Things We Love: Upcycled Furniture
Demolishing old buildings produces huge amounts of waste. In fact, in Australia the construction industry generates around 40% of the country’s waste. We think it is high time someone got creative with the rubble after the wrecking ball hits, so we were delighted to stumble across StoneCycling.
Since 2013, Amsterdam-based start-up StoneCycling has been developing ways to transform architectural waste salvaged from demolished structures. The company’s new arm of business collaboration with a local design studio, Ultra Studio, and introduced the creation of upcycled furniture pieces.
Waste-based materials destined for landfill have been reworked into beautiful dining tables, pendant lights and floor lamps for buyers to enjoy for years to come. The series of furniture is designed to push the boundaries of our imagination about where waste can take us in the future and showcases how cast-off industrial rubble can be transformed into elegant objects. All products are carefully made by hand, crafting waste into something new, something sustainable and something beautiful.
The StoneCycling concept initially started at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. During his design studies, co-founder of the company, Tom van Soest, focused during on using the full potential of waste to create new building materials. Using the waste materials as a starting point, he started to grind, blend and process them in different ways. This led to surprising results uncovering the great potential and value waste materials can have. In 2013 he founded StoneCycling together with Ward Massa. Today, Stone Cycling is now one of the pioneers in designing, developing and producing unique building materials from waste.
The beautiful furniture pieces can’t help but start to shift the perception around waste materials – something that is crucial for wider adoption by everyday consumers. “What we’re aiming with the interior collection is if someone eats dinner at a waste table or turns on a lamp made from waste, the concept of being surrounded by waste becomes cool or acceptable,” Massa says. “If we start seeing waste as valuable, it opens up a range of possibilities.”
The pieces are also a reminder of the copious amounts of building waste produced each year, incentivizing more sustainable design in the process. We love StoneCyclings upcycled furniture (more info on their website www.stonecycling.com) , but the day no construction waste exists to make them will be a very happy day for the team at Modscape.
