.

In fact, technology has advanced to the point where the general populace is now empowered

to design and create its own goods. More than just putting together Ikea furniture, people are

now building their own furniture at local tech shops, printing toys out on 3D printers and

connecting via the Internet to collaborate on music. The Internet has opened up a whole new

world of creativity that was never available before, creating niche communities that are

informative and proactive85. Community interaction and knowledge sharing are often mediated

through networked technologies, with websites and social media tools forming the basis of

knowledge repositories and a central channel for information sharing and exchange of ideas. It

is clear that the maker movement is strongly facilitated by the increasing amount of

information available to individuals and new technologies, such as additive manufacturing,

84 http://www.edudemic.com/maker-movement-tools/

85 Ibid.



59

open new possibilities in the DIY context. The 3D printer is, with no doubt, one of the biggest

revolutionary tools in the Maker world and has inspired a push toward the DIY sensibility.

Some say that the maker movement is a reaction to the de-valuing of physical exploration and

the growing sense of disconnection with the physical world in modern cities. Many products

produced by the maker communities have a focus on sustainable development,

environmentalism, local culture and can – from that point of view – also be seen as a response

to globalised mass production, disposables, the power of chain stores, multinationals and

consumerism. Most of the designs are open source, as anyone can access and create them

using available documentation and manuals. At the same time, the maker culture encourages

novel applications of technologies and the exploration of intersections between traditionally

separate domains and ways of working and emphasizes learning-through-doing

(constructivism) in a social environment or, in other words, informal, networked, peer-led and

shared learning motivated by fun and self-fulfilment86

Figure 8. Graphic recording from the beginning of the Maker Impact Summit. The speakers – Jonathan

Star, John Hagel, John Seely Brown, Dale Dougherty and Tom Kaili- were recorded live as they

introduced the ideas behind the Summit to the attendees87

86 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_culture

87 Deloitte Center for the Edge and Maker Media (2014) Impact of the Maker Movement, Deloitte. Hoover

MS.



60

As the Maker Movement grows and the infrastructure to support it evolves (including

FabLabs), it will begin to affect many different dimensions of personal, public and commercial

life. In fact, the Maker Movement is referenced in connection with topics ranging from the

rebirth of manufacturing to job skills development to reconnecting with our roots. As Maker

communities spring up around the globe, a plethora of physical and virtual platforms to serve

them have emerged, from platforms that inspire and teach, to those that provide access to

tools and mentorship, to those that connect individuals with financing and customers. At the

same time, access to lower cost fabrication and manufacturing is making small production

more economical and viable88.

Some claim that the Maker Movement will

emerge as the dominant source of livelihood

as individuals find ways to build small

businesses around their creative activity and

large companies increasingly automate their

operations. Traditional employment may

decline as work is organised primarily around

projects rather than job titles, however small

businesses, enabled by the technologies of

production and access (to funding, design, resources, tools and markets) will collaborate

across a flexible eco-system and no longer require scale to be viable. Scale operations will

continue to have a role, but will largely use automated, robotic production rather than labour. A

greater portion of the labour (and value creation) will reside in the customization /

personalization component89.

TCBL’s Making Labs will support textile “makers” by providing access to equipment and/or

knowledge through workshops, tutorials etc.

RECYCLING AND RE-USE

Western lifestyle is a significant contributor to landfill waste. Not only are products consumed

at a high level, but Western goods are often over-packaged, contributing even more to the

waste stream. To compound the notion of over-consumption is the notion of fashion itself. The

very definition of fashion fuels the momentum

for change, which creates demand for

ongoing replacement of products with

something that is new and fresh. In addition,

fashion has reached its tentacles beyond

apparel to the home furnishings industry.

Thus, fashionable goods contribute to

consumption at a higher level than needed.

As consumers continue to buy, waste will

continue to be created, further compounding

the problem of what to do with discarded packaging, apparel and other textile products.

As regards the composition of the textiles waste stream, this includes pre-consumer and post-

consumer waste. Pre-consumer waste consists of by-product materials from the textile and

88 Ibid.

89 Ibid.

The continuous increase of world fibre

consumption presents a double-edged

sword in that, while it stimulates the

economy, it also gives rise to the

increased problem of apparel and textile

disposal.

The maker ecosystem will disrupt

today’s large enterprise – individuals and

small businesses will come together,

both in urban areas and in virtual

communities, driven by a desire to learn

faster by working together



61

fibre industries, while post-consumer waste is defined as any type of article that the owner no

longer needs and decides to discard. To this, it should be added that textiles in today’s

marketplace are different from those of several decades ago, not only in design but also in the

fibre’s content and variety of applied finishing treatments. Nonetheless, the recycling industry

must cope with everything that the fashion industry generates.

Due to the large variety of materials included in textiles waste, both in terms of composition

and value, recycling necessitates a thorough sorting process: Crude sorts include the removal

of heavy items such as coats and blankets, then the sorting, for example, of trousers from

blouses from dresses. As the process proceeds, the sorts get more and more refined. For

example, once all trousers are picked, they are further sorted based on women’s or men’s,

fabric (e.g. woollens go to cooler climates while cottons and linens to hot climates), condition

(e.g. tears, missing buttons and discoloration) and quality. Certain brands and styles (e.g.

Levi’s, Tommy Hilfiger and Harley Davidson or Boy Scout uniforms) are sorted because they

are considered “diamonds”, based on the premium prices they bring in certain markets90.

Figure 9. Pyramid model for textile recycling categories, by quantity91

Accordingly, recovery from the waste stream includes re-use of a product in its original form, a

common practice for clothes or recycling to convert the waste into a product. Typically,

recycling technologies are divided in primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary approaches.

Primary approaches involve recycling a product into its original form; secondary recycling

involves melt processing a plastic product into a new product that may have a lower level of

physical, mechanical and/or chemical properties. Tertiary recycling involves processes such

as pyrolysis and hydrolysis, which convert plastic wastes into basic chemicals or fuels.

Quaternary recycling refers to burning the fibrous solid waste and utilizing the heat generated.

All of these four approaches exist for fibre recycling92.

90 Hawley J.M. (2006) “Textile recycling: A system perspective” in Recycling in Textiles. Editor Wang Y.

Woodhead Publishing in Textiles.

91 Ibid.

92 Wang Y. (2006) “Introduction” in Recycling in Textiles Editor Wang Y. Woodhead Publishing in Textiles.

"diamonds"

landfill and incineration

wiping and polishing cloths

conversion to new products

used clothing markets



62

Therefore, in theory, considering that textiles are nearly 100% recyclable, nothing in the textile

and apparel industry should be wasted93. In fact, there are many compelling reasons for the

recycling of waste from textile products and processes. They include conservation of

resources, reduction of the need for landfills and paying the associated tipping fees and

provision of low cost raw materials and products. Yet, in reality, the rate of recycling in textiles

is not very high. Besides the often attributed reason of insufficient public willingness to

participate in recycling, economics is often the reason behind the adoption of other modes of

waste disposal. Although legislation could easily tip the balance in favour of recycling, such a

forced move could have just the opposite effect in terms of environmental protection.

Recycling, a seemingly obvious choice, is more complicated than it appears.

Other than direct re-use, some processing such as mechanical, chemical or biological is

involved to recycle waste into products, requiring the consumption of a certain amount of

energy, additional raw materials and causing the emission of waste into the air, water and soil.

Once a recycled product is made, it must be marketed. Is there a reasonable demand? Is it

cost-competitive? The next challenge concerns the availability of waste to be processed. Is

there a consistent supply at a reasonable price, especially when production is at full capacity?

It is therefore conceivable that a recycling operation could consume more petroleum than it

saves, cause more harm to the environment due to emissions, produce a product that is too

expensive for a quickly saturated market and have insufficient supply to run the production

plant efficiently. Such a scenario is obviously to be avoided94.

Therefore, the key is the availability and development of better technologies that are cleaner,

more energy efficient, and less expensive. In parallel, consumers must be made aware that

nearly 100 % of their used clothing is recyclable and that numerous and various markets exist

for used textiles and fibre products. An attitude shift toward purchase of garments made from

recycled fibres must be embraced. By raising consciousness concerning environmental

issues, channels for disposal and environmentally conscious business ethics, steps can be

made towards a more sustainable environment95.

Finally, it is worth noting that apart from the development of efficient recycling processes, it is

also important to design textiles and textile products that are easy to recycle, i.e. products

comprising a single material or multi-material systems with detachable connections,

considering of course that there is usually a trade-off between recyclability and functionality96.

ECOLOGICAL CERTIFICATION

While discussing textiles sustainability, it is worth making a short reference to ecological

certification of textiles. The push for environmental safety in textiles production was rooted

primarily in Europe, and began roughly in 1992 when the European Union adopted Council

93 Hawley JM. (2006), op cit.

94 Wang Y. ( 2006), op cit.

95 Hawley JM. (2006), op cit.

96 Gulich B. (2006) “Designing textile products that are easy to recycle” in Recycling in Textiles Editor

Wang Y. Woodhead Publishing in Textiles.



63

Regulation No. 880/92, establishing a Community Eco-Label award scheme.97 Textiles were

one of the first product groups for which Eco-Label criteria were established.

Today, a survey of the textile and apparel labels present in the Ecolabel Index98 shows that

only 16 of the 38 of the certifications presented are textile-specific. Textiles are often grouped

under broad-ranging ecolabels, which cover products as varied as building supplies,

agricultural goods, and all consumer goods. Environmental issues addressed across this

category include organic production, energy usage, pollution, and biodiversity conservation.

Social issues addressed across this category include labour practices, worker health and

safety, consumer health and safety, economic development and animal treatment. Some of

the major categories that the 38 certifications listed can be divided into include99:

All consumer goods: Cradle-to-Cradle, BASF Efficiency, Healthy Child Healthy World

Raw materials only: Soil Association Organic Standard, Organic Farmers and

Growers Certification, Global Organic Textile Standard

Processing only: Oeko-Tex Standard 1000

Full life cycle, product only: Oeko-Tex Standard 100

Full life cycle, product + process: Oeko-Tex Standard 100Plus

Multiple environmental/social attributes: Ecoproof, Zque, Naturtextil

Environmental attributes only: EcoLogo

5.3 TRENDS IN TEXTILES AND PROCESSING

For the specific issues that Making Labs will be addressing, it is also important to provide an

overview of specific trends related to the material dimension of T&C in addition to the

theoretical framework. The following paragraphs therefore deal with sustainable textile fibres,

functional finishes, and dry processing.

SUSTAINABLE TEXTILE FIBRES

The textile fashion industry today is focusing more on the concept of sustainability and for this

reason textile fibres are being promoted that are naturally sustainable and have a low impact

on the environment. In fact, although a lot of resources in the form of energy and water are

used during fabric finishing and garment manufacturing, the use of environmentally

sustainable raw materials is one of the most important first steps towards an environmentally

friendly product100.

