Today's household items, electrical devices and textiles tend to composites of multiple materials that are combined for functional, aesthetic or economic reasons. In the recycling process, this material complexity creates a range of ecological, economic and qualitiy-related challenges.
By contrast, the design principle of the «momomaterial» seeks to limit the composition of an object to a single material. This thesis project is a theoretical examination of how the material complexity of products influences the materials cycle and how aesthetic variance might be achieved by applying the design principle of the monomaterial.
An applied examination of the design principle of the monomaterial using the example of polyester in the textile sector complements a theoretical discussion of the topic. In a feasibility study, additively manufactured solid applications made of flexible polyester textile waste are combined with flexible polyester substrate through heat exposure in a fused deposition modelling (FDM) process. This contrast between solid and flexible creates an aesthetically and functionally versatile variance.
Image: Fokusmodul MA Design