Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FABRIX (Fostering local, beautiful, and sustainably designed regenerative textile and clothing ecosystems)
Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30
FABRIX accelerates the shift to local, innovative, and regenerative production in Europe by coupling spatial planning with value-network tools for the textile & clothing (T&C) sector in Rotterdam and Athens. The project’s connection between observation and implementation an interactive, open platform that maps actors and places, supports self-assessment and decision-making, and helps stakeholders co-create stronger urban manufacturing ecosystems. This integrated research and implementation design directly addresses priorities in the European Green Deal and Circular Economy Action Plan for a more sustainable T&C sector and urban built environment.
In the first half of the project, WP1 and WP2 aligned theory, methods, and user needs, producing a feature list, in turn the structure for the platform of tools. WP3 delivered a working, full-stack platform of tools with multi-country data integration (NL, GR), geospatial analytics (PostGIS, clustering), a dynamic self-assessment system with scoring, secure authentication, and file-upload services; now used in ongoing user tests. Co-creation was advanced through low- and high-fidelity prototyping, stakeholder interviews, and facilitator onboarding that feeds live feedback into the platform.
FABRIX goes beyond the state first by entwining spatial (place-based) and relational (network/value-chain) perspectives in one actionable platform, built by integrating and extending partner tools (PlatformU, Insylay, CirculaTool, Roadmapper). Second, it also goes into implementation through co-creation: through FSTP, facilitators and SMEs are central in FABRIX to translate the analytics into real ecosystem changes. The research, platform, and interaction is built as such that is able to become a replicable model for similar challenges other sector and/or cities.