By PATRICK REVERE
So what does someone do with a used overhead
flipper bin? Shoot That question and others like it about
retired office furniture has led students at a Chicago design
school to team up with Haworth Inc. to find creative and more
feasible ways to keep old pieces out of landfills.
Georgy Olivieri, Haworth's vice president of architecture and
design, said she was approached last year by a consortium of
colleges and universities that are customers of the
Holland-based furniture maker. The idea was to take older,
heavier, less versatile pieces of office furniture and find
new uses for them.
"There comes a point where it's at the end of life, where
people really need to re-think it," said Olivieri, who works
out of Haworth's Chicago office. "It was a very thoughtful
approach from this client, and that's what really set all this
off.
"Just because landfills are the answer now doesn't mean it's
what we should keep doing."
To start the project, the group of 20 graduate students at
Chicago's Archeworks compiled a long list of possible uses for
out-of-date furniture, from the far-fetched to practical.
Build cat play areas or low-income housing?
"Our real objective is to bring design to areas of social
need, areas that wouldn't normally have design as part of the
problem solving process," said Eva Maddox, an architect and
designer noted for her "branded environments," which denote
the specific character and purpose of office space.
Maddox, who more than 10 years ago helped the city of Muskegon
redesign its waterfront, said the students' primary success to
this point has been the transformation of that flipper bin.
"They drilled holes through it in an aesthetically pleasing
way to take some of the weight off, and put it on casters so
it can roll from place to place," Maddox said. "They've
transformed this into something more like a storage bin for
toys."
Lisa Kulisek, an architect at Tigerman McMurry in Chicago, is
working with the Archeworks students to lend structure to the
creative process.
"I think we may still uncover some better ideas in the next
half of the year," she said. "What we've seen is that the
things that are made from the wall hopper (flipper bin) are
really interesting to people. They put it on its side and used
a new coat of paint and it's a whole new product. People
really seem to like it."
Kulisek said the students will continue to work on this and
other ideas, finally preparing a report and presenting a list
of possible solutions to Haworth and the furniture industry at
large in May.
"What Haworth is hoping to do with Archeworks is create this
dialogue and share information within the industry. It's
worked very well to bring competitors closer together,"
Olivieri said.
A primary focus for the students in coming months will be the
reuse of office partitions that are being replaced in many
offices by sleeker, lighter weight models.
Using a tall partition unit and the side panels of the flipper
bin, along with some extra padding, the students made a cot,
or day bed, that would be usable for emergency accommodations
for homeless people or even a pared-down version for day-care
use.
"They just really started to explore how those (partitions)
can be adapted to other uses. I'm not sure they've hit on the
one really good idea that they want, but I think that will
come along over the next few months," Kulisek said.
Archeworks students have engaged in what Kulisek calls
"furniture rescue missions," taking pieces from closed or
newly furnished offices that could not be sold and were headed
to the landfill.
Olivieri said maybe the most difficult part of the project has
been figuring out the appropriate way to divide materials,
particularly with desks and other work surfaces that are made
up of laminant, a compressed core material and rubber edging.
"It's a matter of taking that apart into the three elements,
trying to leave enough of each that can be used," she said.
In the past, students at Archeworks have designed pill boxes
to assist people with AIDS in properly medicating themselves,
and designed a bike helmet that better protects the rider's
head.
"These students have such a unique ability to use design in
such an unusual way," Olivieri said. "They can come up with
real usable solutions at the end of the day." |
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Source:
Holland Sentinel Business |
