Now, a Dutch designer named Joost Gehem …makes stools from dead people’s belongings.
To be fair, the one-line description of Gehem’s seating collection is a little sensational. In fact, the Eindhoven native uses all kinds of unwanted belongings, some of them coming from the estates of the deceased, others coming from repossessed homes.
“135,000 deaths, 32,000 divorces, 10,000 bankruptcies, and thousands of hospitalizations occur each year,” he explains, talking only about the Netherlands. “Many household inventories are left without a home. If heirs and dealers have no interest in the household goods, they usually end up in the local dump.”
More: Stools Made From Dead People’s Stuff | Co.Design: business innovation design
El Anatsui must be one of the greatest recyclers on the planet. Dirty, rusted and smashed liquor bottle caps are transformed into incredible tapestries that sparkle like precious metals in his current exhibition at Jack Shainman Gallery.
(via Unframed: Tapestries of Trash by El Anatsui - Design Milk)
Earlier Uncon mention of El Anatsui (way back in 2009!), here.
3-D printing is really cool and fascinating, but one can’t help but wonder sometimes about the downside of simply cranking out a bunch of new and not terribly useful plastic junk. Thus, this caught my eye:
As the potential output scenarios of 3D printing grow, our thoughts turn to input; while 3D printing replaces the need to use traditional, more costly resources like wood, the use of plastics isn’t the most eco-friendly. To help make the process more sustainable, Vermont Technical College student Tyler McNaney created The Filabot, a desktop machine that recycles common plastics into 3D printing filament.
More: Desktop Machine Recycles Plastic Into 3D Printing ‘Ink’ - PSFK
How E-Waste Is Becoming a Big, Global Problem
The big theme here is not breaking news to Unconsumption readers, but Science Friday’s recent segment on e-waste is still pretty informative:According to the EPA, more than 2.5 million tons of electronic waste, or e-waste, is produced each year in the U.S. Derek Markham, a contributing writer for Treehugger.com, discusses the global impacts, and why you should think twice before discarding your old cell phone.
Reinventing the wheel (quite literally) is Portuguese designer João Bruno Videira, who has taken upcycling to an inspiring level. Rather than just slapping a bit of paint onto a retro 1970s sideboard, Videira has combined his weaving craft with the recycling phenomenon creating fun, contemporary and newly functional furniture.
More: Interiors | Crafty Upcycling | Pattern People | Surface Design Inspiration
Self-taught sculpture artist Haroshi is using the discarded leftovers of broken skateboards to create striking wooden creations.The 35-year-old Tokyo resident, who prefers to not use his full name, began skating at age 15 in Kanagawa, amassing a growing stack of broken decks and parts. Ten years later, his collection overflowing, a friend suggested he find a way to do something with them. Cutting into one of the decks with a saw, he noticed an interesting pattern of stripes from its laminated layers of wood, and got to work on his first creation, a wooden bangle-style bracelet.
Since then, Haroshi’s sculptures have used the imagery of skateboard culture as inspiration for many of his pieces, utilizing multi-colored skateboard ply in both stacked layers and mosaic patterns. The output ranges from skateboarding cats to Airwalk sneakers. And, of course, skulls and demons.
(via Broken Skateboards Become Stunning Wooden Sculptures | Wired Design | Wired.com)
We’ve highlighted Haroshi’s earlier work, here. But this piece above is too awesome to ignore!
And needless to say we’ve hit the recycled skateboard deck theme more than once, go here for more.
Dutch designers Waarmakers have created sustainable rubbish sacks for discarding unwanted items in good condition, in the hope that they’ll be picked up by a new owner instead of ending up at a landfill site.
Once full, the bags with transparent panels are left in the street along with normal refuse so passers-by can pick them up and make use of their contents. The items are kept clean and dry but still visible, and if they remain in place when the refuse collection truck passes then they will be taken away with the rest of the rubbish.
Interesting idea … though, plastic(?).
