Design for a new type of textile museum where experience, commerce and leisure activities proceed in concert; a museum in business.

BACKGROUND The Netherlands has two regions that owe their identity to the textile industry, namely the province of Noord-Brabant, and Twente in the east of Overijssel province. For years the textile industry dictated the local economy and social trends in these two regions. When textile production ceased in Twente, the region's strong identity crumbled. Although knowledge and expertise has never left there, it is scarcely felt today. The large-scale high-visibility production facilities have been replaced with faceless head offices with research & development units where they work on the latest innovations in textile, invisible to the outside world. In museumFABRICk, Twente is transformed into a fabric of textile experiments, an iconographic landmark to show off the region's identity.
THE BRIEF To make this knowledge and identity visible and perceptible again, museumFABRICk assembles cutting-edge knowledge on the industry as it exists today. Projected in the town of Enschede, the new museum concept with its public recreational and educational facilities provides a positive spin-off in an area where population decline is an ever-present threat. At the root of the museum is its workforce. Designers, artists, students and companies receive the museum's visitors and present to them their work activities, supported in this by those manning the museum. Machines are both on show and in use, with innovation in textile up front. Not just a nostalgic backward glance, the museum also takes a look into the future and at the latest advances. The interactive museum shows this future to the public at large. Textile is a product that cries out to be touched, it stimulates the senses. Here you can discover and experience the visible and invisible qualities that textile has to offer.
Its hybrid nature makes the museum a unique place in Enschede where knowledge and expertise, science and scholarship, amusement and education together offer a long-term response to issues that are continually changing. Inviting programme components including a museum shop, a museum café and textile care make the museum more accessible. These facilities can be reached from outside so that there is direct contact with the public realm through a vibrant front that invites and welcomes visitors.
TEXTILE IN THE DESIGN The building itself unfurls a narrative about textile. It is assembled entirely from state-of-the-art fabrics, including the solar shading and acoustic facade. The facade fabrics transform in accordance with the circumstances of the space they front and what is desired of it.
The building's structure is a three-dimensional mesh fabric with so-called floor-ribbons threaded through it. The floor-ribbons are attached to the weft threads, the building's leitmotif and the means of getting one's bearings. It is along these threads that the museum's narrative is assembled: how does a fibre become a thread, how does a thread become a fabric and in what ways can a fabric be processed? The building is itself a narrative; from fibre to thread and from thread to fabric.

Place of education: AvB Rotterdam | Specialization: architecture | Tutors: Chris van Duijn, Orri Steinarsson, Linda Hanssen, Margit Schuster, Chris van Langen