Bloomberg has unveiled its fifth series of ‘Waste Not Want It’, a collection of new works commissioned in association with Arts Co, made almost entirely out of Bloomberg’s waste.
This year, participating designers include Astrid Krogh, Laetitia de Allegri and Matteo Fogale, Kim Thomé, Lara Bohinc, Soft Baroque, Stuart Haygarth and Tom Price, creating nine different installations. The pieces, made from all recycled materials, include lighting, decorative wall panels, seating and meeting areas for daily use by Bloomberg’s London employees.
The challenge – this year utilising 2000m of cable flex, 152 keyboards, 160 holographic screen sheets, 250 printer cartridges and 33 wood pallets, all discarded – provides a platform for Europe’s most dynamic designers. Created in 2010, it also aims to explore innovative ideas about recycling, sustainability and functional design as each designer responds in a different way to the potential and capabilities of the materials. 'The project has provided a platform for 37 artists and designers to redefine our relationship with waste,’ says Jemma Read, manager of Bloomberg’s UK philanthropy program, ‘producing more than 40 functional, innovative commissions for the London office.’
Some of the works featured this year include Re-Connect by design partnership Laetitia de Allegri and Matteo Fogale, who used stripped cables and parts of the wooden pallets to produce a table and seating, and Starboard by Stuart Haygarth, who excavated and illuminated 76 reclaimed keyboard panels with LED lights, transforming them into a galaxy of stars and planets.
The works from ‘Waste Not Want It’ will be open to the public on 24 September during the London Design Festival, remaining in situ for 18 months.
The challenge serves not only to bring new life to discarded materials, but also acts as a platform for Europe’s most dynamic designers to explore innovative ideas about recycling, sustainability and functional design. Pictured: Saturn, by Lara Bohinc, 2016
To date, ’Waste Not Want It’ has produced over 40 functional, innovative pieces; past works have gone on to be re-housed across Bloomberg’s international offices, loaned to exhibitions and re-worked as production objects. Pictured: Layers of Ambiguity, by Astrid Krogh, 2016
Design partnership Laetitia de Allegri and Matteo Fogale, inspired by traditonal caning techniques, created a set of table and chairs from discarded wooden pallets and 1800m of stripped cables. Pictured: Re-Connect, by Laetitia de Allegri and Matteo Fogale, 2016
With each designer responding to the materials’ capabilities and potential in different ways, it allows them to help redefine the relationship with waste. Here, Kim Thomé creates the composite material jesmonite from wasted toner ink powder, then fashioning solid geometric seat surfaces. Pictured: Hues, by Kim Thomé
Stuart Haygarth, like Lara Bohinc, excavated computer screens and keyboards to create his work. Using a series of LED lights, he repurposed the perforations in 76 keyboard panels to transform them into a galaxy in the furniture. Pictured: Starboard, by Stuart Haygarth, 2016
London designer Tom Price took a chemical approach, using a reaction between resins, tar and residual toner ink powder to produce two works that are lit from beneath. Pictured: Synthesis Bench, by Tom Price, 2016
INFORMATION
’Waste Not Want It’ was unveiled on 21 July. It will be on view during London Design Festival from 17–25 September. For more information, visit the Bloomberg website
Photography courtesy Bloomberg
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