Schoolchildren create award-winning loom for turning old clothes into new textiles

Pupils from Cambourne Village College in Cambridgeshire, England, have won the Design Museum's Design Ventura competition with a simple loom that can be used to refashion unwanted garments.

Loopy Loom took home the top prize in the annual contest, which encourages secondary school students aged between 13 and 16 to create a product that can be sold in the Design Museum shop.

This year's brief, under the theme of Change set by Rodrigo García González and Karlijn Sibbel of compostable single-use packaging company Notpla, invited entrants to design a product to improve the everyday life for a specific target user group.

The team from Cambourne Village College hoped to combat fast fashion waste by developing a simple, family-friendly tool for turning old clothes into new products.

Loopy Loom is also designed to encourage parents and children to learn and create together.

The simple wooden frame features a laser-cut edge for holding the warp and weft threads in place when weaving. The instructions suggest cutting old clothing or textiles into strips that can be woven into versatile panels.

Loopy Loom was selected as the winner from a shortlist of ten projects by a panel of expert judges, including Sibbel and designer Sebastian Conran, who is a trustee of the Design Museum.

Also on the judging panel was Jodie Valery – a member of the first winning Design Ventura team and now a professional illustrator and graphic designer.

The Design Ventura contest, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, aims to nurture creativity and innovation amongst young people by providing an opportunity to respond to a live brief.

So far, the competition has engaged 170,000 students across 3,600 schools.

A teacher from Cambourne Village College argued that Design Ventura "allows students to have a real experience of the design world".

"It motivates them to improve skills such as initiative, research, creativity, teamwork and critical thinking – all skills the future generation will need," she explained.

This year's winning project by Cambourne Village College will now be developed with support from a professional design agency before being manufactured and sold in the Design Museum Shop. Money raised from the sales goes to a charity of the school's choosing.

Previous winners of the contest include a compact avocado cutter for use on the go and a card game that helps children learn about colours by searching them out in their environment.

The photography is by Richard Heald.

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