What If We Knew More About the Materials We Live With?
You can feel it before you understand it.
What actually happens to our bodies, materials and homes when there is too much water in the air?
Turning material, climate and human experience into knowledge
We live surrounded by materials.
They touch our skin when we get dressed. We sleep against them every night. We sit on them, walk across them and build our homes from them.
And yet we know surprisingly little about most of them.
We might know that something is linen, cotton, silk or wood. We might know that it is natural, organic, recycled or locally made.
But that doesn't necessarily tell us the thing I really want to know:
How will this material actually behave when I live with it?
Will it keep me cool?
What happens when I perspire?
Will it hold moisture in a humid climate?
How will it feel against sensitive skin?
What happens after fifty washes?
Will it fade beautifully or simply deteriorate?
Can I repair it?
And when I no longer need it, what happens next?
These questions are the reason we are creating the Vitality Lab.
A material is more than what it is made from
We have become very good at categorising materials.
Natural or synthetic.
Organic or conventional.
Recycled or virgin.
Local or imported.
These distinctions are useful, but they don't tell the whole story.
A natural material isn't automatically the right material.
An organic textile isn't necessarily suitable for every climate.
And a material described as sustainable may still perform badly, wear out quickly or be almost impossible to repair.
I think we need to become much more curious.
Instead of simply asking:
What is this material?
We can ask:
What does this material do?
And then:
What does it do for this body, in this place?
This is what we're building the Vitality Lab to understand
Behind Design for Vitality is a growing material library, research studio and testing environment.
The Vitality Lab is where we bring materials together and begin learning from them.
We want to understand how they breathe.
How they absorb and release moisture.
How quickly they dry.
How they respond to heat, humidity and UV.
How they wash.
How they age.
How they react to repeated use.
How easily they can be repaired.
And ultimately, whether they can enter another useful life when their first one is over.
Some of this can be measured.
But performance is only half of the story.
Because materials are ultimately experienced by people.
The body is part of the research
A machine can tell us something about a textile.
A body tells us something different.
Does it feel good?
Does it become uncomfortable when the skin is damp?
Does it feel too heavy?
Does it scratch?
Does it trap heat?
Does someone sleep better beneath it?
Does it feel different after twenty washes?
Would someone actually want to live with it for ten years?
This kind of human experience matters enormously to us.
It is why sensitive bodies are particularly interesting within the Vitality Lab.
Someone who is highly sensitive to temperature, texture, humidity or skin irritation may notice differences that another person barely registers.
That sensitivity becomes useful information.
The body becomes part of the testing environment.
And place is part of the experiment
Then there is climate.
A material cannot really be understood separately from the place where it is being used.
Take the same textile to Tulum and Oaxaca and you may have two completely different experiences.
In the hot, humid tropics, we might care deeply about airflow, moisture release, drying speed and how a material feels against perspiring skin.
In the cooler, drier highlands, warmth, layering and temperature changes between day and night may become more important.
Neither material is necessarily good or bad.
It is about appropriateness.
This is the principle at the centre of our research:
BODY × MATERIAL × CLIMATE
The right material.
For the right body.
In the right place.
What if materials came with more useful information?
Imagine buying a sheet and knowing much more than its thread count.
You could see where the fibre came from.
Its weight.
Its weave.
How breathable it is.
How it performs in humidity.
How quickly it releases moisture.
How it has been dyed and finished.
Whether it has been tested with sensitive users.
Where it has been tested.
How it should be washed.
How it can be repaired.
How it is likely to age.
And what can happen to it at the end of its useful life.
That information would allow us to make very different decisions.
This is the thinking behind what we are developing as the Vitality Material Certificate™.
A different kind of material certificate
I don't want the Vitality Material Certificate to simply tell someone that a material is “good.”
Because good where?
Good for whom?
Good for what?
Instead, I want it to help answer a much more specific question:
Is this the right material for this body, in this climate, for this use?
A lightweight open-weave linen, for example, might perform beautifully as a kimono in tropical humidity.
That doesn't mean it is the perfect material for every garment, every person or every climate.
Context matters.
So rather than giving every material a single universal score, we want to build a profile around it.
Where did it come from?
How does it interact with the body?
How does it respond to climate?
What chemistry has been added to it?
How durable is it?
Can it be repaired?
Does its production support useful skills or regional industries?
And what happens next?
We want to know where things come from—and where they go
This last question is particularly important to me.
Materials have a past.
But they also have a future.
Before a piece of linen reaches us, land, water, energy, plants, machines and people have already been involved in its creation.
Someone grew it.
Someone processed it.
Someone spun it.
Someone wove it.
Someone transported it.
Someone cut and sewed it.
So when we make something, we are entering a story that has already begun.
And we have a responsibility for what happens next.
Can the garment be repaired?
Could the textile be reused?
Could it become another object?
Can its fibres be recovered?
If it eventually returns to a biological system, what dyes and finishes are going with it?
“Natural” isn't enough information.
We need to understand the whole journey.
Every product becomes an experiment
This is where the Vitality Lab starts to change the way we think about products.
A kimono isn't simply something we design, manufacture and sell.
It can teach us something.
So can a sheet.
A pillow.
A baby garment.
A cushion.
A wall material.
Eventually, a room and an entire home.
We can make something.
Live with it.
Observe it.
Listen to the person using it.
See what happens in the climate.
See what lasts.
See what fails.
Repair it.
Improve it.
And feed that knowledge back into the next version.
Experience becomes information.
And information becomes better design.
The material library becomes a living library
I don't want the Vitality Lab to become a room filled with beautiful samples that nobody touches.
I want it to be alive.
Materials should be washed.
Left in the sun.
Worn.
Slept in.
Sweated in.
Faded.
Touched.
Compared.
Damaged.
Repaired.
And lived with.
Next to the physical sample should be its story.
Where it came from.
Who made it.
How it performed.
Where we tested it.
What people said.
What went wrong.
What surprised us.
What we would do differently next time.
Over time, the library becomes something much more interesting than a collection of materials.
It becomes a library of experience.
From one material to a larger intelligence system
And this is where I think the idea becomes exciting.
Every material we test adds another piece of information.
Every climate we work in adds another.
Every sensitive person who gives us feedback adds another.
Every product that ages in the real world teaches us something.
Eventually we begin seeing patterns.
Which materials work best in extreme humidity?
Which textile constructions help people sleep more comfortably?
Which finishes irritate sensitive skin?
Which materials become better with age?
Which ones fail?
Which ones are easiest to repair?
Which regional materials could replace something currently being imported?
This accumulated knowledge becomes part of Design for Vitality.
Not a fixed rulebook.
A living system that keeps learning.
Design. Live. Learn. Repair. Repeat.
Perhaps this is ultimately what the Vitality Lab is about.
Changing the relationship between design and knowledge.
Instead of designing something, declaring it finished and moving on to the next thing, we can stay in relationship with what we create.
Material → Test → Design → Live → Observe → Learn → Repair → Improve
And then begin again.
Because the more closely we understand materials, bodies and places, the less we have to rely on assumptions.
We can make fewer things.
Better things.
Things appropriate to their climate.
Things that people actually want to live with.
Things that can be cared for and repaired.
And things whose stories we understand from where they came from to where they might go next.
That is what we want the Vitality Lab to become.
A place where materials become knowledge — and knowledge becomes a more intelligent way of living.