There are so many great things happening in the world today. I know that these are also troublesome times. But if we want to make this world a better place we should especially focus on the good things. And in the world of design there’s finally, but slowly, a conscious growing that things should change. The materials used, the way the design is produced and the sustainability are all becoming more and more important issues. For a lot of big designers this still doesn’t imply, but in time it hopefully will.
And what better place than here on upcycleDZINE to show you another great example.
Waste wood turns into playful eco design
This time the upcycle design piece is from a land known for it’s vineyards. France, also a country with amazing creative people. Two of those, Laura Iriart and Arthur Trichelieu, teamed up in 2013 to start an eco friendly design company called HURLU, based in Bordeaux. In this post upcycleDZINE is showing a design series they created called BEC. It’s a playful lighting series of box shaped lamps that can be used in different ways.
The BEC collection features tree types of lamps and all use wood as a material to create a cube that contains the light source. The laminated faces with openings allows light to project an energetic array of shadows.
Back to wine. Laura and Arthur noted that a wine box factory in Aquitaine had quite an amount of discarded wood. So they decided to use this waste material for the production of their BEC family.
HURLU:
“In an industrialized world where daily tons of waste is produced, giving a second life to these in principle unusable materials, can be a great way to reduce the ecological footprint that means mass production. We produce this collection with a French carpenter, and the association eco Workshop integral of Bordeaux, promoting and strengthening the economy and local industry. A 100% French design service based on a logic of eco-design and social and solidarity economy.”
Another great aspect about the BEC series is that they are manufactured by persons with disabilities within an ESAT. A work-based care facility (ESAT) in France is a protected social-work institution for persons with disabilities aiming at their integration or social and occupational reintegration.
Photos © HURLU
All in all HURLU has succeeded in the creation of a design product that shows how upcycle design and social awareness can go together.