More: Goedzak sustainable rubbish sacks by Waarmakers and http://waarmakers.nl/projects/goedzak/
InDezign’s TweeTin instantly transforms your old coffee tins into a perfect nesting sanctuary for our feathered friends. Simply clean out your old tins, screw through the bottom to affix them to a vertical surface like a wall or tree, clip on the TweeTin cover and… voila!
Composed of flexible, recycled plastics, there are a number of sizes and each is easily to clean so they can be reused year-to-year during nesting season.
January 16, 2013 6:30 – 8:15pm
199 Lafayette Street, Third Floor
New York City
Just past Spring at Kenmare—and upstairs from La Esquina!A choreographer finds beauty and grace in garbage trucks and, against the odds, rallies reluctant city trash collectors to perform an extraordinary dance spectacle. On an abandoned airport runway, two dozen sanitation workers—and their trucks—inspire an audience of thousands. Trash Dance chronicles this beautiful and unique work of art while also highlighting the way art can unite a community.
More: Trash Dance: Screening and Conversation « Discard Studies
Via: Everyday Trash
![The Maker Movement Lowers Consumption and Waste:
The Maker Movement was born out of the desire to invent, design, create, hack, reinvent, and build things of one’s own hands. While people have certainly been doing this since, well, humans have existed, making things has taken off in the last several years largely due to new tools, digital and physical, that enable makers to design and build things on a small scale with little prior knowledge and only spare equipment. What has blossomed from this, is a raft of community knowledge such as that found on Instructables, as well as sites dedicated to selling niche craft items, like Etsy.
How is this good for green? [The idea is that] people value and will keep and use custom goods longer than mass-produced goods….
…
So, what’s your take? Will the Maker Movement lead us to greener pastures or is it just a way to pass the time?](http://25.media.tumblr.com/28f8de3cdbc5ef821cfa7a44e3dbe446/tumblr_mg5odopBv11qzv12bo1_400.jpg)
The Maker Movement Lowers Consumption and Waste:
The Maker Movement was born out of the desire to invent, design, create, hack, reinvent, and build things of one’s own hands. While people have certainly been doing this since, well, humans have existed, making things has taken off in the last several years largely due to new tools, digital and physical, that enable makers to design and build things on a small scale with little prior knowledge and only spare equipment. What has blossomed from this, is a raft of community knowledge such as that found on Instructables, as well as sites dedicated to selling niche craft items, like Etsy.
How is this good for green? [The idea is that] people value and will keep and use custom goods longer than mass-produced goods….
…
So, what’s your take? Will the Maker Movement lead us to greener pastures or is it just a way to pass the time?
Christmas Tree Table, by Fabien Cappello
Brent Dzekciorius on Christmas Tree Table “Underscoring his wider interest in mapping design via local resource and manufacturing methods, Cappello’s Christmas Tree Project exploits a discarded material, expanding Christmas trees’ seemingly finite economy by upcycling them into elegantly joined, rough-hewn furnishings in a project that could have a profound impact on maintaining and even expanding regional craft traditions.”
Michael Marriott on Christmas Tree Table “This is a project built around the observation of the annual January dumping of Christmas trees on the streets of London. The resourcefulness that brought this rich source to surface as furniture-making material is also apparent in the construction and feel of the finished pieces. The ‘M&W’ joints between the different stumps provide an odd and interesting way of connecting the slices of different trunks, both structurally and aesthetically.”
(via RAW CRAFT)
Back in 2010, we mentioned Cappello’s work on these lines, here.
We researched the full lifecycle of mobile phones, from manufacturing, through use, repair, and recycling. In designing the Smarter Phone, we were inspired by the design of desktop computer hard drives, particularly their ease of disassembly, repair and upgrade by components.We tried to create a product that escapes the problem of rapid obsolescence, since it will be able to meet all of a user’s needs without requiring them to buy a new phone every time they want new or replacement features.
(via Redesigning the Mobile Phone: Building Electronics to Last | Technology on GOOD)