Each year, farmers harvest around 35 million tonnes of natural fibres from a wide range of

plants and animals: from sheep, rabbits, goats, camels and alpacas, from cotton bolls, abaca

and sisal leaves and coconut husks, and from the stalks of jute, hemp, flax and ramie plants.

Those fibres form fabrics, ropes and twines that have been fundamental to society since the

97 Available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=URISERV%3Al28020

98 The Ecolabel Index, http://www.ecolabelindex.com/

99 https://center.sustainability.duke.edu/sites/default/files/documents/ecolabelsreport.pdf

100 Ali M.A., Sarwar M.I. (2014) Sustainable and Environmental Friendly Fibers in Textile Fashion: A

Study of Organic Cotton and Bamboo Fibers Master’s Thesis at University of Borås, available at





64

dawn of civilization. But over the past half century, natural fibres have been displaced in our

clothing, household furnishings, industries and agriculture by man-made fibres with names like

acrylic, nylon, polyester and polypropylene. The success of synthetics is mainly due to cost.

Unlike natural fibres harvested by farmers, commonly used synthetic fibres are mass

produced from petrochemicals to uniform strengths, lengths and colours, easily customized to

specific applications. Relentless competition from synthetics and the current global economic

downturn impact the livelihoods of millions of people who depend on natural fibre production

and processing.

Textile fibres that are considered eco-friendly and sustainable include natural fibres like

organic cotton, bamboo, flax, hemp, jute, ramie, sisal, abaca, etc, but also synthetic fibres

produced from natural resources, like Lyocell and PLA (Poly Lactic Acid). While conventional

synthetic fibres consume a lot of oil during their production, synthetic fibres made from natural

resources are naturally eco-friendly, less resource consuming, recyclable and sustainable. On

the other hand, plant fibres (e.g. bamboo) may absorb the same amount of carbon dioxide

from the environment during their growth as they release during their production cycles, thus

helping in keeping the atmosphere clean. Among the various natural textile fibres, cotton is

probably the most controversial one regarding sustainability, since it requires high amounts of

water, pesticides and fertilizers. Organic cotton or low chemical cotton is a sustainable

alternative for conventional cotton as it is produced with no use of synthetic pesticides,

fertilizers and less water consumption.

Organic cotton production not only replaces synthetic fertilizers and pesticides with organic

ones, but constitutes a systematic approach that focuses on selection of locally adopted

varieties, according to local conditions like climate and soil. Natural methods are used to

control pests and diseases instead of pesticides and fertilizers. A conventional cotton

production needs two years to be converted to organic cotton cultivation. Small scale farmers

in developing countries can benefit from growing organic cotton, since they can get more

premiums for their crop and can compete with commercial farmers in industrialized and

developed countries. Though organic cotton production is highly valuable, it should be

emphasized that it is very demanding, requiring devotion, commitment and experience.

Besides its environmental and agricultural benefits, organic cotton production is also a good

tool for social change as it includes ethical principles in its production system. Organic cotton

growth promotes the local verities and species and hence generates revenue for local

inhabitants101.

FUNCTIONAL FINISHES

Today’s textiles, apart from the traditional function of dressing people, often need to provide

wear comfort and protection in dangerous environments, so the textile industry is constantly

striving for innovative production techniques to improve product quality. In this context,

functional finishes are being applied to apparel fabrics, household textiles and technical

textiles to increase their appeal to the consumer and to stimulate the growth of niche markets.

Functional finishes include those aiming to improve comfort and performance, with properties

such as thermal regulation, moisture management and soil release, softening, enzymatic bio-

101 ibid.



65

finishes, shrink resist and easy care, self-cleaning, superabsorbence, cosmetic and odour

resistance. Another category includes finishes for protecting the wearers and the textiles,

making the textiles insect repellent and antimicrobial, hydrophobic and oleophobic, flame

retardant, ultraviolet protection and antistatic102.

In terms of processing techniques, nanotechnology is opening new avenues in chemical

finishing, either resulting in improved processes or helping to achieve new functional

properties like self-cleaning effects, which were not possible with conventional finishes. Thus,

the application of nanotechnology to textiles creates an expanded array of functional

properties enabling textiles to be used in novel materials and products. Unlike in conventional

finishing, the nanometric size of the coating does not negatively affect the touch and feel of the

finished fabric. The low temperature sol-gel techniques, as well as the new generation of

polymeric resins are offering new possibilities in textiles chemical finishing. Other important

developments include the plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition technique and the

layer by layer (LbL) assembly method103.

Apart from chemical and mechanical finishing, biotechnological finishes are gaining increased

attention, with recent trends showing their social, environmental and economic benefits.

Enzymes are the most important biological agents now used in the textile industry to treat and

modify fibres, particularly during textile pre-treatments and for finishing the textiles afterwards.

For example, cellulases are enzymes capable of hydrolysing the microfibrils protruding from

the surface of cotton (bio-polishing). In the case of wool, the use of transglutaminases has

been shown to improve shrink resistance, tensile strength retention, handle, softness,

wettability and consequently dye uptake, as well as reduction of felting tendency and

protection from damage caused by the use of common detergents. Enzymatic hydrolysis of

polyester fibres with different lipases or esterases can increase hydrophilicity and absorbance

properties104.

The current trend in functional finishing is towards multifunctional textiles, which are highly

durable and safe to the user as well as for the environment. This requires a careful balance

between the compatibility of different finishing chemicals and treatments and the stringent

environmental and safety legislation that is being imposed by different governments, including

regulations from the European Commission105.

DRY PROCESSING TECHNOLOGIES

A lot of the discussion in sustainable textiles has centred around the fibres, with manufacturers

making a switch to organic cotton or creating fabrics from natural, easily-renewable materials,

102 Paul R. (2015) “Functional finishes for textiles” in Functional finishes for textiles. Editor Paul R.

Woodhead Publishing Series in Textiles.

103 Ibid.

104 Ibid.

105 Ibid.



66

like bamboo or hemp. But until very recently,

less attention was paid to the dyeing process,

which can be potentially devastating when it

comes to chemicals, waste and water

usage106.

Due mainly to dyeing, the textile industry is

believed to be one of the biggest consumers

of water. In conventional processes, large

amounts of water are used both in terms of

intake of fresh water and disposal of wastewater. On average, an estimated 100–150 litres of

water are needed to process 1 kg of textile material, with some 28 billion kg of textiles being

dyed annually. Water is used as a solvent in many pre-treatment and finishing processes,

such as washing, scouring, bleaching and dyeing107.

To address this huge issue, new waterless dyeing technologies are being developed and

deployed that could help reduce the vast quantities of pollution generated by textile dyeing. In

recent years, three companies have each developed a largely waterless dyeing technology.

Two are American enterprises — AirDye and ColorZen — and the third is a Dutch company,

DyeCoo, whose process is being used by Adidas, one of its partners. Although the three

processes are very different from each other, they all aim at cutting the use of water to near-

zero. The quantity of chemicals is also drastically reduced, while faster dyeing cycles lead to a

significant drop in energy consumption.

ColorZen has developed a method that changes the molecular composition of cotton fibres,

making it more receptive to dye. After treatment, the dyeing process uses 90 percent less

water, 95% fewer chemicals, 75% less energy, and half as much dye as conventional

processes, according to the company. AirDye has taken a different direction, where the cloth

is no longer dipped in the traditional bath filled with water and dye, but put into printing

machines. Pressure and heat are used to transfer specially formulated dyes from paper onto

polyester fabric. According to the company, this process is faster than the traditional one and

uses 95% less water and 86% less energy108.

The DyeCoo process instead uses supercritical CO2. With this technology, polyester and other

synthetics can be dyed with modified disperse dyes. The supercritical fluid CO2 causes the

polymer fibre to swell allowing the disperse dye to easily diffuse within the polymer,

penetrating the pore and capillary structure of the fibres. The viscosity of the dye solution is

lower, making the circulation of the dye solutions easier and less energy intensive. This deep

penetration provides effective colouration of polymers which are characteristically

hydrophobic. Dyeing and removing excess dye are processes that are done in the same

vessel. Residue dye is minimal and may be extracted and recycled109.

106 Walker A. (2009) “AirDye's Ecological Dyeing Process Makes the Future of Textiles Bright”,

http://www.fastcompany.com/1368576/airdyes-ecological-dyeing-process-makes-future-textiles-bright

107 DyeCoo (2010) “DyeCoo: Waterless dyeing” in Colourist, Issue 3.

108 Heida L. (2014) “Can Waterless Dyeing Processes Clean Up the Clothing Industry?”

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/can_waterless_dyeing_processes_clean_up_clothing_industry_pollution/

2775/

109 http://www.innovationintextiles.com/waterless-dyeing-process-for-drydye-fabrics/

“From wet to dry - towards more flexible,

sustainable and energy-efficient textile

processing technologies” – is one of the

7 Textile Flagships for Europe defined

by the European Technology Platform

for textiles.

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/can_waterless_dyeing_processes_clean_up_clothing_industry_pollution/2775/




67

In addition to the above, it is interesting to note the possibilities offered by plasma

technologies for textiles treatment. Unlike liquid processes which penetrate deep into the

fibres, plasma produces no more than a surface reaction. Therefore, the properties it gives to

the material are limited to a surface layer of around 100 angstroms. These properties are very

varied and can be applied to both natural and synthetic fibres, as well as to non-woven fabrics,

without having any effect on their internal structures. For example, plasma processing makes

it possible to impart hydrophilic or hydrophobic properties to the surface of a textile, or reduce

its inflammability. And while it is difficult to dye synthetic fabrics, the use of reactive polar

functions results in improved pigment fixation. Finally, with plasma containing fluorine, which is

used mainly to treat textiles for medical use, it is possible to optimise biocompatibility and

haemocompatibility - essential for medical implants containing textiles. Even more, the speed

of the process (just a few minutes, or even seconds) reduces energy consumption still further,

making the "dry" processing using plasma technology all the more attractive110.

Still, despite these benefits, major questions remain as to whether these new technologies will

be able to turn the tide in the struggle to reduce pollution in the textile industry. Water has

been used to dye fabric for centuries, and textile firms have generally been reluctant to

embrace change, considering also that the new waterless dyeing or plasma machines are

expensive to install111. The advantages of the new technologies and the long term savings

must be made clear to T&C enterprises for them to proceed with such investments.

5.4 EMERGENT TECHNOLOGIES

Finally, TCBL is very much interested in capturing the potentials of emergent technologies with

the possibility of radically transforming production in a consumer-driven direction. The most

important of these are digital inkjet printing, 3D printing, laser cutting, and wearables.

