Any fans of the Blue Peter “makes” out there? Still upset that your recreation of Tracy Island turned out looking more like Mount Etna? Salvation is at hand! Here’s something we spotted at TENT London that you can try at home – just make sure you ask your parents’ permission before using a saw.
The Reliving Room is a recycled living room that the Chilean design studio of Bernadita Marambio brought to this year’s London Design Festival. The country’s capital Santiago produces 46,000 tons of textile waste per year that normally ends up in landfills, so anything that makes a dent in that figure is a step in the right direction. To make this seat at home, you’ll just need to cut up an old pair of jeans, or that ropey Hawaiian shirt you’ve been saving for a rainy day. The next bit is patented, so you’ll need to experiment a bit, but it involves making a kind of textile version of Oriented Strand Board called Demodé® – by combining the off-cuts with a biodegradable glue and modified starch, which is dried in an oven (possibly gas mark 3 for an hour, but that’s a bit of a guess to be honest) and fitted around a metal frame that dictates the shape of the chair.
The base is made from mañío wood, but any wood you have lying around the house will be fine. The table and even the wall cladding of this living room installation was made with the same process, while the art nouveau Tiffany lampshade is a paper reproduction based on the original 1895 design available on the internet, and the vases are recycled high density plastic containers. Alternatively leave it to Marambio and partner Cristóbal Rifo, they seem to know what they’re doing. Worthy, and rather lovely.
Photo © We Heart
