ARCHI MODA

DEGREE PROJECT

COURSE: ARCH 431 | INSTRUCTOR: AARON GENSLER & ERIN WRIGHT | SPRING 2023 | WSOA

Fast Fashion has taken the world by surprise as it contributes to climate change every minute of every day. The average cycle of a garment you buy is 2-3 years; on the other hand, the average lifecycle of a garment in a landfill is between 20-200 years. Upcycling old clothes is becoming more trendy as young adults and emerging designers try to save their dying planet. I started experimenting

with upcycling when I was 16 and first started being interested in fashion. In one of my classes for my fashion design minor, I took my sister's old dress and made it into pants. I learned more about how to upcycling properly and started doing it more often, especially with clothes that are dear to me, etc.

PLANS

 
 

This project offers a place to teach and promote sustainable fashion to this upcoming generation of fashion students through a residency program in Milan, Italy. Creating a collection using old, upcycled clothes and sustainable materials and showcasing it to the entire world during the most prestigious fashion events in history will be life-changing for the future of the garment and its owner. The buildings are showcased as models on a runway wearing a garment which is the skin covering the body, which is the building.

The project consists of a residency program with an upcycling center open to the public and an outdoor fashion runway. The residency program will have 20 students for 6 months twice a year and the participants in the program will learn and execute their own collection made entirely of upcycled and eco-friendly fabric and materials to be showcased in Milan Fashion Week which will also take place on the site of this project. Just because a garment is no longer purposeful for its intended use, does not make it disposable.

SECTION

ELEVATION

The site is located next to the Palazzo Reale which is one of the 3 locations currently being used for Milan Fashion Week. Adopting a place that is currently being used for Fashion Week and adjusting it to welcome this new era of fashion will help change the entire perspective of the industry

In this project, the analogy between 2D and 3D in fashion and architecture will be explored. Focusing on the relationship between 2D patterns as 2D plans and 3D constructed garments as 3D buildings will create the connection between the fashion and architecture industries.

PATTERNS

EXPLODED WALL DETAIL

Fast Fashion is clothing made as quickly as possible, out of cheap fabrics, in mass quantity with aggressive marketing campaigns to make us buy more than we need. This strategy pays little regard to the waste of natural resources, pollutants from the manufacturing process and the injustices to the garment workers. The result of this overconsumption model is a staggering amount of waste. 180 billion tons of clothing goes to landfill every year filling waste sites

decades sooner than anticipated. We are in fact, drowning in our textile waste. The only way to slow down this critical problem is to create new items from textile waste such as deadstock (garments unsold because of flaws, damage or outdated), reclaimed materials (the fashion industries’ leftovers such as offcuts from manufacturing processes or oversupply of fabric), and post-consumer waste (items that have been purchased, worn, and discarded).

LAMP POST MEMORIAL

In this class, existing and proposed memorials were explored through the lens of memory, imagination, control, and curation. We navigated the relationship between the constructed form and the power of the ideas that made them manifest. Through the semester’s investigation, memory was utilized as the medium in social, political, and physical dimensions and explore the complex

relationships between body and built form. This mini memorial portrays the way the fashion industry is destroying the earth. With fabric wrapping around the earth squeezing it slowly the way a snake squeezes its prey. Originally designed to be installed in Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, it was created to bring awareness to consumers.

PHYSICAL MODEL