Designers of Tomorrow: Innovating with Strong Wool

We had the privilege of supporting Auckland University of Technology’s Shear Wool paper for the third year, helping to engage the designers of tomorrow by exploring innovative ways to incorporate strong wool into new product designs. 

 

Throughout this paper, second year industrial design students were tasked to innovate with strong wool as a locally produced, natural fibre. They aimed to unlock wool’s incredible inherent properties to explore designing for use in a wider range of industries. 

Strong wool is a material traditionally used in carpets, rugs, and upholstery, however as these students demonstrated, it can be used in a wide range of applications. They used waste wool from our manufacturing process such as spun and unspun yarn, and fibre from the carding machine. The students then used techniques such as felting and digital knitting to apply wool to industries that may not typically use a natural fibre. Crafting wool into incredible designs such as bike seats and humidifiers. 

Chris, one of the second year Industrial Design students, enjoyed the humanistic properties of strong wool. “They’re very relatable to people and the environment so it's sort of that humanity centred design approach and helping bring people closer to the land and the materials they live and work with.”

Whakamihi, Congratulations to all the students for their exceptional work, and lecturers Jyoti Kalyanji and Daniel Collings.

Ngā mihi to our industry friends, Wise Wool, Autex Acoustics, Wool Works, Palliser Ridge, Lanaco and Maxwell Rodgers Fabrics, who also supported this AUT Shear Wool Paper. 

Special thanks to members of our Bremworth whānau Evona Lee, Architecture and Design Consultant and Amit Gupta in Product Innovation and Design, for their invaluable time, knowledge, and resources. 

We look forward to seeing how these bright young minds continue to shape the future of design with sustainable materials.