The Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2008/98/EC on waste, with the aim of promoting a circular economy and decarbonization, calls for an improvement in environmental awareness. According to the ranking of sectors that consume the most natural resources, architecture, realized through the construction industry, ranks sixth, preceded only by fossil fuel extraction, agriculture, the fashion and food industries, and transport. In this master’s thesis, I aim to address the connection between architecture and textile production as two of the leading consumers- driven industries.
To ensure environmental sustainability, in accordance with the Slovenian directive, introduced on January 1st of 2025, a separate collection of post-consumer textile waste is required. This brings new questions to the forefront regarding the treatment of accumulated textile waste. General waste disposal practices currently in use include a range of approaches, from waste landfills and incineration for energy recovery to multiple stages of recycling, transformation, and reuse. The latter is already active for well-preserved garments, while the proper processing into new products requires an evolution of infrastructure for segments of the process that are currently manual, fragmented, and time-consuming. The use of post-consumer textile waste for the reproduction of new products, particularly new construction materials, remains a largely unfamiliar concept at the scale of industrial production.
When discussing the recycling of textile waste, we are addressing the program of a recycling center, which is neither architecturally nor socially perceived as particularly attractive. The stigma surrounding the unattractiveness of recycling centers is so strong that most people would prefer to avoid them. However, the reality is that they should become a more integrated part of our daily lives, as the consumption of resources and the continuous production of new goods have led to a situation where there is now more waste than raw materials that could be utilized. It is time for factories to fully shift toward production using recycled waste materials, rather than treating such practices as exceptions. Recycling centers are currently not designed as appealing spaces that would invite curiosity, but rather as a necessary byproduct of human life. At the same time, they lack any public accompanying programs that would encourage active participation.
The aim of this thesis is to establish a new program for a recycling center and, through it, to renovate and revitalize the abandoned Tekstilindus factory in Kranj. The project inserts a new factory into the existing structures, one that collects, recycles, and circularly designs new products from textile waste. Fabric, once the final product of the Tekstilindus factory, now becomes the raw material from which new products are created.
|