DIGITAL INKJET TEXTILE PRINTING

The majority of textiles are printed using rotary screen print machines. While this technology

offers high speed and low product cost, there are many drawbacks. Customers today are

demanding a greater variety of colours and designs. As a consequence, there is a trend for

rapidly decreasing order sizes, forcing textile companies to print shorter runs. Rotary screen

technology offers obvious benefits for long runs, but does not allow economical short run

production. Printers are thus forced to find new and innovative ways to provide printed

samples while minimizing cost and waste. Digital printing technology allows to streamline the

entire design, sampling and production process112.

110 https://ec.europa.eu/research/rtdinfo/en/24/01.html

111 Heida L. (2014) op cit.

112 Tippett BG. (2002) “The Evolution and Progression Of Digital Textile Printing” available at

http://brookstippett.com/docs/Print2002-BGT.pdf.

https://ec.europa.eu/research/rtdinfo/en/24/01.html



68

The technology emerged in the 1990s as a prototyping tool and a vehicle for printing small

batches of fabric for niche market products113. Digital textile printing involves the use of

printing systems to print out digital data and has the following characteristics:114

high reproducibility of fine gradations and subtle colour tones,

suitable for small lot production runs at low cost and high speed, without the need for

the plates that are indispensable for analogue printing

less environmental burden due minimal wastage of dyes.

Figure 10. Comparison of analogue to digital textile printing technologies115

In fact, one of the biggest benefits digital printing provides is the reduction of downtime. Digital

printers do not require lengthy setup / cleanup time between patterns and can theoretically

print 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year. In addition to increased efficiency, the

technology also provides the elimination of screen costs in sampling and short-run production.

Printing without screens eliminates the registration problems and, most importantly, allows for

mass customization. Designers can make pattern and colour changes immediately and print a

sample before engraving screens for the final run. On a digital production machine, the printer

can produce as little as one repeat of several patterns using multiple colourways, all in a few

minutes116.

113 Tyler DJ. (2005) “Textile digital printing technologies” available at

http://www.zjff.net:81/files/20131111/1384158826333_29.pdf

114 http://global.epson.com/newsroom/2015/pdf/150601.pdf

115 ibid.

116 Tippett BG. (2002) op cit.





69

3D PRINTING

In the modern world the desire for individual and personalized items stays present throughout

all cultures and countries. Products need to fit different unique expectations regarding style

and shape. Additionally, customers show a high interest in watching the production of the

items they are about to buy. In the textile industry, this desire is currently represented by the

trend in fast fashion and fashion that actually fits on the individual body, as well as by the

development of more and more sophisticated high technology technical textiles. Current

developments in 3D printing technology promise to meet those requirements far better,

especially as the path from idea to finished product becomes easy and fast. Additive

manufacturing (AM) opens new possibilities for the design and structure of textiles for specific

applications117.

3D printing is a production method that produces 3-dimensional objects by combining very thin

layers over and over to form the object using 3D scanners or via software, either private or

open source118. It belongs to the rapidly emerging technologies which have the chance to

revolutionize the way products are created. In the textile industry, several designers have

already presented creations of shoes, dresses or other garments which could not be produced

with common techniques.

3D printing, however, is still far from being a widely adopted process in textile and clothing

production. The main challenge results from insufficient mechanical properties, especially the

low tensile strength, of pure 3D printed products, preventing them from replacing common

technologies such as weaving or knitting. Thus, one way to the application of 3D printed forms

in garments is to combine them with textile fabrics, the latter ensuring the necessary tensile

strength119.

Pioneering work on AM fabrication of fabric-like materials was presented by Evenhuis and

Kyttanen (2003)120, whose method includes projecting a textile pattern onto a particular

surface, for instance a piece of clothing, and generating a 3-dimensional computer model of

the pattern. The result of this process is a complex model of interwoven links, which

resembles chainmail structures as used for armour in the Middle Ages. Since then, the

potential for creating textiles by means of AM has mostly been attributed to these structures.

They are often called multiple assemblies, since in essence they consist of separate parts.

The only limiting factors attributed to these structures are the limitations of existing CAD

modelling tools, for instance the ability to “drape” the AM textile across a curved surface such

as the human body. Proposed applications for these textiles are mainly functional, such as

stab-resistant wearables and high-performance or smart textiles121.

117 Vassiliadis S. (2015) “3D printed textiles fabrics structures” 5th International Istanbul Textile

Congress 2015: Istanbul.

118 Reyhan K et al. (2015) “Production with 3D printers in textiles (review)” available at


119 Sabantina L. (2015) “Combining 3D printed forms with textile structures – mechanical and

geometrical properties of multi-material systems” paper presented at the 2015 Global Conference on

Polymer and Composite Materials (PCM 2015), Beijing.

120 Kyttanen J., Evenhuis J. (2003) “Method and device for manufacturing fabric material,”

WO2003082550 A22003 TU Delft Repositories. 121 Lussenburg K et al. (2015) “Designing with 3D Printed Textiles - A case study of Material Driven

Design” in Proceedings of 5th International conference on Additive Technologies, Bangalore




70

Figure 11. Floral pattern (PLA) printed on cotton, wool, viscose fabric and polyester net (from left to

right), presented at the 2015 Global Conference on Polymer and Composite Materials by Sabantina et al.

However, the development of flexible materials suitable for AM seems to have renewed

interest in other possibilities for the production of 3D printed textiles. At the same time, the

possibilities of AM have not gone unnoticed in the world of fashion. The freedom of form that

AM provides has been utilised to create accessories that could not have been created without

this technology. Only a few designers have tried their hand at making entire garments using

AM. For example, Iris van Herpen, in collaboration with architects such as Beesley and

Koerner and designer Neri Oxman, has designed and fabricated numerous sculptural AM

garments. These garments were 3D Printed using rigid and flexible materials developed

especially for this purpose. The emphasis of such work usually lies in finding a way to

translate the vision of the designer and to make a statement, as is common for art, and not in

creating objects for daily use. As a result, most of the 3D printed garments illustrate ground-

breaking developments but do not represent comfortable, ready-to-wear clothing122.

Figure 12. (a) 3D printed gown, (b) weft-knitted fabric produced by SLS method, (c) weft knitted fabric

produced by FDM method

There are several textile-like 3D printed products mostly for use in fashion designs and for

research purposes. The printed dresses are more like a plastic, as they do not have the textile

structure which is flexible and durable. For technical textile applications, examples are the

122 Ibid.



71

wearable technology applications and flexible heating systems developed by Mangre et al;

and for 3D printed traditional textiles, examples are weft-knitted structures and lace patterns

produced by SLS and FDM printing methods. The printed weft-knitted structures were

produced in a larger size than traditional knitted fabrics to obtain a thickness that holds the

structure in one piece; and the lace produced was not flexible after printing, a second process

of soaking in water was applied to give the lace flexibility. The figure above shows a 3D

printed gown and weft-knitted structures produced by Melnikova et al.123

Although 3D printing looks like a new chapter for production, as it makes it possible to produce

prototypes of almost any product, it needs to improve with materials that will be equivalent to

textile materials. It also needs to increase the speed of production in order to compete with the

mass production of traditional textile manufacturing methods. However, 3D printing seems to

be a promising method for producing prototypes of textile materials such as medical textiles,

which can save time and money to test the properties of the end-product124.

Figure 13. Samples of 3D printed textiles presented by Lussenburg K et al at the 5th International

Conference on Additive Technologies

For future applications for 3D printed textiles, an AM process specific for textiles will need to

be developed, rather than keeping the focus on material development. In order to be able to

print textile-like materials, the materials, structures and process that are in place now should

be thoroughly analysed and used as inspiration for new AM processes125.

LASER CUTTING

Laser cutting is an unconventional method that has been widely used in many industries

nowadays. The laser cutting and textiles industries have worked perfectly together for many

years now, due to the sheer versatility of laser cutters and the massively increased material

processing speeds. Laser cut fabrics are used throughout the textile industry for everything

123 Reyhan K et al. (2015) op cit.

124 Ibid.

125 Lussenburg K et al. (2015) op cit.



72

from fashion items such as dresses, skirts, jackets and scarves to household products like

curtains, sofa covers, cushions and upholstery126.

Laser cutting is a totally contactless process. Nothing but the laser beam itself touches the

fabric, which minimises any chance of skewing or distorting the fabric. As well, laser cutting of

synthetic materials produces a sealed edge which stops fraying, thus eliminating any need to

hem127.

In the fashion industry, laser cutting is becoming increasingly popular and has proved that it

can create very effective looks on garments. Fashion students incorporate laser cutting into

their coursework, and high street stores stock laser cut clothing from shoes to bags and shirts.

Laser cutting has even made its way on to the cat walk and is used by famous fashion

designers the world over to create lace effects, engrave designs directly onto the fabric, and

cut and etch leather for shoes, belts and bags128.

Figure 14. Use of laser cutting for decoration of fabrics.

INTELLIGENT TEXTILES AND CLOTHING

Wearable technology, the electronics-based approach, began by adding totally new features

to clothing by attaching various kinds of electronic devices to garments. Early results,

126 http://www.cct-uk.com/laser_cutting_fabrics_and_textiles.php

127 Ibid.

128 Ibid.




73

however, were often bulky, not very user friendly and often impractical. The early garments

had cables criss-crossing all over, batteries in pockets and hard electronic devices sticking out

from the surface. The piece of clothing had become a platform for supporting electronics and

was hardly wearable with the comfort of normal clothing129.

Figure 15. The intelligent garment as an object of interdisciplinary research from the perspective of three

research areas: design research, fibre material technology and physiology130

Today, intelligent textiles have come a long way, and the vision behind wearable computing

(when it does become actually wearable) foresees electronic systems as an integral part of

our everyday outfits. Wearable systems will be characterized by the ability to automatically

recognize the activity and behavioural status of their user as well as of the situation around

her/him and to use this information to adjust the systems’ configuration and functionality131. A

piece of clothing should remain visibly unchanged and at the end of the day the consumer

should still be able to wash it in the washing machine without first removing all the electronics.

RELEVANCE OF BACKGROUND MODELS AND TRENDS TO TCBL

In the following, we relate each of the background models and trends discussed above to the

definition of Making Labs and to TCBL in general.

Table 15. Relevance of Making Lab models and trends


Theoretical framework TCBL draws strongly on the maker movement’s approach and ethics for a new approach in the relationship between manufacturing (or producing things) and customers (or citizen-makers).

129 Ibid.

130 Mattila H. (2006) “Intelligent textiles and clothing – a part of our intelligent ambience” in Intelligent

textiles and clothing. Editor: Mattila HR. Woodhead Publishing Series in Textiles.

131 Stoppa M, Chiolerio A. (2014) “Wearable Electronics and Smart Textiles: A Critical Review” in

Sensors, 14, 11957-11992.

The intelligent garment as research object

Physiology

Fibre material technology

Design research



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Recycling and re-use will be an important component of improving the environmental footprint of the T&C sector, especially in the framework of the Circular Economy. As for ecological certification, TCBL Labs could explore participatory certification approaches..

