Overview of my PhD at Loughborough Design School (UK), within the AHRC Design Star CDT. The overall aim is to explore how service design can contribute to encourage textile artisans' communities towards a sustainable future.

1. service design for the future
of textile artisans’ communities:
an enabling ecosystem towards
sustainability & social innovation
Loughborough Design School | AHRC Design Star
supervisors: Dr MC Escobar-Tello, Dr VA Mitchell
Francesco Mazzarella, PhD researcher

2. research problem
the global crisis is leading to the
end of a linear economy, while
setting the ground for redistributed
microproductions, based on new
ethics of sustainability

3. the craft discourse is mainly
based on individual making
practices, overlooking their
human and social dimension

4. it is missing a strategic
agenda, which could create
sustainable interconnections
within this pacthy landscape

5. to explore how service design
can contribute to encourage
textile artisans’ communities
towards a sustainable future
research aim

6. research focus
material
by hands
machinery
digital tools
quality
skilled control
personal identity
material culture
local fibres:
vegetable
animal
discarded
artisan
community
small scale
localised
diversified
flexible
tool making

7. textiles
utilitarian
culturally meaningful
aesthetic
large availability of fibres
high employment
wide applications
rising consumer trends
why?

8. textile artisans’ communities
are bottom-up, human-centred
aggregations, using local fibres,
managing the process of making
culturally significant apparel,
by hands or through digital tools

9. service design can facilitate
this holistic process:
1. artisans’ communities
2. collaborative services
3. enabling ecosystem

10. reflect
set a strategic agenda
for encouraging TAC
towards a sustainable
future
1C
preliminarystudy
plan
select TAC
to involve
in co-design
2A 2C
to co-design
collaborative
services for
sustainable
TAC
plan
map textile
artisanal
landscape
1A
plan
plan
interconnections
among TAC
reflect
synthesize service
design process
into a theoretical
framework
3A 3C
evaluation
to outline
an enabling
ecosystem of
sustainable
TAC
act & observe
explore sustainable
future trends
for TAC
co-design
collaborative
services
act & observe
1B
act & observe
outline an
enabling ecosystem
of services
3B2B
PS: TAC: Textile Artisans’ Communities
to develop
theoretical
frameworkfor
sustainable
future for
TAC
mainstudy
reflect
evaluate whereas
service design
has met the
theoretical framework
methodology

11. discover
define
develop
deliver
experts’
focus group
shadowing
contextual
interviews
co-creation
service
blueprint
service
ecosystem
map

12. encourage sustainable development
trigger creative economies
New York (USA)
rescue craft heritage
Nottingham (UK)
participatory
action
research
Cape Town (South Africa)
to explore the wide scope of application of service design
and develop a flexible service model to be tailored on different contexts
participatory
action
research

13. textile artisans’ communities
can contribute to sustainable
development as they...
rescue cultural heritage provide social engagement
boost creative economy enhanceresourcestewardship

14. FUTURE
TRENDS

15. 1.new market
models
alternative economies
Openwear, “Collaborative
Collection”, 2010, EU

16. global economic shifts
grassroots innovations
sharing economy
collaborative consumption
1a.alternative
economies
Patagonia, “Common
Threads”, 2015, USA

17. 2.new business
models
redistributed manufacturing
UKTF, Let’s Make
it Here, 2012, UK

18. relocalised manufacturing
micro-factories
network of fablabs
changing workforce
2a.redistributed
manufacturing
Repair Café

19. Alabama Chanin,
Stichting, USA3.new production
models
flexible production

20. long tail
digital fabrication
mass customisation
on demand
3a.flexible
production
Knyttan, UK

21. 4.new design
processes
circular economy
Ananas Anam, “Piñatex”,
2014, Uk & Spain

22. open, collaborative, free
communities of practice
collaborations & short chains
cradle to cradle
Neha Lad, “Beauty in the
discarded”, 2014, India4a.circular
economy

23. 5.new product
types
advanced artisanship
Yen Chen Chang,
“Knitted Sensors”, 2014, UK

24. from fast to slow fashion
long sellers
interactive, complex, immaterial
product-service-system
Timo Rissanen, Zero-Waste
Denim, 2010, USA5a.advanced
artisanship

25. 6.new designer’s
roles
designer entrepreneur
Mary Portas, Headen &
Quarmby, 2013, UK

26. mass profession of prosumers
multidisciplinary communities
tinkering & self-production
complex designer’s palette
6a.designer
entrepreneur
Wool and the Gang, UK

27. FireUp, 2103, UK
7.new relationships
enabling ecosystem

28. top-down vs bottom-up
distributed P2P networks
systemic thinking
strategic agenda
7a.enabling
ecosystem
TED, The TEN,
2014, UK

29. HOW
TO GET THERE?

30. barriers enablers
Dominance of financial structures based
on profits;
Lack of time & efforts to develop
alternative models;
Lack of skills;
Export of machinery and outsource of
production;
Lack of interest for young people in craft
production;
Endangered craft heritage;
Consumers’ misperception of quality;
Over-consumption;
Lack of information on textiles, artisans
and sustainability challenges;
Lack of sustainability uptake;
Lack of training in strategies/management/
entrepreneurship in design curricula.
Change of mindset (systemic thinking);
Interconnected
design-artisanship-academia
-policy-consumers;
Cultural empathy with artisans;
Metatools, flexible, collaborative, reflective;
Storytelling to elicit and convey engaging
meanings;
Empowerment models: access to
information, awareness, ability,
independency;
Development of sustainable business
models;
Technological advancements.

31. a sustainable manifesto
for textile artisans’ communities
Shift the focus from aesthetics to ethics, from style to quality meanings;
Ethical labour and rights must be set: less bad is not good;
Textile artisanship stands as a slow reaction to fast fashion;
Textiles are interconnected to their wholeness: materials, processes,
people, places;
Being vs. having, learning from nature and acknowledging the unpredictable;
Manage connectivity within local communities, as collective wisdom and
social act of collaboration;
Design as political agent, embracing diversity as resource, weaving
synergies among different assets;
Scale up open initiatives within peer-to-peer networks at a glocal scale;
Understand the root system and trigger holistic and systemic change,
from micro to macro scales;
Build an enabling ecosystem: complex, adaptive infrastructure supported
by polycentric governance.

32. f.mazzarella@lboro.ac.uk
francesco.mazzarella10
Francesco Mazzarella
thank you !