Waste No More
A series of derelict vaults underneath Milan’s Central Station, was home to Ventura Projects during 2018 Design Week. The beautifully raw, arched spaces created an atmospheric backdrop for 10 installations, by both established and emerging designers.
Architect and designer Stephan Hürlemann created ‘Giants with Dwarf’, using table and chair parts, from the archive of Switzerland’s oldest furniture manufacturer, Horgenglarus. All components were left in their found condition, highlighting the creativity that can develop from adaptive reuse. In today’s throw-away society, it has become increasingly important to keep resources in use for as long as possible, in order to extract the maximum value. As designers we should be consciously working to minimise waste, and reusing materials that already exist in a space, wherever possible.
Also focused on sustainability was Eileen Fisher with the exhibition ‘DesignWork’. As a way of recycling her company’s own goods, Fisher buys back clients old clothes, generating a new stream of pre-worn merchandise. This collage of scraps was created from those which were irreparable, its purpose to ‘illustrate that recycling is a business model which can set companies free from their own commercial rules’1. The designers brand has evolved out of societies overconsumption – ‘establishing a new form of aesthetic activism’1. Were more brands to adopt this model, spectators could be transformed into activated users, whose happiness is defined less by consumption, and more by the positive impact that they are having on the environment.
Not the only designer promoting the circular economy in Milan this year, Fisher was joined by utopian-architect and designer Yona Friedman, whose installation focused on the recycling of packaging waste, as well as ecoBirdy. These environmentally responsible designers, recover and regenerate plastic products, in an attempt to prevent the current likelihood, of there being more plastic than fish in the ocean, by 2050. This coincides with a recent pledge by all major supermarkets, and multi-national corporations Coca-Cola and Nestle, to remove all unnecessary, single use plastics from use, by 2025. For me this has highlighted that we as interior designers, should be evaluating our materiality choices on more than just aesthetics and cost.
1. Lidewij Eddelkoort