Renewable Resources - Practical Examples for a New Design
The waste materials as (painted) wood are used in a very successful design from Piet Hein Eek Within a co-operation he succeeded also in selling these products. The products are neat and expensive, the market nice is clearly for the rich people. It may look like rubbish, but it is a genuine Piet Hein Eek. Among chair, closets and tables he also produces special furniture for children.
Another basic design movement is to transfer products with a certain emotional
value into new products with new functions. In this case a technically obsolete
product (this is a long play record, nowadays still known by DJ’s) is transferred
into a fruit bowl. It was mend to be a service on demand: send in your most
precious old LP and get it back with a new function. Drawback in this case had
to do with the expensive handling and production (PVC).
Another variation of the theme to use waste material is to use the waste materials from the factories. Here you see part of the venetian blind which is used as a measurement tool. In co-operation with one of the largest producers (Hunter Douglas) waste material of the wooden venetian blinds were also used to make new products. The combination of the various colours gave an interesting and exclusive look to the produced floor tiles.
The substitution market for products out of wood seemed very interesting these days and many initiatives like Plato (cooked wood) and several wood plastic composites were introduced to diminish the use of tropical wood in specific application fields. The first use of the newly pressed material KLP/Ekon (used polyethylene) was as a construction material. The waste plastic was recycled into poles and plates, which could be used as road markings or as a construction material in playgrounds. The introduction was driven by the plastic manufacturers and legislation.
Further more this material was discovered by designers and they tried to bring a new impulse to the material by designing products for people. In fact the material itself has not changed and will still remember the road signs. Another problem is the not pleasant appearance of the material. It will be very challenging to design a nice product in such an ugly looking material.
Another way to incorporate natural resources into existing products like this bicycle with bamboo frame pipes. Several problems have to be looked at e.g the lugs and the outdoor usability.
Plastic began as imitations of ivory and tortoise shell. Fibre reinforced plastics seemed to be doomed to imitate metal. In 1995 Droog design decided to explore the aesthetic idiosyncrasies Of modern high tech composites. The Structures and Materials Laboratory of the Faculty for Aerospace Engineering (Delft University of Technology) gracefully put itself at the disposal of Droog Designers. The clash between systematic scientific research and design Experimenting was peculiar but productive. Plastics with fibres are extremely strong, but they also appear to have an unexpected aesthetic potential that deserves further exploration. The results were shown in Milan in ‘96 and ‘97
One of the results is this knotted chair where Macramé meets high-tech. By a surprising marriage of handcraft and industrial technology (Carbon, Aramide Epoxy) this lightweight chair is born. This technique could also be interesting for natural fibers and natural resins with the same properties as epoxy. In fact it looks rather strange to see a ‘natural’ design in a high tech material.
Many times the gap between the known products in combination with their materials and products in renewable materials is very huge. It might be interesting to design a common product in a renewable material than a very much Eco product like often is the case. The key phrase must be: design a good product.
For some agricultural products there will not be a gap and the natural products will even look better, because of the natural surrounding.
Most of the renewable materials producers start off with a product that is closely linked to the ‘disappear property of the material. As an example probably not bad, but as a product killing. We discovered that there is no environmental problem with the known golf tees on the golf court. There might as well be one in the production, but in the use we found out that some biodegradable materials were also known as edible materials for rats, mice and other unwanted animals on the courses.
CD tray, also not really a more functional design, but more appropriate for special didjeridoo music or business packaging claiming environmentally sound products. These trays were made from NAPAC and Hemp
When designing in a new material like the known TREEPLAST composite, we tried to accomplice a connection between the original wood and the freedom of making a 3D form as in plastics. The wood connection is hardly possible in cutting wood, but more easy in thermoforming like injection moulding. It gives a whole new dimension in wood processing. Of course Treeplast and alike materials are still in development. The same goes for the loudspeakers, as the traditional sound characteristics of wood were hardly imitated by the plastic loudspeakers, a Treeplast loudspeaker could easily compete in sound.
Traditional materials goes with traditional design. Not only the mass production of imitation miniature wooden shoes could profit of the new materials, but the material could also be incorporated into the normal shoe industry as replacement of the expensive wooden parts.
The skipstone was made to really produce a new product out of the new material. It helped us a lot in the discussion with people about renewable resources. They actually needed to think about a product (do you throw it away? Does it come back, etc.) Through the internet we really got people enthusiastic about the product, we even reached the world champion. His comment: “bottom line is they do not skip very well….” But we could very well use it for test purposes.
From the wooden shoe it is only a small step to the easybulb, a packaging concept for souvenir articles. We designed a lot of Treeplast examples for the packaging industry, unfortunately non of these designs were a success yet. Factors in packaging design differ a lot from normal products as weight, strength and visibility are important factors.
This wine tab has to be seen as an added value product for wine shops or gift shops. It makes it possible to label the bottle with necessary information and also functions as a drop catcher, if you spill some wine, the wine clip will collect it for you. It is a simple form, but maybe a little too simple. The material properties are well fitted to the product group (wines)
Of course we all want to design useful functional products. As product need to be sold you need to co-operate closely with marketing and producers to improve the product towards the consumer and the producer. Many interesting products were developed through an example product that may not be perfect but gives enough inspiration for better products you could not even imagine. That goes for normal products as well as for products out of renewable resources. The combination of at least two (technical) properties could bring you to a good product.
One advantage of Treeplast is the smooth surface, on the other hand it looked more plastic than wood, because of the lack of surface and structure. We could improve these aspects through surface roughness and the use of coloured fibres. Several renewable resources do have the ‘natural’ look but some of them lack this look and cannot even be distinguished from the non-natural ones. That could be a problem in relation to the waste care
For that we researched the possibilities of incorporating the natural look into the PLA packaging. PLA looks and feels almost the same as a normal plastic, but is bio degradable. We looked through very different aspects like branding, labelling and the like. One of our options in fact was to incorporate natural fibres - in this case natural spices- into the material.
Products that seemed to be very interesting to be realised in Treeplast could come only to us by spreading the news. On the left side you’ll see a technical product for medium voltage electricity, where Treeplast is used in combination with graphite for electricity guidance. The tray on the right hand side is used to transport 24 chips from the manufacturer to the computer assembling industry. Requirements are high for the material, so the material is expensive. With Treeplast we managed to meet the technical requirements but till now the slightly higher production costs are in our way. So chances are there for incorporating renewable resources in the normal world!
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update: 16/4/04
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