Techtextil 14^th students competition awards ceremony. © Messe Frankfurt Exhibition GmbH / Jean-Luc Valentin

By 2050, almost 70% of the world’s population will be living in urban regions, metropolises and megacities, according to the United Nations. This poses new challenges for construction, mobility concepts and health services, as well as for smart fashion and functional clothing. With the special event Urban Living – City of the Future from 14-17 May 2019, Techtextil and Texprocess are dedicating a separate themed area to life in the city of the future.

Taking centre stage this time are the Netherlands: supported by Creative Holland, an initiative of the Dutch creative industries, a special presentation area will examine the role that textiles and textile composites can play in the future of cities and highlight an array of outstanding examples of urban textile innovations from the Netherlands.

Creating shared interaction space

“With Urban Living – City of the Future as the guiding theme, Techtextil and Texprocess are creating a shared interaction space that brings the application areas of Techtextil and Texprocess even closer together. After embarking on a journey into outer space and into the future for the previous edition of Techtextil and Texprocess, with Urban Living we’re now coming back down to earth and into the here and now,” explained Olaf Schmidt, Vice President of Textiles & Textile Technologies at Messe Frankfurt.

“And with the Dutch creative industries, we have been able to bring the ideal partner on board to do this: on the one hand, textiles are firmly anchored in the history and national DNA of the Netherlands. And on the other, the country is practically its own metropolitan region. The design orientation of the Dutch creative industries and the innovative, forward-looking and sustainable ingenuity that sets our neighbouring country apart are perfectly in line with the positioning of Techtextil and Texprocess.”

On show

On an area of more than 500 m2 in the foyer of Hall 4.2, which is being shared by Techtextil and Texprocess for the first time, selected examples will be showing how textile innovations can already improve the way people live together in urban surroundings today. They will refer in particular to Techtextil’s spectrum of textile solutions that are of great relevance within the context of the urbanisation megatrend: architecture and construction, mobility, medicine and clothing. Selected innovations will be shown in a disruptive architectonic landscape.

The exhibition area will be accompanied by a Material Gallery showing related best-practice solutions from exhibitors and the presentation area of the Techtextil student competition, Textile Structures for New Building.

Pioneering solutions to global challenges

Curated by the Stijlinstituut Amsterdam and structurally implemented by Dutch architect firm Refunc, Urban Living – City of the Future is proving the Netherlands’ expertise in providing answers to current, social and global challenges associated with the urbanisation megatrend. Awaiting the visitors are exhibits from, amongst others, the textile upcycling pioneers DenimX, research institutes like the Hyperloop team from Delft Technical University (TU Delft), contributions from the Next Nature Network as well as independent representatives of the Dutch creative scene like textile architect Samira Boon.

In a cross-sector, collaborative and innovative way, the representatives of the Dutch creative industries will be presenting pioneering solutions to global challenges. Along these lines, they will be showing how a future urban narrative can be told from a Dutch point of view that also reflects the country’s own identity: open and transparent, bold and original, inclusive, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary.

www.techtextil.messefrankfurt.com