In Archway, North London, a team is turning a patch of urban land into a working textile farm that grows reeds and natural dyes while grazing angora rabbits. This matters because the building and fashion industries currently degrade soil health and wildlife habitats, treating urban land as purely productive for humans. The project tests whether public land can instead support a “textile commons”—a regenerative system that produces fibre, dye, and fabric while actively restoring habitats for insects, birds, and soil life. It also tackles a known obstacle: getting people to change their behaviour. Using a behaviour-change framework, the researchers will map what capabilities, opportunities, and motivations local residents need to become stewards of this system. If successful, the project could reshape how cities think about green space. Rather than ornamental lawns, public land might host reed-beds that filter water, produce dye, and shelter wildlife, while managed rabbit grazing regenerates soil. The partnership with Islington Council means these ideas could scale into public-realm design and green-economy policies. The work is applied and place-based, not fundamental science—its immediate aim is a working prototype and a governance model for urban textile production.
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Both the building and fashion industry impact land-use and soil health with little consideration for more-than-human species, their habitats and overall planetary biodiversity. Extensive research has been conducted by the PI and RA mapping this research problem that will contextualise this proposed work. This research seeks to create a more than human centred textile commons to rethink what we categorise as productive land in the city. The site is Archway - North London within Archway Creative Enterprise Zone (CEZ). CEZs are zones of cultural innovation allocated by Greater London Authority (GLA). This project is in partnership with London Borough of Islington’s (LBI) Inclusive Economy department who are leading the CEZ. This partnership is embedded in various council policies ranging from social wealth building in green economies, to community-led climate awareness building partnerships. Our community partner is the Maya Centre who supports wellbeing of women of different ethnic backgrounds who have faced discrimination of some sort. A textile commons is a holistic regenerative material system that focuses on building relationships with the more-than-human. It includes: 1) regenerative raw fibre production that cares for more-than-human habitats, 2) regenerative and community development methods to turn fibres into fabric, 3) conceptualising land as a primary material needed for green economies, 4) maps of existing and needed local assets that includes more-than-human species as agents, and 5) design of governance models to sustain the textile commons (i.e community development trusts). The textile commons will focus on 3 raw materials: 1) Angora rabbit hair 3) natural dyes and 2) reeds. By prototyping a 3 tiered reed-bed that supports numerous habitats, we test growing natural dyes and reeds (see fig1). Through managed harvesting the reed-bed cab retain the habitats it generates whilst providing natural dye filtration system, dyes and reeds. We will be exploring how shepherding angora rabbits through managed grazing can regenerate soil biomes and introduce new habitats in urban green spaces. With our partners LBI we will imagine how these habitat development projects can scale and be integrated into public realm design. Our previous work which we are here building on, identified human behaviour change as an obstacle to large scale impact. Thus, this research project also assesses the essential components needed for behaviour change, which according to Michie et al. (2011), for behaviour change (B) to occur: Capability (C), Opportunity (O), and Motivation (M) needs mapping. This project shall seek to understand the capabilities, opportunities and motivations needed to engage in the behaviour of producing regenerative textile and new types of urban land use that prioritise more than human before and after our interventions are delivered. The project in partnership with LBI and Maya Centre will: (1) frame more-than-human habitats as beneficiaries of productive urban land, (2) Develop a sustainable framework for employment to position local residents as more-than-human stewards through regenerative textile production, (3) consolidate behaviour change between humans and other species by optimising capabilities, opportunities and motivations, and (4) frame all of this as part of a holistic textile commons system with GLA’s CEZ. The methodology will focus on action-based learning and research embedded in tangible experience, as described in the methodology later. Our research question is: How can we use urban public land to create a textiles production system that can develop mutual care between the human and the more-than-human world?
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