Ones and zeroes

Old motherboards. Old keyboards. Old power cables. Old laptops. Old screens. Old CPU towers. Old plastic and metal and silicone chips... What happens with a computer that is dead and even less useful than a doornail?

My pal Amy snapped these shots of Bloomberg's studios, where old IT kit has been re-envisioned and reformed. What do you think? I like the thoughtful journey from digital and virtual to analogue and functional. Pull up a seat I say!

Long and short of it

As many of you may know, I'm fairly obsessed with discovering new ideas for the creative reuse of surfboards. I was browsing Ebay for a VW Campervan, and found this four-wheeled wonder which contains part of an old longboard reborn as a table.

Slippery business

Not long ago we read about the upcycling endeavours of Rafinesse & Tristesse, who make big olive tins into seating and toys. On my visit to Denmark last weekend, every corner held a giant olive tin or two doing double-duty as planters. We don't seem to have such aesthetic containers for our industrial fats in this country. It's just not fair!

Casa suite casa

The Casa Surf Project is a hotel with 10 suites, each one designed by a different surf brand. It would be nice if my fairy godmother would play concierge for just a minute and check me in to Suite 207, the Etnies crib. Upcycling ideas include a playful patchwork mosaic of shoe material scraps that serves as an artistic headboard and hand-painted skate wheels decorating the bathroom mirror.

Also in the bathroom is a kidney-shaped bathroom sink that doubles as a tiny skate pool complete with a pair of mini decks for finger boarding... Yo Fairy Godmother - are you reading this??

Tale of New York

Yesterday LA, today it's New York. Thanks to my designing, blogging, teaching friend Jo of Soupa creative network who brought this to my attention.

The GUN reclamation project is the venture of ken & dana design, who've decided to take an instrument that inherently represents violence and reframe it as a symbol of non-violence. With materials sourced from gun manufacturers, they transform gun parts into jewellery; with each sale, proceeds are donated to a buyback program to get more guns off the street. Through the program, the DA’s office and the NYPD partner with local churches to offer $200 bank cards for any firearm turned in at one of their one-day events. Since 2008, 5,700 guns have been taken off New York’s streets.

As an example of upcyling, I really like it because not only does it reuse durable materials that would be extremely energy-intensive to recycle but it also prevents these components from being used in violent endeavours. Decommissioning + reappropriating = happy new world. It's definitely time to think outside of the Glocks.

Ahoy

Sometimes I come across a mention of the Boex brothers in the design press, and other times I read about their surfing. Today I'm fixated on their inventive creation using redundant bits borrowed from sailing.

A design company needed a blind for their skylight, so Boex 3-D Creative had the bright idea to hoist an upcycled sail to block out the sunlight when the glare got too much. The client, a sailor himself, is understandably smitten with the solution.

Splish. Splash.

My lack of blog posts has been due to being in the US visiting my parents and generally acting like a teenager: lying on my bed, watching TV, eating at Waffle House. Whilst there I also spent my fair share of time at the mall. In Atlanta we specialise in both kinds of malls: regular and strip malls. I read in ReadyMade magazine about a company called Macro Sea that is re-envisaging strip malls as living spaces. How do you upcycle a commercial space into somewhere a person might want to live? For starters, you can introduce swimming pools. Macro Sea is making 'em out of dumpsters. (If you speak British and not American, a dumpster is a gigantic skip.) Apparently the first dumpster pools touched down in Brooklyn. Next stop? A strip mall in ATL.

Jump in: www.macro-sea.com

Second skin

Fashion may be fickle, but could quirky upcycling ideas be here to stay? Weleda are currently sponsoring The Green Shows Eco Fashion Week, the only event committed to environmentally friendly, ethically sound and fair trade fashion during New York Fashion Week. Over this four-day event, 10 eco-minded international designers are showcasing their fall/winter 2010 collections. Weleda teamed up with British design visionary Gary Harvey, who created a one-of-a-kind couture outfit made from recycled Weleda Skin Food packaging.

Thought for the day. Year. Century.

Kate Krebs of the Climate Group is credited with the following profundity:

“Waste is a design flaw.”

Why do we humans insist on continuing to make and build things from non-biodegradable substances that can’t be downcycled, upcycled or recycled when their lifespan comes to an end?

Board room

This weekend we went to Gulf Stream in Braunton to pick up a new longboard. The owners outfitted the shop to evoke a gentlemen’s club. Surfers tend to be creative both on waves and off, and those guys are no exception. When Braunton flooded a few years ago, the flooring of the shop had to be lifted up and replaced. But rather than getting thrown out, the old flooring became new wood panelling on the walls. Not only were useful materials salvaged but the members’ club vibe was enhanced. Once the floorboards went vertical, they were treated with about five coats of walnut stain. Onto this beading was added and stained too. I wish I had taken a picture but instead here’s a shot of the board – same ingenious craftsmanship, entirely different application!

