nienke hoogvliet: exploring alternative ways of production
Imagine an advertisement for household textiles: ‘towels, sheets, napkins, tablecloths—quality so exceptional it will last a lifetime.’ The price of this set? About the same as your house. As absurd as that sounds today, it was a reality in the 1800s. Craft and quality were highly valued. Labor was relatively inexpensive, while materials were costly and difficult to replace. As a result, reuse and repair were not just sensible practices—they were economic necessities.
Although we can hardly imagine materials being this expensive today, these prices may have been closer to their true cost than what we have become used to paying. Before the Industrial Revolution, creating raw materials was extremely labor-intensive. Take linen: flax first had to be grown, then processed through retting, scutching, and hackling before it could even be spun. After spinning, the yarn still needed to be woven into cloth. In the eighteenth century, a kilogram of linen could embody more than a hundred hours of human labor. Today, modern machinery can produce the same amount with less than half an hour of direct human work.
While it may seem logical that less labor leads to lower prices, the environmental costs of production are often overlooked. Growing textile crops frequently requires synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, insecticides, large amounts of freshwater, and fossil fuels to power machinery.
These inputs enable mass production and lower consumer prices, but the true costs are shifted elsewhere. Soils become depleted, biodiversity declines, water resources come under increasing pressure, and agricultural workers may suffer health problems due to exposure to hazardous chemicals. What appears inexpensive at the checkout often carries significant environmental and social costs that remain largely invisible. It is a system that cannot last. We need alternatives: materials that do not overexploit the earth, but are created in harmony with ecosystems and the people who depend on them.
nienke working on her ‘SEA ME’ carpet | all images courtesy of Studio Nienke Hoogvliet
breaking the cycle of responsibility
The question of who is responsible for creating these alternatives remains open for debate, making progress slow and the discussion difficult. Industries often argue that innovation is constrained by market readiness. From their perspective, consumers are hesitant to adopt unfamiliar materials, especially when these come with higher prices or different aesthetic and functional qualities. This perceived lack of demand is used to justify maintaining production systems optimized for cost efficiency and scale rather than material innovation.
Consumers, meanwhile, tend to place responsibility on industry. They expect manufacturers and brands to lead the transition, arguing that large companies have both the resources and the influence to develop and normalize more sustainable alternatives. When progress feels slow, it is often interpreted as a lack of commitment or innovation from industry players.
Governments add another layer of complexity. While increasingly aware of environmental pressures, they must also balance ecological goals with economic stability, employment, and international competitiveness. As a result, they often hesitate to impose strict regulations, fearing such measures could disadvantage domestic industries or slow economic growth. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle of mutual deflection: each stakeholder group sees the others as primarily responsible for change while simultaneously feeling constrained by their expectations or limitations.
seaweed on the coast of Oosterschelde National Park | image by Hannah Braeken
why designers sit at the beginning of change
Breaking this cycle is one of the key challenges, and the role of the designer is central to this process. Although designers may not control the system, they occupy a unique position within it. They operate at the very beginning of the production chain, where fundamental decisions about materials, forms, and production methods are made. Every design decision—whether large or small—can influence a product’s environmental impact and lifespan.
Take the small bow found on many pieces of women’s underwear. While seemingly insignificant, removing it can make recycling the garment far more efficient by eliminating the need to separate different materials. This example illustrates how even the smallest design choices can have consequences far beyond aesthetics. When designers consciously seek to minimize environmental impact, choose more sustainable materials, or extend the lifespan of products, these decisions ultimately shape what reaches the market. This places an urgent responsibility on the designer.
collecting seaweed | image by Hannah Braeken
finding value in what we throw away
We, as a research-driven material practice, strongly feel this responsibility. That is why we have spent years developing material innovations that may offer part of the solution. In the early years of our practice, we focused primarily on materials with a lower environmental impact. It was a logical first step to investigate existing waste streams and overlooked resources as sources of innovation.
Waste requires significantly less energy and fewer resources to transform into something new than virgin materials. Unlike primary production—which often involves extraction, refining, and energy-intensive processing—waste streams have already undergone much of this initial transformation. As a result, they represent a form of ‘pre-processed’ material that can be reactivated with comparatively little input.
Take discarded fish skins, for example. Every year, thousands of tons are treated as waste and incinerated, despite their potential to be transformed into beautiful leather through a tanning process that requires no harmful chemicals.
At first, we tanned fish skins by hand, drawing on traditional craft techniques. Later, we collaborated with industry to bring our RE-SEA ME stools to market.
the REA-SEA ME stool
changing perceptions through craft
Another example is used toilet paper, a material recovered during wastewater treatment by Dutch water authorities. Once sanitized, these recovered cellulose fibres can be used in a wide range of paper applications.
Yet despite its technical potential, finding a market for the material proved challenging. As a raw material, it is abstract, difficult to relate to, and easy to dismiss. In the Waterschatten project, we transformed these fibres by hand into a collection of lamps, bowls, and a table, imagining the living room of the future—one in which even ‘disgusting’ materials such as used toilet paper are accepted.
Through design and craftsmanship, the material was removed from its original context and given a new narrative. What had once been perceived as waste became something beautiful, desirable, and worthy of attention. Remarkably, the project did not generate negative reactions. Instead, visitors responded with curiosity and appreciation. This demonstrated that the challenge was not the material itself, but the way it was perceived.
Craft and design acted as catalysts for change, making an unfamiliar material tangible, relatable, and ultimately acceptable. In doing so, they revealed how design can bridge the gap between technical innovation and societal acceptance.