Learn Through Memories. A Didactic Way to Learn and Teach with the Use of a Digital Knitwear Archive

Born with a very artisanal and manual connotation, knitwear design has evolved into a highly technological industrial practice supported by digital tools and advanced machinery. For this reason, teaching in the field is a constant challenge requiring innovation and updated information, together with a memory of the more traditional aspects. The article reports a research work born at Politecnico di Milano upon the acquisition of the material archive of knitted samples donated to the School of Design by Marina Spadafora, a designer with a long-standing career in the knitwear field. Given the archive as a rich physical resource, collected and classified by the knitwear professional along her creative career as a daily-basis working tool, academic researchers questioned how they could extend its purpose to bring innovation to teaching and learning methods, combining the physical and the digital dimension. The research investigated the needs of knit design students, researchers, and professional designers to identify the advantages and the barriers in consulting the archive and connected the more theoretical notions about knit structures and the increasingly digital practices with the material heritage of the archive to result in a resource that stimulates students’ creativity and increases the learning experience.