Can sustainable design help us develop new aesthetic possibilities?
One of our current production methods’ most obvious problem is waste. How does design deal with this issue? Waste is often hidden, or molded into new appealing shapes in order to conceal its origins.
Generating different kinds of furniture by combining and re-contextualizing both industrial and urban waste, CastAway Furniture proposes and develops a new aesthetic language to embody the conceptual and physical implications of waste in our lives.
The result is a collection of challenging objects that comprises a critique of society, highlights the issues of waste production and disposal, but also offers a vision for change. The project research focuses on the hierarchies of values that society assigns to waste and how almost every material can be converted into new functional artifacts through the design process.
In CastAway Furniture the materials found always dictate the evolution of the design process; this approach offers a model that can be used in multiple circumstances and with different materials each time.
Inspired by Adhocism theories and design principles elevating necessity as the mother of invention, Bianchi’s furniture is free from pre-structured aesthetics and inevitably proposes new, unexpected solutions.
Bianchi’s modus operandi is a never-ending problem solving and creativity exercise, which has no design limits except for the ethical commitment to the recovery of waste. The furniture resulting from this learning through making process is revealed in three steps: re-appropriation of unused resources; selection and combination of materials; improvisation and flexibility in construction.
BIO
Ilaria Bianchi is a furniture and product designer from Pisa, Italy. She developed her interest for sustainable design while studying at the Polytechnic University of Turin.
After obtaining her Industrial Design degree she continued her research by travelling all over Europe and living and working in Sweden, Spain and Great Britain. She has worked for design studios (Fredrik Paulsen, U.A.U. Studio), international design brands (BoConcept) and major arts and cultural centres (Somerset House, Victoria & Albert Museum), while never ceasing to study and promote supportable practices through her creations.
Her leading project, Castaway Furniture, was developed over of the course of two years of research during her Furniture Design MA at London’s Central Saint Martins University of the Arts.
To read more about Ilaria Bianchi, click here.