Trends in textiles and processing Trends in natural fibres will be important drivers of sustainable and innovative value chain concepts and innovative business models. Exploring these potentials is one of the roles of the Making Lab. New trends in processing will also have strong impacts that the Making Labs will be exploring, with a particular focus on functional finishes and dry processing, notably with the MLSE technology at TCBL partner TCoE

Emergent Technlogies Emergent technologies of digital printing, 3D printing, laser cutting and wearable computing are emerging rapidly in the T&C sector, in part through the open explorations taking place in many areas. The Making Labs will act as service brokers to other TCBL ecosystem elements – Labs and Pilots – in finding the most innovative applications.

5.3 ACTIVE MAKING LABS

The following Table provides a brief overview of the six Making Labs that have been accepted

following the first (internal) call.

Table 16. Active Making Labs


Athens Making Lab

(Athens, Greece)

The Making Lab in Athens focuses on textiles processing (mainly wet processing, i.e. dyeing and finishing), aiming to provide functional properties to textile substrates and/or increase the sustainability of production. The lab is also very well equipped to perform textiles characterization in terms of physical-mechanical and chemical properties. It will provide consultancy services, develop guidelines for the implementation of specific processes, organize workshops and carry out small scale research in collaboration with other TCBL Labs.

Fabbrica ARCA

(Palermo, Italy) The Making Lab in Palermo addresses the issues of Fashion Technology in a more patient and inclusive approach that aims to produce a lasting impact on the territory. It offers a space for exploring new textiles materials, wearable devices, and using data in the fashion sector. Fabbrica aims to cooperate with local pilot businesses to co- design services and equipment implementation. As far as services or products are concerned we will launch a series of Maker Challenges, using an open innovation platform. A Maker Challenge defines a clear need, typically from a TCBL pilot, that is published on a web platform and thus open to any group interested in designing innovative approaches to address that need. As Fabbrica is located within a university campus, students will be our first stakeholders.

FabLab Venezia

(Venice, Italy) The FabLab Venezia is an innovative start-up located inside the Vega buisness incubator, at the Science and Technology Park of Venice. Our Lab is a member of the international Fablabs network (Fabfoundation) headed by the Center of Bits and Atoms of MIT in Boston (USA). In this context we want give the possibility to explore uses for technologies like advanced laser cutting and 3D



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printing, CNC milling machines and a 6axis industrial robotic arm, for digital manufacturing linked to the textiles sector, creating a synergy between artisans and creative talents. Users of Fablab Venezia are designers and creative entrepreneurs as well as a wider audience of citizens, schools and universities, and professionals.

Lanificio Paoletti

(Follina – TV, Italy)

This Making Lab is based on an open and exploratory use of the facilities at the Paoletti woollen mill, founded in 1795 and now a modern textile company. It produces for big fashion brands and pret-a-porter chains in Italy, France, UK, Spain and also United States, Japan, China and Korea. The structure and organisation of the Paoletti mill allows for short runs (even 3m samples) of new textile designs, mixing experimentation with industrial production. In addition, the Making Lab links to Paoletti’s experiments with the local Alpago wool and its possibilities.

Textile Centre of Excellence (Make Lab)

(Huddersfiled, UK)

The Textile Centre of Excellence's Making Lab offers equipment and expertise to bring design ideas to a fully manufactured product reality. The Lab has two parts to its manufacturing facilities, which work in harmony with the Design Lab facilities also offered on site. We offer commission weaving, commission warping and commission healding, including samples, and with a portfolio of work ranging from sampling to innovative weaving with DNA. Secondly, the Lab has excellent Cut, Make and Trim facilities allowing for the manufacture of garments to promote and sell across a wide range of fabrics. The Lab offers bespoke training in textiles and garment manufacturing and can provide a range of business development services to complement its facilities.

TextileLab Amsterdam – YourTextileTools

(Amsterdam, NL)

Your Textile Tools Lab in Amsterdam will research and explore the possibilities in making open source tools and machines to knit, create or manipulate textiles. Existing tools and machinery will be hacked or recreated from scratch. The outcomes will be reproducible through digital fabrication and can be used by the TCBL textile and clothing labs and others. By gaining knowledge through making, people are offered new opportunities in self-empowerment.

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6. PLACE LABS

Inside the TCBL system, in an anthropological dimension of innovation, the Place Lab is

designed as a laboratory of persons and human interactions. If the Design Lab studies design

and the Making Lab technological innovations, the Place Lab studies and tests the role of

human interaction in garment production processes.

As stated in the DoA, the Place Lab is the more exploratory of the Business Lab models, as it

looks at some factors that have only recently been recognized as innovation drivers: local

culture, community interaction, group dynamics, non-monetary exchanges, etc. In addition, the

Place Labs look at the part of the T&C industry – garment manufacture – that has been the

stage of production most subject to de-localisation, and can thus help address its root causes.

In the process however, the act of sewing has been generally ignored by research and

scientific examination and is currently a dying art in Western Europe.

The dramatic skills shortage that has appeared on the horizon with the beginnings of re-

localisation therefore justifies a new look at sewing, cutting, and more broadly, the

organisation of work in the production of garments, a process that has resisted technology

innovation over the years. This also provides the opportunity to explore new models for the

organisation of work as well as of the capture and exchange of knowledge related to garment

production. The Place Labs in TCBL will explore these aspects in a variety of settings and

contexts.

6.1 DEFINITION OF A PLACE LAB

The Place Lab concept attempts to explore and address these issues in a systematic way that

facilitates the definition of new business models. More specifically:

A Place Lab should promote sewing, for fun or to learn a trade, not only as

entertainment but also to create responsible consumers, able to choose, appreciate,

and recognize quality craftsmanship and feel a different empathy with the clothes they

wear.

Place Labs should travel on two tracks: experimenting with new and more flexible

models of production, and interacting more with the consumer, to create users able to

appreciate quality.

The Place Lab can help to elevate the practice of sewing to something perceived as

cool, attractive for both men and women, as has recently occurred in the world of

cooking.

The Place Lab is the ideal environment to prepare and test sewing manuals, written or

on video, for all levels of learning, with a common glossary.

Finally, a Place Lab should explore all those areas of clothes production in which the human

component has remained impervious to technological innovation. Here, the connection with

the cultural roots of a territory plays an important role. An example is the production of raw

materials such as wool, strongly linked to the territory and to ancient traditions such as

sheepherding.

We can sum up what a Place Lab is and is not as follows:



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Table 17. What a Place Lab is and is not

A Place Lab is not… However, a Place Lab…

A sewing school Perfects the practice of sewing

A community centre Is sociable

A research centre Generates innovation

A museum Protects intangible cultural heritage

A business incubator Develops business models

A start-up Suggests new business opportunities

A job centre Restores dignity and future

Based on these underlying principles, the main features of a Place Lab can be defined,

according to the common TCBL Business Lab framework, as follows:

Table 18. Place Lab features


Main activities Cutting and sewing

Testing and experimenting new forms of organization in garment production

Writing and recording sewing tutorials

Socializing the act of sewing

Exchanging opinions, professional knowledge and skills in the field of sewing

Suggesting new business models

Having fun

Making people feel useful

Facilities Common space to experiment

Social space/community

Sewing machines

Cutting and sewing tools

Samples of fabrics and haberdashery

Knowledge, libraries

Literature/web/study

Repository

Digital equipment

Setting In geographical areas that have been hit hard by textile manufacturing crisis

In geographical areas of high creativeness/skills/knowledge

Shops

Ateliers

Factories

Social enterprises

Schools

Fablabs

Service concepts Socio manufacturing service

Testing prototypes

Testing new materials

Testing tools and machinery

Making sewing tutorials



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Audience Local stakeholders

Cooperatives

Tailors

Mature and young unemployed

Students

Old people willing to share their skills and stay together

People who want to sew for fun or for the family

Supervision Supervision can depend on the level of support: give more, ask more – give nothing ask nothing

Shared ownership, collaborative governance, volunteer employees


The capital is the innovative network

The labs should start self-sufficient. Going on they can make business providing services

Testing prototypes

Small series productions

Summer schools

Support in on-line platforms (such as Etsy)

Fab-lab model

Training agency

Fairness Test models of fair trade and fair production

Lower cultural, religious, race, and gender barriers

Promote a type of production in which everyone can find satisfaction

Avoid the danger of ‘social stigma’

Openness Open to everyone, walk in / walk out


The following paragraphs provide a general overview of the theoretical framework for Place

Labs, including the approach to territorially-grounded innovation, industrialised garment

production, the Fast Fashion model, issues for re-localisation, and experimentation with the

organisation of production.

TERRITORIAL INNOVATION

In the context of TCBL, the Place Lab grounds its innovation model very broadly in the so-

called Place-Based132 approach to economic development that pays attention to the

specificities of local contexts in the growing recognition that for policy makers “one size does

not fit all”. This approach is in part an application of the concept of territorial innovation in

regional and economic planning, including models such as industrial districts, milieux

132 Barca, F. (2009): An Agenda for a reformed cohesion policy. A place-based approach to meeting

European Union challenges and expectations. Independent report prepared at the request of Danuta

Hübner, Commissioner for Regional Policy.



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innovateurs, new industrial spaces, local production systems, etc.133 More specifically, the

Place Lab draws on the process-based participatory model of territorial innovation first

proposed by Marsh in 2008134 as “an integration between technology innovation and social,

economic, cultural and institutional innovation based on the valorisation of Territorial Capital.”

Rather than observe and intervene on the spatial dynamics of economic transactions, this

approach focuses on the specific features of a given place in relation to its potential for

creativity-based innovation.

This model of creativity-based innovation was further developed in the MED Programme’s

CreativeMED project.135, which identified five success criteria that, when abstracted from the

specific Mediterranean context, are also relevant to TCBL:

1. Cultural anchoring, i.e. having some relationship between the value proposition and

the specific cultural heritage of place;

2. Open networked people, with a civic infrastructure that goes beyond the confines of

the single organisation to emphasize multi-disciplinary and informal collaboration;

3. Innovation mixes, blending and balancing high technology with traditional practice,

and industrial with social innovation;

4. New business models, where the value proposition includes an active role of the

user/consumer in a collective knowledge exchange about the product or service.

5. Shared values, where the new product or service embodies and transmits a broader

ethical dimension and contributes to shared value creation.

From there, a model of innovation based on collective creativity is derived, based on three key

elements:

Community scale partnerships: Spontaneous alliances between different types of

stakeholders (following the PPPP Public-Private-People Partnership model) with

different multi-disciplinary perspectives, at a community scale (rural district, town, or

urban neighbourhood1).

Territorial innovation: a specific (place-based) form of product-service innovation that

is underpinned by technology – predominantly ICT – while primarily driven by citizen

needs and the specific features of a given place: natural resources, cultural norms,

geographical specificities, etc.

