Cellulose Textile Factory

Year: Fall 2021, Harvard GSD, Instructor: Toshiko Mori Location: Monson, Maine Type: Factory

This project proposes a cellulose textile manufacturing facility with an inhouse textile residency program be built on 72 acres of vacant farmland in Monson, Maine. This choice of program is in response to the state of Maine’s push to be a leader in renewable material manufacturing in the United States. Due to Maine’s high volume of sustainably managed forests, wood is one of the materials that the state hopes to leverage for economic growth. Cellulose based textiles utilizes recent technological advancements in the textile manufacturing process that dramatically reduces the environmental costs textile production has on our ecosystems. This technology, a technique to mechanically spin paper pulp into fiber without the use of any added chemicals, was created by the Finnish company Spinnova. The similarities between Finland and Maine’s landscape and labor force makes Spinnova’s business model easy to imagine in Monson.

The area that Monson is located has a long history in wood textiles that date back to the Penobscot’s treatment of Birch bark. The bark, which can be easily peeled from the trunk of a Birch tree (without harming the tree) was often quilted, layered, and stitched together to create big swatches of “fabric” that were then used to create objects such as wigwams or canoes. The architecture of the proposed textile facility begins by considering this technique as an informed way to think about surface, construction, and detail. The building is constructed as a overlapping of same sided buildings, that come together like a casually formed quilt. This quilting effect is expressed through the tectonics of the roof, which stitch together a series of trusses to cover the project. In addition to the textile manufacturing facility, the program includes a textile residency with in-house studio space, a natural dye studio, and open gallery space.