Let ’em dress in dirt: Squirt worms turn dirt into textiles
Fragments of BioEarth fabric, which is more than 60% soil. The novel fabric was created by Penmai Chongtoua (right) and Professor Lola Ben-Alon of the Natural Materials Laboratory at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Conservation and Planning.photo courtesy of natural materials lab
Penmai Chongtoua took the cloth scraps out of the jar and put them on the table. The strips have a leather feel and a slightly sandy finish. Considering they are made up of more than 60% soil, they are very thin and strong. The samples are samples of a novel “BioEarth fabric” that she has co-designed through a painstaking process to wear as clothing.
“The way this material changes over time is really interesting,” Chongtoua said, examining the chip’s crack edges, which are slowly drying and becoming less flexible over time. “It evolves and has its own life cycle.”
after graduation MSc Climate and Society program in Columbia Climate School In 2022, Chong Touya will come to the institute as an associate researcher. Natural Materials Laboratory in colombia Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation and Planning. Professor Guidance laura ben aron, the laboratory explores the use of low-carbon, non-toxic building materials. The space is filled with buckets of dirt and clay, chunks of granite, and fibers such as hay, hemp, and hair-like flax. Bricks, curtains, pottery, furniture and other interesting products made from these materials adorn the laboratory.
Chongtoua is unusual among her lab mates in trying to turn these earthy materials into wearable products. Her hope is that by bringing us into intimate contact with elements that most of us rarely consider in our daily lives, her textiles will encourage people to examine their relationship with the planet and possibly reimagine more symbiotic ways of living with it. .
Social Structure
Chongtoua is not the kind of kid who likes to play with mud. She grew up in Colorado, surrounded by natural beauty that she felt isolated from. As the daughter of first-generation immigrants who moved to a majority-white neighborhood, her interactions with green spaces seemed to relate to a culture to which she did not necessarily belong.
While she knew she liked the environment, she felt something was missing: the human element. According to Chongtoua, humans should not be seen as separate from “pure” nature. So, as an undergraduate at Brown University, she studied environmental politics to explore the relationship between people, communities, and our natural, built, and social environments.
To go a step further and try to understand how to deepen the symbiotic relationship between people and their environment, she participated in MSc Climate and Society program in Columbia Climate School.
It was during the Climate and Society program that she discovered the Natural Materials Lab. Lab Director Ben-Alon is looking for a Graduate Research Assistant to conduct life cycle analysis for a project. Chongtoua was captivated, and while it turned out she didn’t have the software expertise for that particular role, Ben-Alon was impressed by her enthusiasm and desire to work in the lab, so they brainstormed other possible ways to collaborate.
During their conversation, Chongtoua spoke about the background in textiles and fashion design she developed during her undergraduate studies. Fabrics and clothing have always fascinated her, not only for their function as basic human necessities, but also for their cultural, technical, political and social messages.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the relationship between textiles and the body, and then how that affects our relationship to the social world, the natural world and the built world,” she said. “It’s all connected to me.”
After brainstorming with Ben-Alon, the two began to think about how these relationships would be different if the textiles were made from earthy materials. Thus, their collaboration was born.
“I didn’t expect that I would be a materials scientist anytime soon,” Chongtoua said. “I didn’t know I was going to do an in-depth microscopic study of this material and work with things like Liang Tong Lab and Climate Imagination Network, and connected with so many interesting people who asked the same philosophical questions as I did. “
material evolution
Chongtoua’s first goal is to explore what it means to be on Earth.
Her first earthen garments fit the model’s body like a cast—heavy, strong and inflexible. Models can only wear it when they are sitting or lying still. As a result, she feels very meditative while wearing it. This allows her to slow down and reflect.
One of the main conclusions of the Phase 1 study, Chongtoua explained, was that when wearing Earth, “you are able to think more critically, more consciously, and more mindfully about your interactions with your environment.”
Sculptural and static, the lab’s first-generation Earth garments encourage stillness and meditation.photo courtesy of natural materials lab
The next step is to make the materials more dynamic, like the people who wear them. Chongtoua and Ben-Alon considered several ways to increase its flexibility. Should they change its build process? Should they interweave the soil with natural fibers?
In the end, they decided to test bioplastics—plastics derived from natural materials such as cornstarch, cellulose, or alginate from brown algae.
Using chemical flasks, hot plates and cooking pots, Chongtoua conducted a series of rigorous experiments, trying dozens of “recipes” combining varying amounts of soil, fibers and various bioplastics.
“In the end, we found a formulation that contained more than 60 percent soil—so most of the material was still soil-based,” Chongtoua said, “but it was a flexible, wear-resistant, mobile fabric.”
This new “BioEarth fabric” is so strong that it can be laser cut, embroidered and machine sewn. Chongtoua incorporated parts of it into the kimono, which was lighter and more flexible than her first-generation garments.
Lighter, stronger, and more flexible second-generation Earth garments—like the kimono here—have more dynamic applications.photo courtesy of natural materials lab
Next, she hopes to continue improving the fabric until it matches the strength and flexibility of mainstream textiles like cotton. To that end, she recently began working with bioplastics experts on campus to try out new iterations and formulations.
She and Ben-Alon are currently developing a course to teach future designers and architects the art and chemistry of bioplastics and earth-based materials.Additionally, they are working with Columbia Ventures Registered a patent for the fabric invention. They also aim to expand public participation in the new fabric and envision other applications for it.
slow fashion
Could the future of sustainable, biodegradable fashion be made from BioEarth textiles?
Not so fast, Chongtoua said. She and Ben-Alon are treading carefully when envisioning their textiles reaching the mass market.
Currently, the Natural Materials Laboratory uses waste soil from construction sites. But if BioEarth fabrics are being produced on a large scale, it’s hard to imagine the process being equally reliant on waste soil.
BioEarth fabric is strong enough to be laser cut (left), machine sewn (center) and embroidered (right).photo courtesy of natural materials lab
Petrochemical plastics were introduced more than a century ago as a sustainable alternative to deforestation for the commercial production of natural gums and resins. Today, it has grown into its own environmental crisis. Humanity has seen many times that mass production can lead to huge environmental impacts.
“When we consider the scalability of the BioEarth fabric, wouldn’t expanding its production process also create an environmental disaster in the future?” Chongtoua asked. She points out that the starch and vinegar she uses to make the bioplastic also has to be produced somewhere, and those processes also play a role.
The solution, she said, may lie in a decentralized approach, sharing research findings with other groups who can apply the research in local supply chains and mining settings.
interconnection
One of the things that made this work possible, Chongtoua said, were the interconnections she made at the Columbia Climate Institute.
People, culture, clothing, environment—these are all intertwined for Bughead, not just metaphorically. She said getting involved with the Climate and Society project was a turning point in her career because it connected her with world-leading professors and peers with radical views.
“Columbia really gave me the opportunity to form meaningful relationships with like-minded people who share the same philosophical goals for our vision for a sustainable world.”