Trans-local socio-economic ecosystems: emergent forms of work and business that

shift the emphasis from the single local company or network to a ‘trans-local’

transaction system that cuts across vertical sectors (e.g. business-oriented cultural

associations, peer-to-peer exchanges, etc.), traditional value and supply chain

configurations (e.g. ad hoc partnerships, co-working, etc.), and naturally regional

borders. Such configurations also tend to promote and/or ‘repair’ inter-regional value

chains.

133 Moulaert F. and Sekia F. (2003) “Territorial innovation models: a critical survey” Reg. Studies 37 ,

289-302.

134 Marsh J. (2008) “Living Labs and Territorial Innovation” in Collaboration and the Knowledge

Economy: Issues, Applications, Case Studies, IOS Press, Amsterdam .

135 The “CreativeMED: Mediterranean Creativity and Innovation for a New Model of Development” project

was funded by the European Union’s ERDF under the ETC MED Programme 2007-2013 with contract n.

1CAP-MED12-10.



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Figure 16. The CreativeMED model for collective creativity.136

The Place Lab applies these concepts to the TCBL Business Lab framework, by promoting the

social dimension and the link to the community and relying strongly on territorial knowledge

capital as a source for innovation.

INDUSTRIALISATION OF GARMENT PRODUCTION

The TCBL Place Lab applies this general model of social and territorial innovation to the

specific nature and history of the textile and clothing industry. In order to do so, we start from

an analysis (as in Abernathy et al)137 of the transformation over time of the garment making

industry. The historical grounding, in fact, helps us to understand the nature of local traditions

and culturally embedded knowledge, as the foundation for territorially-driven collective

creativity in future models for TCBL.

The authors trace the history of the manufacturing progress in the field of garment production

from the industrial revolution of the mid-nineteenth century, when production processes begin

to adopt Taylorist theories with the standardization of time and the definition of discrete steps

for each production process. Two systems in particular are introduced:

Progressive Bundle System (PBS), in which each worker is specialized in one, or at

most a few sewing operations

Standard Allocated Minutes (SAM), in which a specific time of execution of a given

step is defined.

PBS provided apparel manufactures with a means for improving labour productivity along with

adaptability to day to day variations in shop-floor conditions. SAM allowed time-study

engineers to calculate the standard allocated minutes for an entire garment for an experienced

136 CreativeMED Project (2014) White Paper: The CreativeMED Model for Smart Specialisation ETC MED

CreativeMED Project . 137 Abernathy F.H., Dunlop J.T., Hammond J.H., Weil D. (1999) A Stitch in Time: Lean Retailing and the

Transformation of Manufacturing, Oxford University Press .



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worker as the sum of the number of minutes required for each operation in the production

process, including allowances for worker’s fatigue, rest periods, personal time, and so on.

Since the 1930s, PBS and SAM continue to be the most widely used systems.

Despite these efforts to make the production process more efficient, improvements in weaving,

cutting, and knitting have historically been greater than those in sewing.138 Translating from

Italian a classic manual for dressmakers139:

The basic technique of apparel production has remained essentially unchanged

over time; it is still based on the use of the needle and the tread; the sewing tool is

still the sewing machine, invented in the mid-800’s and from then improved in

terms of operational speed and variety of achievable points.

The sewing operation is thus the focal point of technical developments, but so far

has resisted several attempts to introduce a high degree of automation. The other

operations in clothing manufacturing, especially the operations prior to stitching,

proved more accessible for new technologies.

While the PBS-SAM approach could not increase the effective productivity of the garment

production process, it did allow the introduction of lower-skilled labour, given the repetitiveness

of the tasks assigned, leading in turn to lower wages and a decrease in the cost of production.

In parallel, the stages of weaving and cutting saw substantial increases in productivity with the

introduction of new and more sophisticated looms and cutting devices, leading to higher

wages for these operations.

Recent years have seen the effects of cost pressure on this unbalanced situation, with

increasing investments in innovation for all stages of production except for garment

production, which instead has witnessed a continuous drive towards the exploitation of low-

wage workers with productivity still at 19th century levels. In this context, the unionisation of

labour in Western countries led to delocalisation in the search for ever cheaper labour.

Citing an article in the Guardian a year after the disaster of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh140

Through the 50s and 60s, producers hunted cheaper labour in east Asia – first

Japan and then, in the 70s and 80s, in the so-called Asian Tiger economies of

Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Employment in the garment

manufacturing industry in the west has declined steadily decade on decade –

despite attempts to protect local industries with quota systems and tariffs.

Production in newly industrialised China, as well as in Indonesia, Turkey, Mexico

and India, has increased exponentially.

THE FAST FASHION MODEL

In parallel with these trends, and driven by the increase in sophistication of the logistical

management systems that accompanied this globalisation of production, emerged the

industrial model known as Fast Fashion: “a term used to describe cheap and affordable

138 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_clothing_and_textiles_technology

139 http://www.technica.net/NT/Confezione/abbigliamento.htm

140 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/19/rana-plaza-bangladesh-one-year-on

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_clothing_and_textiles_technology

http://www.technica.net/NT/Confezione/abbigliamento.htm

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/19/rana-plaza-bangladesh-one-year-on



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clothes which are the result of catwalk designs moving into stores in the fastest possible way

in order to respond to the latest trends”141

Citing again the above Guardian article:

For the consumer, of course, this has all meant that while prices of everything

else except communications have risen, clothes cost less. In 1900, 15% of a US

household's income was spent on clothing. In 1950, it was still 12%. Even as late

as the early 1990s, major purchases of clothing – a suit, a dress, a coat – marked

a special occasion or a rite of passage. But by 2004, the total amount spent by

households on clothes had dropped to just 4%. By 2010, according to the US

Bureau of Labour Statistics, clothing cost the average American family only

$1,700 (£1,017), 2.8% of their income. And for that money the consumer gets

much more. Cheap no longer means nasty; it just means affordable. In 1997, the

average woman in the UK bought 19 items of clothing a year; in 2007, she bought

34.

As the price of clothing drops, the end effect is simply to buy more, leading to ‘overflowing

closets’. The Fast Fashion model drives the consumer with a desire for accumulation more

than a choice of quality. By now, the ability to recognize a good fabric and good workmanship

is fast disappearing. The enjoyment of a purchase is a restricted act in itself, perhaps

extended to the test at home in front of the mirror, but then the adrenaline ends. The

remaining manufacturers who produce quality garments are at a crossroads; they must either

lower costs and thus product quality or search for increasingly scarce niche markets.

The production bottleneck of sewing also raises issues for cutting fabric. It makes little sense

to cut tons of clothes at once, if production is bottlenecked in the sewing phase. Cutting

thousands of clothes at a time is also a business risk, because a mistake in design or sales

forecasts can have disastrous economic consequences. Moreover, cutting too much also

carries an environmental cost, since the unsold fabric is thrown into landfills (multiplying the

already negative impacts of dyeing and finishing). According to Eileen Fisher, a clothing

industry magnate, fast fashion is the second dirtiest industry in the world next to big

oil.142

ISSUES FOR RELOCALISATION

Fortunately, in recent years there has been a trend to return production to Europe, especially

for niche markets.143 There are different causes for this: difficulties in quality control,

increasing wages even in areas with a low cost of living, the risk of seeing products rejected

due to their environmental impact and even toxicity, and finally a growing awareness of

141 http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/fast-fashion

142 http://ecowatch.com/2015/08/17/fast-fashion-second-dirtiest-industry/

143 http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/sustainable-fashion-blog/returning-fashion-

manufacturing-uk-opportunities-challenges

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/fast-fashion

http://ecowatch.com/2015/08/17/fast-fashion-second-dirtiest-industry/

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/sustainable-fashion-blog/returning-fashion-manufacturing-uk-opportunities-challenges




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consumers demanding quality and transparency. It appears that the tragedy of Rana Plaza

was a tipping point in swaying public opinion.144

Businesses who decide to return production to Europe must face one of the consequences of

two decades of delocalisation: the problem of recovering what in Europe has become the lost

art of sewing.145. Talented tailors are now getting old and have not transmitted their art to the

generations that have followed, especially since young people perceive sewing as boring and

outdated. Companies who want to keep production in Europe must look to Eastern Europe

(e.g. Romania), where it is still difficult to engage workers under the age of forty.

The reason for this is that sewing is not an art that can be learned in a short time. Even at the

hobby level, although the market offers Do-it-yourself (DIY) kits and patterns, many become

frustrated before getting to the satisfaction of a job well done. More popular leisure activities

are easier to learn, while handbooks for sewing are generally outdated, with unnecessarily

rigid procedures. In addition, terminologies, rules, conventions in body measurements and

other fundamentals of sewing can vary significantly from one country to another, even from

shop to shop.

In sum, the field of sewing has the potential to offer new job opportunities for youth and the

recently unemployed. But more than a mere increase in demand is required: the market itself

will have to shift towards new business models with a more humane and efficient trade as well

as innovations in the organisation and distribution of work. In addition, it is necessary to

explore new methods of learning with new technologies (video tutorials, augmented reality,

online forums and video-conferencing), re-examine traditional sewing techniques, restore

dignity to “slowness” (when necessary), establish a common glossary, and keep an eye on

new developments such as body scanners, laser cutting, and 3D printing.

EXPERIMENTATION WITH THE ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCTION

Throughout the twentieth century Taylorism has been called into question, in particular by

labour psychologists such as David G. Myers, Elton Mayo, and Elliot Jacques146 affirming that

greater worker involvement improves productivity. The debate is still going on, but in the case

of the highly specialized activities in clothing production, it would be useful to experiment a

greater involvement of employees and a more harmonious arrangement of workstations, so as

to foster the exchange of knowledge but also social interaction and suggestions about the

work that is being carried out. Although highly specialized, sewing leaves a gap in the mind

that, if not filled by conversation or by listening to audio books and music, can lead to

alienation, which means a loss of interest in the job and a greater tendency to make mistakes.

Given that Taylorism has not brought the desired results, other approaches in labour

psychology could be experimented, including the recovery of elements from the environment

and organization of artisan workshops. A new attention to the complexity of sewing, rather

than being simply nostalgic, could suggest new business models to experiment. For example,

some steps such as hems and finishes, could be carried out by the end customer. “I want a

quality garment and I cannot afford that? Then I’ll finish it myself to lower the price.” (In

essence, the IKEA business model). DIY kits and unfinished products could be a solution for

144 http://fashionrevolution.org/

145 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704680604576110103805374390

146 Ashleigh M., Mansi A., Di Stefano G. (2014) Psicologia del lavoro e delle organizzazioni, Pearson.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704680604576110103805374390



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the future, provided they are accompanied by very clear, step by step instructions accessible

to all. The short-lived pleasure experience of fast fashion could be replaced with a new

interpretation of the “tailor/dressmaker experience” of previous generations: imagining a dress

for weeks, choosing from a catalogue, attending fitting sessions, choosing custom

accessories, relishing the tactile and olfactory sensations and the human relationship with

sewers.

