sea chair made from plastic debris found on the beach by studio swine

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Mar 01, 2013

first image
open source 'sea chair by studio swine
all images courtesy studio swine

the 'sea chair' by london / são paulo - based studio swine is a seating design made entirely from plastic recovered from our oceans.
since the discovery of the pacific garbage patch in 1997, which is predicted to measure twice the size of texas, five more have been found
across the world’s oceans with the atlantic gyre predicted to be even larger. the plastic from these plots takes thousands of years to degrade,
broken up into ever smaller pieces by ocean currents and remaining in the environment. the gyre stretches from the coastlines of california
to the shores of japan. recent studies have estimated 46,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometer of the world’s oceans.
the number of plastic pieces in the pacific ocean has tripled in the last ten years and the size of the accumulation is set to double
in the next ten.

the 'sea chair' - first presented at the royal college of art show in 2011 with kieren jones - repurposes this waste through an open source
method of making, where the creators built devices to collect and process marine debris into a series of stools. the design has now been
developed to the point where the seats can be fabricated on board the vessels from which the waste has been collected using a specially
devised manual so that others can build the pieces themselves. the manual can be downloaded here. the material plucked from the water's
'debris soup' is organised according to colour, fragmented and then melted in a makeshift furnace at 130°C. the mixture is then compressed
between two flat slabs of heavy metal or stone to form the various elements and then left to cool and solidify by the sea water.
the seat and three legs are tidied and assembled together to create the final design.

the film shows how plastic plucked from the ocean by fishing trawlers can be turned into stool on the boat itself
video courtesy studio swine

since the discovery of the pacific garbage patch in 1997, which is predicted to measure twice the size of texas, five more have been found

the plastic from these plots takes thousands of years to degrade, broken up into ever smaller pieces by ocean currents and remaining in the environment

the 'sea chair' re-purposes this waste through an open source method of making

the material plucked from the water's 'debris soup' is organised according to colour, fragmented and then melted in a makeshift furnace at 130°C

the mixture is then compressed between two flat slabs of heavy metal or stone to form the various elements and then left to cool and solidify by the sea water

the material having gone through the process from collection through to melting in the furnace

instructions for the furnace

the moulds

assembling the chair

studio swine's 'sea chair' has been shortlisted in the design museum london's 'designs of the year 2013' which acknowledges
projects produced over the last year which fall into the categories of architecture, digital, graphics, fashion, furniture, product and transport.
see the complete shortlist below:

'book mountain + library quarter' by MVRDV, spijkenisse, the netherlands
image © jeroen musch

architecture
la tour bois-le-pretre, paris - druot, lacaton and vassal
clapham library, london - studio egret west
MOCA (museum of contemporary art), cleveland - farshid moussavi architects
metropolitan arts centre, belfast - hackett hall mcknight
a room for london - david kohn architects in collaboration with artist fiona banner
kukje art centre, seoul - SO-IL
idea disobedients - andrés jaque arquitectos
book mountain, spijkenisse - MVRDV
the shard, london - renzo piano
thalia theatre, lisbon - gonçalo byrne arquitectos and barbas lopes arquitectos
astley castle, warwicjshire - witherford watson mann
museum of innocence, istanbul - orhan pamuk with ihsan bilgin, cem yucel and gregor sunder plassmann
home for all - akihisa hirata, sou fujimoto, kumiko inui and toyo ito
t-site, tokyo - klein dytham
galaxy soho, beijing - zaha hadid
superkile, norrebro - BIG, topotek1 and superflex
four freedoms park, new york - louis kahn

'rain room' by rAndom international
image © felix clay

digital
rain room - random international
superstitious fund project - shing tat chung
raspberry pi computer - eben upton
english hedgerow plate - andrew tanner and unanico for royal winton
digital postcard and player - uniform
windows phone 8 - microsoft
gov.uk website - government digital service
zombies, run! app - six to start
free universal construction kit - free art and technology lab
wind map - martin wattenberg and fernanda bertini viegas
candles in the wind - designed by moritz waldemeyer for ingo maurer
chirp - patrick bergel
dashilar app - nippon design centre inc.
city tracking pt2 - stamen
light field camera - lytro