Table top sale

Earlier this autumn I interviewed Elsie Pinniger who makes bespoke wetsuits in Newquay through her company Neon. She also does womenswear (non-neoprene thankfully), and upcycling contributes to her her efforts:

"One style of summer dress I make out of old tablecloths from charity shops. It's really nice stuff, all the little embroidered ones. It's about reusing stuff and being efficient, not buying new all the time."

www.goodneon.co.uk

The talkies

The enterprising Mr Slope opened the Cinema Royale in Chiswick in 1910 and had great success until the ultra modern Art Deco Odeon styled cinemas turned it dark in 1934. The deserted fleapit served briefly as a parachute factory in the 40s and then fell into further disrepair until the 1970s when Martin Hanness and some other antique dealers took it over to ply their trade. Today Martin runs The Old Cinema as a giant shop of antiques, organised by department according to theme and era. I asked him about old stuff, upcycling and the business of upcycling old stuff...

What does your work as buyer for this unusual enterprise entail? There are about 15 dealers who help me supply The Old Cinema with the variety of stock now expected by our customers who include professional stylists looking for the next big thing and young locals in search of bargains. I travel around the UK buying at trade fairs and warehouses plus some regular haunts in Europe but my big love for the last few years has been buying 50s Americana and vintage industrial pieces from the American rustbelt.

Who are some of your influences from the world of design and elsewhere? William Morris was my first hero but currently I am very interested in the mid-century Cotswolds furniture maker Gordon Russell and E Gomme Ltd which became G-Plan. However my real passion is for the lost and found objects, things which have been ignored but deserve appreciation. Faded old advertising signs, factory trolleys, old school lockers and printers drawers full of old type faces. The greatest inspiration for me to keep searching is Sir Peter Blake, whose work with ephemera, found objects and popular culture I think is of huge importance to us all.

What’s the weirdest object that has been sold at The Old Cinema? The most bizarre was a stuffed lion in a huge glass case, which we wheeled down Chiswick High Road one Summer’s afternoon from an auction house in town.

What do you consider to be your best ever find? Oh! That’s easy - my wife! She’s had to put up with broken clocks on the kitchen table, 50’s ball gowns soaking in the bath, rusty balconies in the garden and much worse over the years. Fortunately she makes just as much mess with her pottery making.

What’s your favourite piece in your home? We don’t really go for grand pieces at home so our favourite piece of furniture is an old Victorian chesterfield I bought with Mary in a barn somewhere in Wales 30 years ago. It’s curved and fits perfectly into a bay window, we had it completely restored and upholstered and have watched it slowly sag under the weight of jumping children and hairy dogs. Good furniture for good memories! 

What’s your current bestseller or something in the shop that you’re really excited about? At the moment I’m interested in early twentieth century American industrial design.  I love picking through the derelict objects in abandoned factories.  Americans, like the Victorians before them, designed and manufactured to a very high standard, so with a little love and know-how we have rescued some amazing pieces which should be around forever now.

Some of the pieces in the shop are upcycled, meaning they incorporate objects or materials originally conceived for one purpose now being used for another. Why is this kind of practice interesting and important right now? We’ve had a lot of interest in this idea. Antiques are green by nature but upcycling objects is ecological and exciting as we think of new uses for old stuff. Typewriter keys for cufflinks, inverted water tanks for tables, old flags for upholstery  - it’s just the start of something very big that anyone can get involved in. 

Special Christmas event!

The Old Cinema will host the spoof filming of a pilot TV game show featuring Quizmaster Eben Scruise and plucky contestants Mr and Mrs Cratchit. Be part of the studio audience as the penniless couple value, auction and bid their way to a dramatic and heart-wrenching finale. Drinks and canapés reception at 7pm, show commences at 7:30pm, late night shopping with special 15% discount until 9:30pm. Tickets are free but limited at events@theoldcinema.co.uk; see www.theoldcinema.co.uk for more information.

Puff the magic

Sorry so sorry... I have been away in the waves. I have been awave. Or maybe awayve?

ANYhoosie, all this silly muttering brings me to today's topic. I quite like word games. Bananagrams is quite addictive and Wordscraper is slowly, pleasantly ruining my life. Sweet old Scrabble however is probably my perennial favourite.

Some people find Scrabble boring, in the same way that many people find the debate about plastic bottles a bit wearying. For those people, I'd advise you to click away. Because Hartfelt is a groovy outfit I want to talk about, and they make cushions out of 100% recycled plastic bottles, AND they make said cushions in the style of Scrabble tiles.

