About the project

Tim Van Der Loo and Sandra Nicoline Nielsen build on an existing fabric created as part of the circular garment project New Blue, further developing the material with treatments and finishes using different cutting edge technologies in the dyeing and finishing process.

Tim van der Loo is a material and product designer – based in Berlin, born in the Netherlands – using post-consumer resources to develop new surfaces and structures. Even though his main concern is sustainability, he cares about bringing a contemporary aesthetic to recycled materials. His works are reflections of a playful approach to the function and matter of objects for everyday use. The methodology used in his practice is to work with waste as a resource.

Sandra Nicoline Nielsen is a Techno-Anthropologist with a pertinent focus on making circular economy a reality. She has partnered up with Tim van der Loo to develop people- and environment centered solutions on post- and pre-consumer textile waste. It is fundamental for her to approach design innovation as creating new long term, sustainable solutions. This entails prioritising the use and end-of-life of the product from the very outset. Waste should be eliminated where and to every extent it is possible, while embracing people within the different steps of the system.

Tim van der Loo and Sandra Nicoline Nielsen take two approaches; working with craft, enabling independency with DIY tools, machines and techniques and working with the industry, meaning to collaborate, translate and to develop user items for bigger scale. Working within industry is set out not to design something new but to redesign the material that was wasted before and keep it out of being wasted.