'infinitely kusama' by yayoi kusama for louis vuitton
images courtesy of louis vuitton

fashion
anna karenina costumes - jacqueline durran
A/W12 womenswear - giles deacon
louis vuitton collection - yayoi kusama
diana vreeland: the eye has to travel - lisa immordino
I want muscle - elisha smith-leverock
commes de garcons rtw A/W12 - rei kawakubo
christian dior rtw S/S13 - raf simons
prada S/S12 rtw collection - miuccia prada
proenza schouler A/W12 collection - lazaro

'liquid glacial table' by zaha hadid
image © zaha hadid architects

furniture
the sea chair - studio swine & kieren jones
liquid glacial table - zaha hadid
a-collection - ronan and erwan bourellec for hay
gravity stool - jolan van der wiel
well proven chair - james shaw and marjan van aubel
tié paper chair - pinwu
100 chair - marni
medici chair - konstantin grcic for mattiazzi
re-imagined chairs - studiomama (nina tolstrup and jack mama)
engineering temporality - studio markunpoika
corniches - ronan and erwan bouroullec for vitra
future primitives - muller van severen

gravity stool' by jolan van der wiel
photo by peter lipton

graphics
zumtobel annual report - brighten the corners and anish kapoor
bauhaus: art as life exhibition - a practice for everyday life
strelka identity - ok:rm
occupied times of london - tzortzis rallis and lazaros kakoulidis
the gentlewoman #6 - veronica ditting
austria solar annual report - serviceplan
rijksmuseum identity - irma boom
adam thirwell: kapow! - studio frith
organic - kapitza
doc lisboa ’12 - pedro nora
ralph ellison collection - cordon webb
venice architecture biennale identity - johnmorgan
dekho: conversations on design in india - codesign
made in los angeles: work by colby poster printing co. - anthony burrill
australian cigarette packaging - commissioned by australian government department for health and ageing

'little sun' by olafur eliasson and frederik ottesen
photo by olafur eliasson
© frederik ottesen and olafur eliasson

product
olympic cauldron - heatherwick studio
bang & olufsen ‘beolit 12' - cecile manz
liquiglide ketchup bottle - dave smith/varanasi research group MIT
colour porcelain - scholten & baijings/1616 arita japan
e-source - hal watts
little printer - berg
switch collection - inga sempe for legrand
papa foxtrot toys - postlerferguson
child vision glasses - the centre for vision in the developing world
w127 lamp - dirk winkel
plug lamp - form us with love
magic arms - dupont hospital for children
kiosk 2.0 - unfold studio
oigen kitchenware - jasper morrison/japan creative
tekio - anthony dickens
little sun - olafur eliasson
colalife - simon berry
federic malle travel sprays - pierre hardy
faceture vases - phil cuttance
surface tension lamp - front
flyknit trainers - nike
replicator 2 - makerbot

'donky bike' by ben wilson
image by john selby

transport
morph folding wheel - vitamins design/maddak inc.
air access seat - priestmangoode
i3 concept car - BMW
mando footloose chainless bicycle - mark sanders
n-one - honda
donky bicycle- ben wilson

lara db

03.01.13

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designs of the year 2013 (6 articles)

scholten & baijings: colour porcelain

the 'color porcelain' collection has been produced as different series: minimal, colourful, and (read more)

colalife encourages coca-cola to carry simple medicines

who would've thought an anti-diarrheal kit design would be nominated for design of the year 2013?

vitamins design: morph folding wheel

the world's first folding wheelchair wheel can be collapsed from its open functioning state of a 24" (read more)

priestmangoode: air access wheelchair concept

shortlisted in the design museum's 'designs of the year 2013' 'air access' is a detachable wheelchair (read more)

studio swine: sea chair

the waste is plucked from the water's 'debris soup' then organised according to colour, fragmented and (read more)

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29,455 articles

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