Annie Hart is the genius behind these cushions, and here are some fun and fearsome facts from her website...

4 plastic bottles = 1 cushion cover

6 plastic bottles = Filling for 1 cushion

10 plastic bottles = 1 pound of polyester fiber

1 ton (2000) lbs of plastic bottles recycled saves 3.8 barrels of oil.

1 million plastic bottles recycled saves 250 barrels of oil.

1 million plastic bottles recycled eliminates 180 metric tons of CO2 emissions from being released into the atmosphere.

10% of all US oil consumed (2 million barrels per day) is used to make plastics.

Recycling plastic bottles takes 8 times less energy than to produce an equivalent amount of new ones.

Supplying the plastic bottles that Americans consume each year requires 47 million barrels of oil and releases 1.0 billion pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Soapy sales

I've been going through my camera and have found some photos I intended to upload in order to brighten up the lives of Raisin readers everywhere. The first was shot at my friend Anne's house. Anne is an illustrator, so can always be counted on for creative ideas. She invited Belinda and me over for some coffee and cakes, and I invite you to now feast your eyes on her oversized cake stand. (It may seem obvious, but have you ever upcycled a piece of DIY equipment in the pursuit of sweet confections? Try it; I think you might like it.)

The second pic is something I came across at my mom and dad's house. According to my mom, this is a little crocheted soap scrubber from the 1930s. You would collect all your old bits of soap and squish them together, then stick them in this little pouch for an experience of bathing beauty. I just about can't remember the last time I saw an actual bar of soap - and it's not because I'm dirty. Now everyone everywhere uses liquid hand soap and shower gel. This might be because it's more hygienic (is it? I don't know), and this might be because we as humans love any excuse for a plastic bottle.

What's it all about?

I ran into my friend Sarah at the Thames Festival, and she was like, "I voted for your blog! I really like it!" She shoveled a spoonful of rice into her toddler's mouth and cocked her head. "But can I just ask you - what's it all about?" 

Ok so that's a really good question. I can always count on Sarah for really good questions, and I hope I can do it justice with a fairly good answer. 

I started this blog to coincide with New Years in January after coming across a word I’d never heard before, upcycling. To upcycle is to take an old redundant object that’s served its life purpose already, and then revamp it so it can enjoy a brand-new existence. It’s a happy ending for the object, but it benefits the environment too because whenever you can use existing materials instead of new ones you minimise energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. And what's more, upcycling lets us flex our flabby creative muscles. 

A lot of mainstream media can only exist with advertising, so a lot of the inspirations that are provided to us in what we see and read are predicated on a desire for us to buy something new. A blog doesn’t have advertising though, so instead of encouraging readers to buy new stuff, I wanted to give people inspiring examples that will encourage them to make creative leaps in solving everyday problems. So even though you might not go out and make dumbbells out of breeze blocks (which someone I blogged about did), you might look around at the redundant resources available to you and try to get maximum use out of them before they wind up in the landfill – like when Hannah made a whole stationery set from paper and scraps she salvaged on the street and from bins.

So anyway everbody, let's quiz Sarah next time we see her and make sure she's been reading carefully... And in the meantime, our pic for today is one that came via Vaughan. Here we have a bike that features a sawed-off broom handle as its replacement handlebars, along with a beer can that's been mustered into service as shimming material - courtesy of a blog called Bike Snob NYC. Cheers dears!

You say tomato

I speak English. The Real Gent speaks English. But having originated on opposite sides of the Atlantic, we don't speak the same language at all. Our conversations (which are simply stimulating, as you yourself will soon witness) involve constant vocabulary negotiation. 

Me: How I love to come across an example of garbage being reinvented as something new.

RG: I know, you are always on the lookout for rubbish that has the potential for a fascinating future.

Me: Exactly. You really never know what you might find lurking in a trash can or dumpster.

RG: I must admit, your blog has taught me to see rubbish bins and skips in a whole new light.

Me: Gosh, thanks. I know you really liked those veggie cans being used as planters for peppers.

RG: Ah yes, the untapped promise of the humble soup tin - a wonderful thing to ponder.

Me: And remember the license tags upcycled into bracelets and handbags?

RG: Who could forget those humble number plates reincarnated into fashionable new lives?

Me: And hey, did I tell you how I came across SCABEL Architects, a firm that that uses former shipping containers as construction components?

RG: Shipping containers you say? How positively wonderful.

With some words, fortunately, we are in happy accord. Maybe we should have more conversations about shipping containers... By the way, the pic above is of Dunraven School, which SCABEL built with the help of Urban Space Management, whose Container City building system has already been used to create offices, retail spaces, artist studios, a nursery and youth centres.

