(created illustrated example)
##Summary
Building new furnitures from scratch does not always make sense when trashed materials can be collected and transformed into new furnitures. The main difficulty is to “standardize” what is not “standardizable”. In order to make the current & future reuse easier.
##Background / Context
This challenge is proposed by Makea Tu Vida (Barcelona), a group of designers, architects, thinkers and builders that work for increasing awareness about the problematics of waste in our society. „From a critical and a participative vision, we operate within the fields of training, research and development with the aim to encourage creative upcycling and the use of non toxic and pollutant products. We already designed various furnitures from different materials (plastic, wood,…) and facilited different workshops to a broad audience.“
##Challenge
„We started - but still lack a formailzed documentation - to outline and to explore new furniture solutions through design processes that involve open source and reuse methodologies.“
Building upcycled furnitures mean by definition that you are not certain of the material you will use. You depend on what you can collect. And many pieces are not made to be reused. And whith the parts that are, you often end up glueing, sawing or transforming them in other ways, that make the recycling for the next people even harder. It is just adding one more life-cycle before grave, not creating infinite cycles.
We are aiming at providing open standards to transform “waste” into modular and easy to dissassemble furnitures that then make infinite reuse and hacking possible. In order to achieve the process of upcycling furnitures, we need a kind of catalogue/manual/recipies that provide the information and technical specifications.
##Process (& Call for Help)
We will post some updates about our workshop challenge in Barcelona, and are happy about any suggestions, or questions from you or offers for collaboration.
##Resources
Makea Tu Vida Website
