Smart Textiles
The Smart Textiles initiative at the Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås in Sweden, is an innovation environment that allows the research, business and public sector to collaborate and coordinate their efforts for identifying unexpected solutions of the future. It allows people from different backgrounds to meet and get involved in their Design and Technology Lab and Prototype Factory. With a focus on health and medicine, sustainable textiles, and architecture and interiors, over 450 research and company driven projects have been carried out since its foundation in 2006.
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VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, located at Espoo in Finland, was founded in 1942 and has been been active within the field of fashion-tech for more than five years, focusing on smart textiles and digital manufacturing, and specialising in transfer and testing of printed technologies. As a partner for research, development and innovation, they work together with domestic and international customers and partners in public and private sectors.
Co-founded by VTT, University of Oulu, Oulu University of Applied Sciences and Business Oulu, PrintoCent is an open innovation environment to build contacts between research and companies based mainly in the industrial clusters in the region. With competences within the whole value chain, the initiative aims to create novel components, products and solutions, enabled by printed intelligence technologies in combination with other technologies, such as 3D-printing and textile manufacturing.
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Wearable Product Design Centre,
University of Minnesota
The Wearable Product Design Centre established in 2010 within the University of Minnesota´s College of Design connects the university´s research labs focusing on design, development and use of wearable products. The aim is to advance the state of art in the design or wearable products, by exploring methods and technologies in order to change the way clothing, an essential need, is designed, produced and worn. Furthermore, the centre addresses human needs related to appearance and aesthetic responses to clothing. The centre synthesises the experience and expertise of researchers from different backgrounds investigating the whole lifecycle of it, by combining the research from the Human Dimensioning Lab and the Wearable Technology Lab. Furthermore, the research programmes are integrated, multi- and interdisciplinary, involving students from different backgrounds, such as fashion design and aerospace engineering.
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Advanced Textiles Research Group
Based at Nottingham Trent University in England, the Advanced Textiles Research Group (ATRG) was formed in 2010. As the university is a leading institution for advanced textiles research for designing electronically active wearable technology, the group´s research includes electronically active yarns, flexural composites research laboratory, advanced knitting and weaving technology. Through close collaboration the group works with industrial and academic partners, including art and fashion colleagues from the university. Among others, their core services include fundamental research on future smart textiles and intelligent fibre materials, applications for electronic yarns, and product development and prototyping.
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Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design
Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID) is described as an international hub of creative minds that seeks to create impact through the design of innovative products, services and environments. Founded in 2006, to create a collaborative and dynamic design culture, their integrated structure generates a unique space that encompasses education, a cutting-edge research group, an award-winning consultancy and a startup incubator. For CIID, people-centred research, rapid and iterative prototyping and user testing are all a significant part of the interaction design ideation and concept generation process. Furthermore, the beauty of intangible experience is foregrounded above visual and physical aesthetics in the development of products and services.
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V2_Lab for the Unstable Media
Founded in 1981, V2_, Lab for Unstable Media is an interdisciplinary centre for Art, Media technology in Rotterdam (The Netherlands). The V2_ Lab regards art and design as essential players in the social embedding of technological development. They offer a platform for artists, designers, scientists, theorists and software and hardware developers to come together to explore this idea, discuss their work and share findings through critical dialogue, artistic reflection and practice-oriented research.
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