Christien Meindertsma grew up on a sheep farm. She recalls evenings spent watching her grandmothers knit – so it’s no wonder she has a strong emotional connection to this material. But it is the Dutch designer’s deep interest in her local environment, her will to understand the origin of wool and the systems involved in processing it, that led her to make this material key to her practice – and to use it in ways it had never been used before.
Wool has remarkable material qualities. It is durable, anti-bacterial, breathable, mould-, odour- and fire-resistant, a natural insulator, bio-degradable and re-usable. Often considered a by-product of the meat industry, it is a resource available across the world. This should make it an ideal candidate for local production, but the way that wool is valued varies enormously from country to country. There are more than 200 breeds of sheep and each produces wool with different qualities. Merino wool from Australia is highly valued for its softness, making it a popular choice for knitwear and outerwear. Because of the market for this wool, the systems of production and export are well-established. European wool, on the contrary, is often coarser in texture, not soft on the skin, and therefore attracts little commercial interest. For this reason, little infrastructure exists for shearing, cleaning and processing wool in Europe. But while it may not produce soft jumpers, the material holds great potential. So why are most farmers in Europe composting or burning it?
The low status of European wool is what drew Meindertsma to work with it. In Re-forming Waste, Meindertsma’s display for the V&A Make Good programme, the designer presents her latest research into raw and surplus virgin wool, materials which would otherwise be wasted, unravelling the potential of this abundantly available yet overlooked material.
Meindertsma began working with wool in 2007, but her research took a key turn in 2020. Every year, 5,000kg of virgin wool is produced by Rotterdam’s flock of grazing sheep. Commissioned by Rotterdam Circulair, a city-led programme developing circular systems and economies, Meindertsma launched a project to find a use for this material. Her first endeavour was to understand the systems involved in the production of wool – from shearing and scouring (cleaning) to grading (sorting) the wool by length, colour and texture. In the process, Meindertsma discovered the different types of wool that can be obtained from one flock or even one sheep. While the market favours soft, easy-to-dye white wool over coarser, darker wool, Meindertsma was keen to prove that all could be put to use.
Working with Irish weaving company Molloy and Sons, Meindertsma endeavoured to make high quality textiles, working with the different qualities of Rotterdam wool. By mixing it with wool yarns from both end-of-life clothing, and furniture manufacturer Gelderland’s surplus fabrics, she developed a range of yarns in subtle colours and textures. With this wool, she upholstered Gelderland’s best-selling sofa to illustrate the potential of the material, and she tufted a rug depicting the grazing landscape of Rotterdam sheep for CS Rugs.
The designer was particularly satisfied by her collaboration with British weaving company Hainsworth. As it turns out, the quality of Rotterdam wool is the perfect texture for the high-quality wool blankets the company is known for, demonstrating how problematic the concept of ‘waste’ wool is.
Having worked with wool to make textiles, Meindertsma saw potential for working with the material in a completely different way: to build 3D forms. Could wool provide an alternative to the harmful chemical foams that dominate the upholstery market? She began her research using traditional 19th century felting machines. The machine’s needles interlock loose wool fibres, which hook onto one another to create a tight felted sheet. Through a series of experiments, Meindertsma managed to layer these sheets into dense blocks without using additives or binding agents. The blocks could then be cut into shape.
However innovative, this technique created offcuts. So Meindertsma partnered with robotics specialists Tools for Technology (TFT) to develop a technique for 3D-printing – or rather, 3D-felting – wool. ‘At a certain moment, you know so much about a material that you can start seeing what’s missing,’ the designer explains. ‘When you spend so much time [in] factories, you start thinking “Why are you always doing it this way? Why can’t we do it another way?”’ The ‘other way’ is the ‘Wobot’, a ‘co-bot’ (collaborative robot) developed specifically for working with wool. The tool, conceived by Meindertsma and TFT, both felts wool and guides it into form by reading a digital file or repeating a sequence of movements. In contrast to a 3D-printer, which uses plastic or composite filament, the wool doesn’t break when it is twisted, so can print in all directions instead of just layer upon layer. Excitingly, the tool functions well with unspun wool (called roving), reducing the time spent processing the wool, and keeping costs down in the process.
Beyond upholstery and furnishings, Meindertsma thinks 3D felted wool could be used to insulate buildings, particularly those with awkward spaces. Making use of the material’s natural capacity to trap air, wool offers an alternative to less sustainable materials such as glass or rock wool. As the insulation uses no binder or additive, it can either be reused or can biodegrade.
Since opening Re-forming Waste, Meindertsma has continued developing the Wobot to print at a larger scale – with ambitions to experiment with colour and density. Her research exemplifies how underused resources can be turned into exciting materials fit for a future more respectful of our environment.
You can visit the display at the V&A South Kensington, in the Dr Susan Weber Gallery of Furniture (Room 133) until autumn 2024.