In conclusion, new business models in clothing manufacturing could, on the one hand, deal

with more human and sustainable production processes, and on the other on offering

consumers new knowledge, new awareness, and new experiences.

The concept of the Place Lab addresses these trends as follows:

Table 19. How Place Labs address trends

Trends What can a Place lab do

Over-production of low-quality clothing has a significant environmental impact.

Recover the lost heritage of tailoring knowledge, identifying weaknesses that can be overcome through innovation.

Some brands are re-locating to Europe, focusing on quality. This has led to a growing demand for tailors and dressmakers.

Promote the pleasure of sewing. Overcome gender stereotypes.

More than twenty years of delocalization has resulted in the loss of tailoring knowledge in Europe

Bring together people who want to enter or return to the world of work, promoting collective learning and skills exchange.

The fast fashion system has created a decline in quality. Producers of quality (not luxury) clothes struggle to find their market spaces.

Educate consumers on quality and respect for the dignity of those who produce. Educate consumers in buying less and spending more for each item, feeling empathy for the clothes they wear.

RELEVANCE OF BACKGROUND MODELS TO TCBL

The following table summarizes the relevance of the models discussed above to the definition

of Place Labs and their role in TCBL.

Table 20. Relevance of Place Lab models


Territorial Innovation Territorial innovation is an important model guiding the definition of the Place Lab concept, especially in the community dimension and the link between local knowledge and creativity. This is also likely to have an impact on the Design Labs (e.g. the inspiration lab concept) and Making Labs (local making cultures and knowledge)

Industrialisation of Garment Production

The main techniques of garment production are behind the delocalisation trend and some of the more unsustainable aspects of the current T&C industry. Place Labs will in fact be exploring alternative and innovative models.

The Fast Fashion Model The Fast Fashion model is driving a consumption-oriented trend in the T&C industry that requires a deeper consumer



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understanding of the garment making process to reverse. Place Labs aim to spread a culture of clothes-making to this end.

Issues for Re-localisation Re-localisation brings with it an enormous skills challenge that can only partially be overcome through traditional training approaches. Place Labs will be placing a significant emphasis on recovering territorial knowledge and social learning, especially as concerns how to sew.

Experimentation with the Organisation of Production

Place Labs intend to experiment new forms of organisation of production, taking advantage of motivated groups of self-interested experts and learners willing to work together in new ways. This can be the basis for an important service of experimentation for the T&C industry.

6.3 ACTIVE PLACE LABS

Following the evaluation process of February to May, 2016, a total of 18 Business Labs have

been defined. Of these 5 had originally identified themselves as Place Labs, one (Etri)

originally conceived as a Design Lab emerged to be more of a Place Lab in the end, and

another (Lanificio Paoletti) defined as a Making Lab also has significant Place Lab

characteristics. The following table therefore provides a brief overview of all 7 Business Labs

from the first Call that fulfil the definition of Place Lab.

Table 21. Active Place Labs


Etri Place Lab

(Ljubljana, Slovenia)

The Etri Lab is a centre for helping and assisting start-ups and young entrepreneurs focused on social and sustainable business concepts, who want to implement their ideas through cooperation with others. Etri lab is thus an incubator for new business ideas with a strong accent on social development.

Hisa Sadezi Druzbe Place Lab

(Murska Sobota, Slovenia)

Hisa Sadezi Druzbe is a voluntary non-profit centre with the main aim of supporting an inclusive society and improving the quality of life and social wellbeing of people. It is located in Murska Sobota in the most eastern and underdeveloped part of Slovenia, once the most important textile industrial district in Slovenia but now hard hit by crisis and record-high levels of unemployment. It is thus a Place Lab truly focused on people, who are the centre of all activities. It aims to become a reference lab for local stakeholders and an engine to empower local users.

Oliva Creative Lab

(São João da Madeira, Portugal)

Sanjotec Place Lab is focused on encouraging the development of new products based on inventions/patents/knowledge already available in Universities and R&D Centers from regional and international entities. Is a creative hub that supports startups in the textile industry, open to all citizens, supporting the creation of new startups in the textile sector, encouraging social responsibility and inclusion.

Palermo Place Lab

(Palermo, Italy)

Place Lab Palermo will explore ways to capture and preserve the traditional sewing knowledge of Southern Italy, recovering the Neapolitan School of cutting and combining it with new technologies and modern approaches. The Lab’s main aim is to collect and valorise traditional artisan knowledge by various means of digitalisation and transmission, using this material to develop learning and training resources interactively with the lab’s users.



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TextileLab Amsterdam - Connecting Explorers

Amsterdam, Holland)

Place Lab Amsterdam will explore ways of facilitating and connecting the textile craftsmanship network in Amsterdam. The Lab is closely connected to the program of the TCBL Academy (Design Lab) and Your Textile Tools Lab. Open evenings will be held weekly, during which people can visit the TCBL Academy Lab and the Your Textile Tools Labs to connect to the network and try out things themselves and develop projects together from there. Once a month a bigger event (Textile Task) takes place focusing on a TCBL related theme.

Time Laboratory

(Prato, Italy) This Place Lab is situated in the Time Laboratory initiative of the Municipality of Prato, an existing centre for social innovation supporting women's entrepreneurship in the field of sewing. The Laboratorio del tempo is a place where people work towards self-employment offering equipment and training related to T&C and with them explore new ways of T&C production. (assembling etc.)

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7. NEXT STEPS

The main concept on which the Lab idea is based is to provide innovation spaces for

exploration, creativity, entrepreneurship, small production, knowledge and innovation transfer

to Associate Enterprises and local citizens, where facilities, equipment, learning materials,

case studies, business challenges, solutions, and exchange of know-how will be made

available. Labs supported by the project will be integrated into a self-development and self-

awareness pathway, where the resources and services of a broad network will be accessible

and, in an open spirit of mutual exchange, the outcomes from the mobility of ideas can be

shared, capitalized and exploited by the new business ecosystem.

7.1 COMMON ISSUES FOR LAB ENGAGEMENT

As the Design, Make, and Place Labs develop their specific identities, there is also the work of

exploring common frameworks, methodologies, and governance approaches so as to build an

integrated ecosystem of Business Labs as the network grows and progresses. In the following

sections, we look at some of the common challenges to be faced by both the Labs of the first

Call and those joining the network in preparation for the second.

A useful reference for the model of Lab interaction and engagement is the concept of

stigmergy147, which refers to addressing complex problems by collective, yet uncoordinated,

actions and interactions of communities of individuals, which has subsequently been linked to

the ‘spontaneous’ emergence of innovations.148 Another element is the literature on open and

business model innovation, which argues that today’s fast-paced innovation landscape

requires collaboration between multiple business and institutional stakeholders, and that the

businesses should use these joint innovation endeavours to find the right "business

architecture"149 The open network of labs, with the Associate Labs developing and defining

their operational models alongside new labs joining the network and bringing in new stimuli,

aims to create such a multi-level breeding ground for innovation.

INTERACTION WITH THE BUSINESS PILOTS

During the internal phase of pilot experimentation, one of the key issues for all labs will likely

be to find the right balance in addressing two main target groups:

147 Pierre-Paul Grasse first coined the term stigmergy in the 1950s in conjunction with his research on

termites. In general terms is a form of self-organization; It produces complex, seemingly intelligent

structures, without need for any planning, control, or even direct communication between the agents.

148 Marc Pallot, Brigitte Trousse, Bernard Senach, Dominique Scapin. Living Lab Research Landscape:

From User Centred Design and User Experience towards User Cocreation. First European Summer

School ”Living Labs”, Aug 2010, Paris, France. 2010. See also Mixel Kiemen, Pieter Ballon, “Living Labs

& Stigmergic Prototyping: towards a Convergent Approach”, paper presented at The XXIII ISPIM

Conference – Action for Innovation: Innovating from Experience – in Barcelona, Spain on 17-20 June

2012.

149 Henry William Chesbrough, Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from

Technology, Harvard Business Press, 2003. See also Mitchell, D. & Coles, C. (2003) “The ultimate

competitive advantage of continuing business model innovation”. Journal of Business Strategy, 24:5, pp.

15-21.



88

those participating directly in lab activities, mainly interested in exploring technologies,

learning, designing and experimenting, with a focus on discovery and expression more

than on attaining specific goals

those – primarily Associate Enterprises participating in pilot scenario projects –

interested in reaping concrete benefits from the exploratory activities of the labs,

integrating the innovations from the labs into new or existing business models

Labs starting with a research or activist vocation will tend to favour the first, while those

coming from business support and training organisations will tend towards the latter, but the

idea of the Business Labs in TCBL is to do both. The labs as open innovation environments

ideally connect the experience of users and producers of new ideas and solutions with

businesses, local decision makers, and in general those who can use them. This goal is

enabled by considering the labs as a collaborative environment for the management and

sharing of knowledge and integration of innovation transfer, the exchange of experiences and

the repository of information, scouting for business opportunities and matchmaking between

supply and demand of innovative solutions.

INTERACTION WITH THE PLATFORM SERVICES

The TCBL open platform services aim to support such a collaboration environment, including

the specific Lab platform as well as the Knowledge Spaces and Business Services. Interaction

with these services was first explored with the Personas of Task 6.1, but in the coming months

it will be possible to observe how the Labs use the TCBL tools in practice to build a coherent

strategy of cooperation and collaboration.

For the labs, these services should allow them to nourish, first of all, the interactions among

users, and between users and pilots and, secondly, to feed networking among the business

ecosystems that can contribute to their growth. Common needs and issues for the labs can be

described as follows:

Ideas: ideas can be openly shared on both the Labs platform and the working groups

of the TCBL main platform (Ning groups); here, users can discuss about own thoughts

with members of the community, in order to be able to grow, evolve, and become a

project;

Projects: projects are published as such on the Lab platform in relation to the lab or

Labs that are collaborating on them, and in the start-up phase each lab will initiate at

least one project. In addition, projects can be carried forward in collaboration with TCBL

Pilots using the working groups and Business Services of the TCBL platform. In this

way, ideas can quickly become business opportunities that can be upscaled and grow

(projects can be shared to look for partners, investors, skills and contributions for further

development);

Challenges: design challenges are planned as projects by several labs, and specific

challenge platforms will then be integrated into the TCBL platform; this will offer the

chance to identify problems to be solved, apply their own expertise, stretch their creative

boundaries, and get different kinds of awards or acknowledgement from the community;

Brainstorm: labs may explore both the on-line groups as well as synchronous

technologies (i.e. teleconferencing) to try out brainstorming between labs and between

labs and pilots; this can be useful for carrying out context analysis or market research,

preliminary to the development of a new business idea.

How To: the labs will interact strongly with the Knowledge Spaces, both feeding

information and re-mixing available ‘knowledge nuggets’, as well as contributing to more



89

structured items such as tutorials and learning material. In addition, the labs are likely

to be part of pilot interactions in bpSquare and the Business Services in general.

