If you think "green design" can't be appealing, works by a group of English designers together with their Thai counterparts currently on display at the "Everything Forever Now" exhibition at TCDC will make you think again.
FROM LEFT
- Elderly on the Move by the Open Space group in Pathum Thani.
- Air Bike by EADS, a bike made of nylon.
- Plumen, an energysaving designer light bulb by Hulger.
The works, some 30 or so items, are a response of designers to the environmental crisis we are facing and they have proved that eco-design has gone beyond the "3R" concept _ reduce, reuse, recycle. Some of the designers, with concern for the increasing deficiency of resources like wood and fuels, go for something with longevity, not just resorting to alternative resources.
Pichit Virankabuta, TCDC event and exhibition director, said that "to live with the green" is the new trend to follow. Designers are challenging themselves with the most they can make out of something and the least it will impact on the world.
"The designs we chose to bring here, not only are they concerned for the environment, they are trying to present something new. They are fresh and inspiring. They are showing that eco can also be sexy," said Henrietta Thompson, the exhibition curator and the author of Remake It: Home a DIY design guide employing good design for a resourceful waste-free lifestyle.
The exhibition, a collaboration between the TCDC and the British Council, is divided into four different categories.
"Materials" features designs that search for new materials to replace deficient ones. For example, the Air Bike by EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company), a bicycle made using a unique manufacturing process that literally grows a product from a fine powder of metal, nylon or carbon-reinforced plastics. The Air Bike is made using a process called additive layer manufacturing (ALM), which builds layers upon layers of nylon until it forms a 3D model.
ABOVE
- Stain by Bethan Laura Wood is a new design that looks at the full life cycle of products with a view to increasing their longevity, socially and emotionally, and with reuse in mind. The stains that accumulate become beautiful patterns over time. The experience creates new meaning between user and object.
LEFT
- Solar Sinter by Markus Kayser.
The process built the whole bike as one piece including the wheels, pedals and saddle, without additional spare parts. ALM is said to be up to 65% lighter but still as strong as metal. With the Air Bike promoting the ALM process, it might become a new option for the future of manufacturing.
''Resources'' explores the use of alternative energy sources that will not run out, such as wind, sunlight or the sand in the desert. Desert sand is a potentially abundant source which has never been used before. But a machine called the Solar Sinter, by Markus Kayser, may change that. The machine is a 3D printer based on selective laser sintering (SLS), that can melt sand into layers and mould it into any shape. At the exhibition, viewers can see a bowl that is made of sand by this process. If developed further, the Solar Sinter could be useful in building or other industrial fields.
''Method'' features designs that focus on products that can be used at every stage of their full life cycle under the concept of longevity by creating an emotional bond between the consumers and the designed items that make it harder to throw them away. One good example in this category is Plumen, a more attractive version of an energy-saving light bulb, manufactured by Hulger. It is one of the first designer energy-saving light bulbs.
Another example is The Pallet Project by Nina Tolstrup from Studio Mama which involves a chair made from a used shipping pallet, a low quality material that is meant to be thrown away. The pallet chair has attracted a number of interested consumers. But instead of selling the chair, Tolstrup put the design online and sells the instructions. The project has been a huge success as people have started using used shipping pallets to make their own chairs or other furniture.
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT
- Rubber joint stool.
- The Pallet Project by Studio Mama. Instead of selling the chair, the designer put the design online, selling the instructions. It has lead to popular reuse of pallets, which are normally thrown away.
- The Plastic Bottle by Florie Salnot.
- Bethan Laura Wood’s Particle Stack.
''Community'' looks at how design can be used as a way to bond people in the community by creating a lifestyle that will bring them together upon some kind of activity. The Pathum Thani-based Open Space group presents an idea called Elderly on the Move, creating a space for old people in the community to exercise by using bamboo and used bicycle tyres. The advantage of using bamboo, a kind of short-lived wood that needs to be replaced every three to five years is that the work will require the community to come together to help maintain it. Another project involves a herb garden that will serve as a traditional medicine source for people in the community who will help take care of it.
''It's not about how to fix it, but how to use it and how we look at it,'' Thompson said of ''green design''. More than coping with the problem, the designs have come to a point where we find a way to live with the problem without seeing it as a problem but new opportunity and chances.
''TCDC and the British Council hope that this exhibition will spark new original ideas in design for the environment among Thai creative practitioners and business operators, as well as the general public. This will propel Thailand's creative economy forward, while helping to steer the country and the world towards a sustainable future,'' said Apisit Laistrooglai, TCDC managing director.
EVERYTHING FOREVER NOW: DESIGNS FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
Opens Tuesday to Sunday until March 18, 10.30am-9pm, at Gallery 2, Thailand Creative & Design Center (TCDC), 6th Floor, the Emporium Shopping Complex. Free admission. Call 02-664-8448 ext. 213, 214 or www.tcdc.or.th and www.britishcouncil.or.th/EFN
