“The 20 warmest years have been recorded in the past 22 years” - Temperature Textiles project, Raw Color studio
Communicating climate change through textiles: this is the latest challenge that Raw Color undertook from the end of 2021. Raw Color, the Eindhoven-based studio consisting of the founders Daniera ter Haar, Christoph Brach and their team, designed Temperature Textiles, a self-initiated project which aims at sewing climate change data on a series of textile objects.
WHO ARE THEY?
The studio is a multidisciplinary hub that aims at “materializing colors across design disciplines” throughout commissioned and self-initiating projects.
The studio embodies a unique approach that orbits around the single topic of investigating colors. They combine this abstract concept with the concreteness of materials, design products, and graphics by blending disciplines, to extract the very last meaning, the “raw”, of what colors can drive, express, or teach.
The most important focus point of the identity [is] colour, material, tactility and combining these into a system
TEMPERATURE TEXTILES COLLECTION
At first glance, the intertwined textures reveal a high sensibility in the choice of noble materials, as a strong awareness in combining colors.
However, by looking more closely, numbers, lines, and diagrams start displaying forming an unusual graphic texture.
The fabric drapes hide a succession of statistics reworked from the data of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the institute which Raw Color dialogued with for basing the proposal (or it should be said the proposals) of Temperature Textiles.
The collection designed by Daniera ter Haar and Christoph Brach is a real manifesto, or rather, a photograph that sews on a series of textile objects data from a very hot topic: the climate crisis.
Nevertheless, the collection, ironically woven to "warm" the user, joins statistics and scientific data on a very different type of heat.
Knitted blankets, scarves, and socks encapsulate messages by manifesting “three main drivers and results of Global Warming which can be identified as Temperature Change, Sea Level Rise and Emission” (Raw Color studio).
The canvases designed by the Eindhoven studio incorporate directly into the warp records data on temperature changes, sea-level rise, and CO2 emissions. The blankets, as well as scarves and socks, translate the values in the form of decoration, transforming the information collected both on the past scenario and on future forecasts into soft linear tracks.
In addition, the studio built up an interactive dedicated website for the project. By collaborating with the coding studio Grnd Cntrl, the three sections are displayed and linked to the main environmental issue (Temperature Change, Sea Level Rise, and Emission) which are defined by three different carefully curated color schemes, in order to support each category and the communicate certain value.
“The diagrams shown are based on the prediction models until 2100, as presented by IPCC. Each dataset is based on four emission models, RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways) 2.6, 4.0, 6.5, and 8.5. These range from the least emission, according to Paris Climate Agreement until the maximum emission without any decrease of Greenhouse Gas emission” (from Textile Temperature website).
The website also embodies live data counters from other platforms such as theworldcounts.com, which displays real-time parameters of the “planet's health status” like the World average temperature (°C) that keeps rising slowly.
TEMPERATURE CHANGE
For Temperature change, Raw Studio selected warm shades.
SEA LEVEL RISE
The Sea Level rise is based on cooler shades.
EMISSION

“The 4 highlighted lines represent the rise of 7 cm in 2020, 12cm in 2030, 17cm in 2040, 22 cm in 2050. These numbers are based on the most ideal emission scenario (RCP 2.8) according to Paris Climate Agreement”
(From Temperature Textiles website)
Courtesy Photo Raw Color
For Emission, Raw Studio selected a mix of warm and cooler shades.
The daily exposure to news about the climate change plague is omnipresent in our lives but complex to understand. The information is often spared and perceived as far from our daily routine. In contrast to this “paralyzing” condition of the user Raw color scales the problem and proposes a breathing product. The textiles collection strives to raise awareness and stimulate active behavior to reduce personal CO2 emissions.
For example, some fabrics show Global Warming variations in intensity depending on the region and on human (compared to natural) drivers of Temperature Change, pointing out the social responsibility of every human being.
Raw Color has also collaborated with experts such as KNMI for data-related input and with TextielLab and Knitwearlab for the product development of the knitted textiles. The choice of knitting as a production technique allows the reduction of waste due to its made-to-measure ability and creates heavier quality fabric.
In 2021, the product sales generated by the Temperature Textiles e-shop have been partially donated to the NGO Trees for All for planting 200 trees between the Netherlands and Vietnam, in order to contribute binding the CO2 as a side outcome of Raw Color’s project.
They committed themselves to donating 10% of Temperature Textiles sales after 2022.
Guess what? A pair of socks is already in my cart.
INFO
Courtesy photo: Raw Color
Raw Color team: Daniera ter Haar, Christoph Brach, Tijs Van Nieuwenhuysen, Noortje de Keijzer, Mirjam de Bruijn, Michelle Schipper, Anne van Dreumel, Jasmijn Schoonen
Coding website: Grnd Cntrl / Mark Brand
The project is supported by:
Creative Industries Fund, Stichtingstokroos, Cultuur Eindhoven