ORGANISATIONAL PRACTICE

Lab engagement and integration will also look for shared or common approaches to the

organisation of lab activities. In general, it is expected that most labs will have some form of

tutoring or mentoring that will accompany lab users and pilot businesses along specific

innovation paths. Depending on the mission of the lab in question, the support to the

innovative content of the innovation projects will need to take account of a series of factors,

including technological maturity, intellectual property issues, industrialization process analysis,

design process analysis, creativity, adherence with TCBL principles and the connection with

the cultural roots of a territory. Mentors at labs will assist users in organizing visits to

enterprises, research labs or infrastructures and local stakeholders, participation in events,

setting up partnerships, etc. in order to interact with other innovation actors and start to learn

how to network.

Training is also likely to play an important role for many labs, including traditional approaches,

group learning, on-the- job training with participating enterprises, and e-learning through the

project platforms, which will manage the learning communities150 set up during the project

development. Development of the Knowledge Spaces in this regard will work with the labs to

develop methodologies to support formal and informal cooperation at intra and inter-

organizational levels, including knowledge management systems and collaborative work

environments. This will benefit from:

peer support;

coaching by e-learning tutors;

tailored consultancy by senior experts (TCBL Associates and Partners, entrepreneurs,

senior researchers, retired company managers) who can contribute to competence

development and share their experiences.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Community engagement is also an important dimension of many labs, in particular those with

a strong Place Lab element. In its broadest sense, community engagement involves concerted

values-based151 approaches to addresses core concerns of residents, businesses and

stakeholders in the surrounding community. Success requires an inclusive process that

identifies issues and challenges with the aim of reaching consensus on how to address and

remediate concerns, such as for instance the closure of a local factory.

Public participation can be a two-way engagement tool to develop innovative and creative

ideas including local policymakers and stakeholders. The outcomes of effective community

engagement include enhanced communication and cooperation and shared responsibility to

implement a common vision. Effective engagement helps hold the policymakers (and lab

managers) accountable and ensures that resulting strategies and plans truly reflect the vision

and desires of the community.

150 Associate Advisors, Project Partners

151 TCBL’s priciples



90

GOVERNANCE

Governance will play a central role in the development of each lab, with governance models

evolving both at the specific lab level together with the common governance approaches that

are developed across the labs to reflect the TCBL Principles as applied in practice. The

governance structure of a single Lab describes the way it is organized and managed at the

operational and strategic levels. Usually, governance is three dimensional, covering

organizational, contextual and technological aspects related to the life cycle of the lab

activities.152

The strategic level deals with issues like:

Management structure: driver and nature of the lab (community-driven, research

driven, business/industry driven, technology driven)

Open/closeness: sharing resources/network

Lab development: consortium dynamics (e.g. additional partners, user groups),

How IPR and exploitation of results are dealt with and the way stakeholders are

involved (financial contributions, commitment, responsibility, influence),

Sustainability i.e. financing: public-private-partnership, commercial;

The operational level includes aspects like:

Working practices for the day to day management;

Execution & monitoring of the lab goals regarding the synergy, quality and progress

monitoring, internal communication;

The definition of user group/ awareness of being part of a TCBL Lab; dissemination

and external communication: national and international consolidation; the way projects

are organized and funded.

During the first lab activities in Year 2, gamification (see Task 1.2) will implement and support

exploratory methods for governance, and other ways of using the platform services to this end

will be explored as well. In addition, the governance issues that emerge bottom-up from the

lab activities will contribute to the broader ecosystem governance considerations that will be

dealt with in Task 6.5.

7.2 ACCOMPANYING LAB DEVELOPMENT

MONITORING AND INTERACTING

In the coming year of ‘internal’ pilot experimentation, we will begin to monitor and evaluate the

activities that will be taking place in a growing network of Business Labs spreading all over

Europe. Indeed, as the 18 Labs of the first round – the Design, Make and Place labs discussed

in the previous chapters – begin their operations, new candidate labs will be signing up to the

Labs platform, hoping to interact with the TCBL ecosystem and participate in the second Call in

2017. Monitoring and evaluating these Lab activities will aim to share knowledge of on-going

experiments, reporting not only results, but processes able to work in an iterative manner and

152 Towards Harmonized Methods and Tools for Living Labs, Mulder,Fahy, Hribernik, Velthausz,

Feurstein, Garcia, Schaffers, Mirijamdotter, Ståhlbröst, Conference Paper, January 2007



91

of course failures. We will see what works, what doesn’t and why and how we can adapt

changes if necessary and of course preserve new ideas.

Monitoring of Lab activity in Year 2 will be carried out mainly by the responsible partners for

each of the three Tasks:

Task 3.2: Design Labs

Task 3.3: Making Labs

Task 3.4: Place Labs

The effort will be to continue to build an awareness of the specific role and mission of each

type of lab within the overall Business Lab concept as it evolves. The following tools will

generally be used:

Teleconferences among Labs of the same type

Short 3-monthly reports

Story gathering (written and through videos)

On-site visits (where possible)

Animation of Lab activities on the Labs platform and moderation of a specific group for

each type of Labs on the TCBL website network

Providing support to each lab for the organisation of at least two workshops/events

per year, as foreseen in the DoA

The Labs will therefore interact within the same category and across the lab types mainly

through the TCBL labs platform, which will include the services and research interests for each

Lab. Ensuring the constant updating of the information provided on the Labs platform will also

be the responsibility of the individual Task leaders.

Interaction with the Associate Enterprises will occur through a wide variety of means,

depending on the type of interaction and its relation to on-going pilot scenario initiatives.

Further collaboration between the labs in general and associate enterprises will occur via

Thela153 and other future TCBL Associate Service Providers.

Participants in Lab activities will be encouraged to share their stories through videos, photos,

interviews and writing in a DIY way, on the project’s social media platforms. These stories will

focus on how the labs work, on the progress individual participants are making, on the

experiences of different kinds of partners who are making the work happen; and on the labs

community.

The further development of the activities and service concepts will depend on the interaction

with local lab users on the one hand and Associate Enterprises on the other. This means that

we will need to:

Provoke and anticipate interactions between labs, and between labs and pilots.

Be able to guess how a Lab can respond to small or big issues raised by the pilots,

trying to go beyond traditional SME support models.

Promote communication and interaction between labs, including site visits,

exchanges, stages (perhaps seeking e.g. Erasmus+ funding)

Ensure that communication between Labs is smooth, trying to fill linguistic and cultural

gaps and developing together a common language.

153 A supply chain management platform developed by Cleviria, a Prato based SME.



92

LAB DEVELOPMENT POTENTIALS

The starting categorisation of Design, Make, and Place Labs was intended to ensure that

multiple approaches and points of view would contribute to the Business Lab concept, opening

up participation to a broad range of types of organisations from Fablabs to design schools to

community centres. At the same time, these are not intended to be rigid categories limiting the

scope of activities; indeed, several starting labs are already incorporating different models

within the same organisation.

As the starting set of 18 labs develops – 6 of each type – it is likely that there will be a greater

mix of models, combining elements of Design, Making, and Place. As new labs come in with

the successive Calls, it is also possible that new models emerge. What we can identify now is

the development potential – in terms of an evolving mission that mixes elements of the three

types of lab – for the starting set.

Table 22. Lab Development Potentials.

Lab Name 1st Call Type Development Potential

(D=Design, M=Make, P=Place)

Athens Fashion Design Lab Design DD MM

Athens Making Lab Make MMM

Etri Place Lab Place DD PP

Fabbrica ARCA Make DD MMM P

Fablab Venezia Make MM

Hisa Sadezi Druzbe Place Lab Place MM PP

Lanificio Paoletti Make DD MM PP

Lottozero Design DD MM P

Oliva Creative Lab Place D PP

Palermo Place Lab Place DD M PP

Sanjotec Design Lab Design DD P

Textile Centre of Excellence (Design)

Design DD PP

Textile Centre of Excellence (Make) Make D MM P

Textile Museum of Prato Design DDD PP

TextileLab Amsterdam – Academy Design DD M

TextileLab Amsterdam – Your Textile Tools

Make D MM

TextileLab Amsterdam - Connecting Explorers

Place D PP

Time Laboratory Place D M PPP



93

INDICATORS FOR SUCCESS

The Lab monitoring activities, in coherence with the overall TCBL Evaluation Framework, will

track the following specific success indicators for each Lab:

Number of people using the Lab

Degree of satisfaction of users from the Labs Services

Types of users

Number of projects carried out in collaboration with WP4 pilots

Number of tutorials/workshops etc (if applicable)

Ability to develop and deliver service concepts to enterprises

Ability to be sustainable over time

Each Lab will be asked to set specific indicators and targets depending on its activities within

the next couple of months. These will be used for self-evaluation purposes throughout the

duration of the project.

7.3 TOWARDS SERVICE CONCEPTS

The interaction between labs and businesses is framed in the idea of the ‘Service Concept’;

this term implies that we can develop generalised representations of how Labs and

businesses can interact, and describe and develop them in terms of a service. Just as the idea

of Business Lab was open to exploration and definition in this first year of the project, the idea

of Service Concept will likely be a focus of a similar development process in year 2. The

development of service concepts will therefore be the subject of collaborative co-design during

the first ‘internal’ phase of pilot experimentation, likely following the approach and maintaining

the overall vision described earlier in this document.

In anticipation of this need, generic service concept ideas are already listed in the preceding

chapters for each of the three types of labs (and also presented in D 4.1), as initial proposals

for interaction to be validated and developed together with the TCBL Associates using the labs

as a service. The following table provides a summary.

Table 23. Service concepts proposed by Business Labs.

Lab type

Lab name Location Service Concepts Target Audience

Design TCBL academy

Amsterdam Facilities & guidance support

Develop ‘maker’ attitude

Training activities

Small orgs & start-ups

Design Lab TCoE

UK Support in feasibility studies

Training activities


Factories

Sanjotec Portugal Matchmaking w/ prototyping and production facilities


Lottozero Prato Testing facilities

Shared spaces

Design office services

Contacts network creation

Designers


Factories



94

Lab type

Lab name Location Service Concepts Target Audience

Textile Museum

Prato Training activities

Broad archive available

Design events organization

Designers

Design Lab Athens

Athens Educational & training activities

Design challenges orchestration

Prototyping facilities

Consulting services

Designers


Factories

Make Your textile tool

Amsterdam Training on building tools & machines

Designers Small orgs & start-ups

Make Lab TCoE

UK Provision of facilities

Training activities

Implementation of design concepts

Designers Small orgs & start-ups Factories

Fabbrica Arca

Palermo Wearable technology design & testing

Studying project feasibility & sustainability


Make Lab Athens

Athens Training and consulting services

Exploring new materials, processes & technologies

Improving products sustainability

Designers Factories

Place Connecting explorers

Amsterdam Support for network creation

Tutoring for projects set-up

Bringing people together

Designers

Laboratorio del tempo

Prato Wide range of courses Designers Small orgs & start-ups

Place Lab Palermo

Palermo Collection of artisanal knowledge

Capture & transmission of pattern cutting knowledge

Collection & digitalization of reference material


Etri Ljubljana Slovenia

Co-working facilities

Training activities


Hisa Fablab

Venezia Hands-on experience

Training activities & courses


Oliva Creative Lab

Portugal Consultancy on social innovation

Entrepreneurial & innovation support services




95

These service concepts will need to be developed and modelled in order to refine the value

proposition towards T&C businesses on the one hand, and work towards sustainability of the

Business Lab model on the other. In this context, the service concepts will be the value added

components that Labs can bring to innovation and validation. ‘Value-added’ implies we are

‘bringing something new and needed to the table’154.

