Design for Recycling through Automation and Robotics in Apparel Accessories and Footwear
This project develops design for recycling textile-based goods, one of the most damaging waste streams, using contemporary toolsets to dismantle products into pure fractions.
Recycling textile-based goods after use is extremely difficult with current methods. To improve recycling outcomes, it is essential to recover pure materials—known as fractions—from post-consumer waste. However, due to the fibrous nature of textiles, mixed materials, varied constructions, flexibility, and product diversity, achieving pure fractions is nearly impossible using existing processes. As a result, the textile industry generates vast amounts of waste and significantly harms the environment, especially through its heavy reliance on virgin resources.
This project develops robotic and automated tools to dismantle post-consumer textile products into pure fractions, complete with the data and traceability needed for effective material recycling. To make this possible, design and manufacturing processes must consider the constraints of automated disassembly.
The systems developed are intended for adoption by large-scale producers of textile-based goods, helping to significantly reduce environmental impact.
Gens Public Programme: Cybernetic Sustainabilities – From Past Experiments To Contemporary Reinterpretations
11.10.2025, 15:00–17:00
Biennale di Venezia, Arsenale
On Saturday 11 October 2025, fabric | ch, the Lausanne-based studio for architecture, interaction and research was the host of the panel “Cybernetic Sustainability”, as part of the public programme of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, in the Speakers’ Corner of the Biennale, this year titled “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.”
The panel “Cybernetic Sustainability” explored the intersections between architecture, machine learning, art, climate data, and sustainability approaches, drawing on both historical and contemporary works. Emphasis was placed on cybernetics from an historical and analytical perspective, ephemeral algorithmic systems, and their potential interplay with vernacular approaches, framing discussions around collective intelligence and research-practice exchanges as key themes for panellists and moderation.
“Cybernetic Sustainability” was hosted by Patrick Keller and Christophe Guignard, members of Fabric and professors at ECAL (HES-SO), featured Giulia Bini (head of Arts at CERN), Chrissie Muhr (Architect, Curator, Artistic Director of Experimental Foundation – Berlin), and Ashford Maxwell (Designer, Researcher at ECAL (HES-SO)). It was moderated by Gordan Savicic (Artist, Critical Engineer, Lecturer at HSLU Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts).
