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The inhumane disposal of clothing waste generated by the fast fashion industry has led to extensive environmental and health repercussions.
A significant challenge arises with fabrics made from PET, as they cannot be indefinitely recycled due to the inherent properties of this plastic. These materials inevitably find their way to landfills. Developed countries have implemented engineered landfilling technologies that comply with environmental standards; however, they tend to avoid addressing this issue due to perceived risks and concerns expressed by the public.
As a response, this project deliberately selected the renowned historical textile town in Netherlands as testing ground. It proposes an unconventional architectural solution, involving the implementation of a 300 meters wide circular vertical landfill infrastructure, in conjunction with a recycling factory, and a fashion school. This educational institution, while coexisting harmoniously with the waste, dedicates its endeavours to developing fashion, furniture, and architectural languages and techniques utilising abandoned fabric as the primary medium.
The architectural language of fabric formwork ultimately returns to the programme of this project, integrating fashion and furniture design into its syntax. Materials, casting techniques, and expressive forms mutually influence one another.
In 2050 clothing waste is given a new life by the success of the new construction technology. The remnants of last century’s fashion waste become a scarce commodity, pursued by the global construction industry to fulfil projects spanning all scales.
Over time, the landfill becomes a shell, solitary in the vastness of nature, standing tall with hundreds of concrete pillars. The central grassland remains sheltered by this massive circular structure, shielded from the perils of rising sea levels.
Why does the problem persist? The answer lay in the ultimate form of (in)Filling Up – a tombstone of fashion waste, where the bodies are long gone, replaced by a new cycle of architecture and fabric, echoing endlessly.
(in)Filling Up is more than a solution to the fashion industry, it is a poetic search for life and death, for the beauty that lies beyond the ruins, the resurrection of the past, and the birth of the future...