On the basis of this first census, the following comments can be made:

The concepts as expressed are in general very generic, such as ‘hands-on activities’

or ‘training courses’. While these are surely of potential interest, they will need to be

developed through direct interaction with pilots in order to gain some sort of specific

identity.

On the other hand, some of the concepts are excessively focussed, as a direct

emanation of the Lab itself. It is still unclear what degree of specificity the service

concepts should have, i.e. as belonging to a single Lab or Lab type or general across

all Labs

Other service concepts appear to be oriented towards business support activities

rather than innovation activities; again, the balance between these will probably

emerge through practice.

As the nature and shape of service concepts develops, the objectives and operational scope

of the Business Labs suggests three underlying categories:

services supporting collaborative innovation,

services supporting validation and demonstration;

services specific to stakeholder ⁄ territory requirements.

On a more operational level we can identify three types of horizontal services that might be

common across labs:

technical services: such as communication, collaboration, demonstration, prototyping,

validation, product deployment etc.;

customer services: innovation, idea generation, community services, training, specific

service needs, business support, market customization,

intra-network services (within other TCBL Labs), governance, management, training.

The experimentation in the coming months will validate these ideas both as general service

concepts for WP3 and those specific to different types of labs.

154 ibid

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8. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS

At this point the Labs seem to be in place, ready to start and to feed into the project as a

whole. This first year we focused on the consortium and the partners involved and together we

built a framework that fed into the labs.tcbl.eu platform; an operational and sustainable

framework that supports the yearly Calls for EoI. We defined principles that contributed to the

overall TCBL principles and in parallel we gave the three lab typologies as described in the

DoA more concrete substance by connecting them to our own local practises. And most

important, we worked on the Design, Make, Place Labs themselves that we already run, set

up and will run, or the Labs that we brought into the project.

During this year we noticed that all the partners in Work Package 3 have a lot of knowledge

together. Together we could carefully map out trends, opportunities and problems and with

that see how we can shape and develop the labs. We shared inspirational projects and

discussed why we thought they were interesting. During this year we also touched upon the

distinction between following trends or setting trends. We also noticed that there is a tension

between ‘old’ and ‘new’ structures and values. We want to attract and involve a broad range of

people across Europe, but also, specifically the innovators and pioneers. We need to be

mindful that they are less sensitive to established authorities. We cannot miss out on them, so

we need to make sure that connecting to the labs is relevant for them while at the same time

operating in a strategic manner on a local level.

The way we have worked, non-linear, at times felt chaotic: there were no pre-defined formats

and we responded to what appeared to be necessary. Together we strived towards a balance

between an open, bottom-up approach and top-down procedures and deadlines. Partly we will

continue working like this to be able to adapt to occurring changes and to respond to what we

discover and learn continuously. This doesn’t mean we don’t strive for quality, it means that

we have a common goal but aren’t sure yet of the shape of the outcomes in the long term.

But this next year we will also go more in depth and zoom in on specific topics of this Work

Package. Labs will be active, projects will be initiated and collaborations between Labs and

Labs and Labs and Pilots will start. The dynamics with the other Work Packages will be

explored and the rooted framework should work as a base from which we continue working

and invite other Labs into the project. Labs should mature, services need to be evaluated and

projects and research (success and failure) documented. We will search for the right balance

between experimentation and just starting/doing on the one hand, and critical analysis of our

activities when it comes to possible (monetary and non monetary) transactions and business

models on the other.

We have built the structure in which we’ll work, we have developed a common language,

shared values and a working method, and we have got 18 Labs in place. Now it is time to start

and learn from concrete projects, exploring alternative business models and narratives for the

T&C industry.

97

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LIST OF TABLES Table 1. The iterative development process in WP 3 .............................................................. 19 Table 2. Lab status at month 12 .............................................................................................. 21 Table 3. On-line communities and TCBL Lab requirements ................................................... 27 Table 4. On-line communities, lab models, and relevance to TCBL ....................................... 28 Table 5. Descriptive Lab framework. ....................................................................................... 33 Table 6. Lab Principles ............................................................................................................ 34 Table 7. Expressions of Interest by partner ............................................................................. 39 Table 8. Associate Labs appearing on the platform ................................................................ 39 Table 9. Typical Lab page on the platform .............................................................................. 40 Table 10. On-line sign-up procedure for a new Lab ................................................................ 41 Table 11. Design Lab features ................................................................................................ 43 Table 12. Relevance of Design background models ............................................................... 55 Table 13. Active Design Labs .................................................................................................. 55 Table 14. Making Lab features ................................................................................................ 57 Table 15. Relevance of Making Lab models and trends ......................................................... 73 Table 16. Active Making Labs ................................................................................................. 74 Table 17. What a Place Lab is and is not ................................................................................ 77 Table 18. Place Lab features ................................................................................................... 77 Table 19. How Place Labs address trends .............................................................................. 84 Table 20. Relevance of Place Lab models .............................................................................. 84 Table 21. Active Place Labs .................................................................................................... 85 Table 22. Lab Development Potentials.................................................................................... 92 Table 23. Service concepts proposed by Business Labs. ....................................................... 93

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LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Interplay between WP 3 and WP 4 ............................................................................ 17 Figure 2. The TCBL Lab video. ................................................................................................. 35 Figure 3. Information structure of the platform .......................................................................... 36 Figure 4. Laout of the Lab platform Home page ....................................................................... 37 Figure 5. Applying the Descriptive Framework to the Labs page structure .............................. 38 Figure 6. Service Design Tools and Methods ........................................................................... 50 Figure 7. The Sustainability Prism ............................................................................................ 52 Figure 8. Graphic recording from the beginning of the Maker Impact Summit. The speakers –

Jonathan Star, John Hagel, John Seely Brown, Dale Dougherty and Tom Kaili- were recorded

live as they introduced the ideas behind the Summit to the attendees .................................... 59 Figure 9. Pyramid model for textile recycling categories, by quantity ....................................... 61 Figure 10. Comparison of analogue to digital textile printing technologies .............................. 68 Figure 11. Floral pattern (PLA) printed on cotton, wool, viscose fabric and polyester net (from

left to right), presented at the 2015 Global Conference on Polymer and Composite Materials

by Sabantina et al. .................................................................................................................... 70 Figure 12. (a) 3D printed gown, (b) weft-knitted fabric produced by SLS method, (c) weft

knitted fabric produced by FDM method ................................................................................... 70 Figure 13. Samples of 3D printed textiles presented by Lussenburg K et al at the 5th

International Conference on Additive Technologies ................................................................. 71 Figure 14. Use of laser cutting for decoration of fabrics. .......................................................... 72 Figure 15. The intelligent garment as an object of interdisciplinary research from the

perspective of three research areas: design research, fibre material technology and physiology

.................................................................................................................................................. 73 Figure 16. The CreativeMED model for collective creativity. .................................................... 80

103

DOCUMENT INFORMATION

REVISION HISTORY

REVISION DATE AUTHOR ORGANISATION DESCRIPTION

V0.1 09.02.2016 Marc Boonstra Waag Society Table of Contents

V0.2 19.03.2016 Jesse Marsh City of Prato Template and structure

V0.3 01.06.2016 Beshnik Mehmeti City of Prato Input Task 3.2 Design

Lab

V0.3 01.06.2016 Maria Adele Cipolla eZavod Input Task 3.4 Place Lab

V0.3 01.06.2016 Silvia Pavlidou Mirtec Input Task 3.3 Make Lab

V0.3 01.06.2016 Luca Leonardi ARCA Input Task 3.5 Associate

Labs

V0.4 01.07.2016 Cecilia Raspanti Waag Society Input labs.tcbl.eu platform

V0.5 08.07.2016 Ista Boszhard Waag Society Input Task 3.1 Defining

Framework

V0.6 15.07.2016 Marc Boonstra Waag Society Review Draft v1

v0.7 22.07.2016 Ista Boszhard Waag Society Drafft v2

v0.8 28.07.2016 Karen van der

Moolen

Waag Society Review Draft v2

v0.9 31.07.2016 Marc Boonstra Waag Society Draft v3 for review

v0.94 15.08.2016 Jesse Marsh City of Prato Re-structuring draft,

partially edited on the

basis of reviewers’

comments

V0.95 12.09.2016 Jesse Marsh City of Prato Editing Chaps 1, 4-7,

glossary, bibliography.

V0.96 14.09.2016 Lotte Kleijssen Waag Society Editing Chaps 2-3

V0.97 16.09.2016 Jesse Marsh City of Prato Final editing and layout

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

This deliverable contains original unpublished work except where clearly indicated otherwise.

Acknowledgement of previously published material and of the work of others has been made

through appropriate citation, quotation or both.

COPYRIGHT

This work is licensed by the TCBL Consortium under a Creative

Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, 2015-2016.

For details, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The TCBL Consortium, consisting of: Municipality of Prato (PRATO) Italy; German Institutes

for Textile and Fiber Research - Center for Management Research (DITF) Germany; Istituto

Superiore Mario Boella (ISMB) Italy; Skillaware (SKILL) Italy; The Open University (OU) UK;

The Oxford Brookes University (OBU) UK; iMinds (iMINDS) Belgium; Tavistock Institute



104

(TAVI) UK; Materials Industrial Research & Technology Center S.A. (MIRTEC) Greece; Waag

Society (WAAG) Netherlands; Huddersfield & District Textile Training Company Ltd (TCOE)

UK; eZavod (eZAVOD) Slovenia; Consorzio Arca (ARCA) Italy; Unioncamere del Veneto

(UCV) Italy; Hellenic Clothing Industry Association (HCIA) Greece; Sanjotec - Centro

Empresarial e Tecnológico (SANJO) Portugal; Clear Communication Associates Ltd (CCA)

UK.

DISCLAIMER

All information included in this document is subject to change without notice. The Members of

the TCBL Consortium make no warranty of any kind with regard to this document, including,

but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.

The Members of the TCBL Consortium shall not be held liable for errors contained herein or

direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing,

performance, or use of this material.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The TCBL project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme

for research, technology development, and innovation under Grant Agreement n.646133.

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