(Thanks to Clare for pointing me in the direction of the Dunraven School shipping container upcycling example. Incidentally, if you're into the funny nuances of words, grammar and punctuation, then visit her blog Goodcopybadcopy - it's good for insight and a giggle.)

I flipping love these

I'm actually just going to go ahead and admit it: I am only really truly happy when I am wearing flip-flops. I love flip-flops. I measure success in how much I am able to wear flip-flops. So while the fact that I am not a surgeon or fund manager makes me unsuccessful in the eyes of some, the flip (sorry) side of that equation is that those situations would probably curtail my rigorous flip-flop wearing schedule. And I just can't have that.

Last week I was checking out the latest in footwear fashion at Abbadabba's in Atlanta. They sell a whole heap of flops, including some from Simple. I started looking into Simple, and discovered that they have an admirable recycling and upcycling agenda. The following is from their press pack, and I'm including it not because I think everyone should necessarily go out and buy their shoes, but because it illustrates some truly resourceful design. 

Upcycled Inner Tubes Our inner tubes come from big tires. The recycled inner tube accents in our sneakers look nice and move lots of retired inner tubes off the streets and onto the sidewalks.

Recycled Plastics (PET) PET is the abbreviation of polyethylene terephthalate, which is really just a fancy-pants word for clear plastic that comes from soda and water bottles. We use PET to make some of our shoelaces and as the wrapping around the latex elastic we use in some of our shoes.

Post-consumer Recycled Paper Simple boxes and foot-forms are all made from 100% post-consumer recycled paper, or as it’s known in the world-saving biz, PCR paper. This means all of our boxes and foot forms are made from paper that other people have used; it could have been a take out restaurant menu, an abandoned printout left at the copy machine, or a weekly gossip mag, we don’t discriminate. By using PCR paper we are able to recycle a material and extend its useful life.

Upcycled Car Tires Have you ever thought about what happens to car tires once they’ve completed their useful life on the wheels of your car? Best case scenario is that the tires get recycled... worse case scenario is they wind up in a landfill or worse, incinerated. We’ve figured out a way to take used car tires and turn them into the outsoles of our shoes. Besides being super durable and grippy, we’re extending the life of a material that is otherwise considered trash. And did we mention we can make 6 pairs of men’s size 9 shoes from a single car tire?

Upcycled Bike Tires Bike Tires.... little circular pieces of rubber that roll around on the ground attached to your bike. We’ve found a way to re-use the rubber for heel and toe bumpers that would otherwise become fodder for a landfill.

Upcycled Carpet Padding In the ever-consuming search for new and eco-friendly materials, a light finally went on. We spend all day walking on carpet padding so why not use it in the shoes? Our carpet padding is durable, comfy, and made almost entirely from scrap and post-consumer foam. It will not, however, match your wallpaper.

 

Hit the bottle

In the past we’ve talked about upcycling plastic bottles into building blocks for houses, and we’ve explored how PET can be recycled into materials useful in clothing and footwear manufacture. 

Today I was crossing the Hungerford Foot Bridge and admired birds cruising along on the surface of the Thames, but they were sharing the waterways with a fair bit of rubbish. Which made me think of plastic bottles and how perfectly buoyant they are, which made me think of a weird and wonderful upcycling project I read about recently. 

The Plastiki is a 60-foot boat is modelled on a traditional Polynesian vessel and has a crew of six people. It’s made out of all upcycled and recycled materials, including 12,000 reclaimed 2-litre plastic bottles tied to a structure made out of Self Reinforcing Polyethylene Terephthalate (SRPET). Right now the Plastiki is in a three-month adventure as it crosses the Pacific from San Francisco to Sydney, but at the end of its life, the boat’s components will be upcycled again. Into what? That’s yet to be decided.

This is from The Plastiki’s website, and explains what the expedition is hoping to achieve:

"90 percent ocean debris is plastic - so it’s fitting that the expedition focuses on it and the plastic bottle epitomises the absurdity of our throwaway society. Some 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water each year; in the US alone nearly $11 billion is spent on over 8 billion gallons of bottled water. In bottle production alone, more than 70 million bottles of water consumed each day in the U.S. and 1.5 million barrels of oil is used over the course of one year, resulting in about 22 billion empty plastic bottles being trashed. It's something that, when you dig a little deeper into it, you realise that the facts just don't add up, for example, it takes between three to five litres of water to make a one litre bottle of water and, then you need to include the energy needed for transportation, just to produce something that ultimately ends up in the ground. When you think that plastic bottles are 100 percent recyclable and yet only 20 percent are actually recycled, there is a lot of work to be done."

The world is your oyster

Last week I posted from the Peach State about subway trains being recommissioned as offshore reefs, but being an equal opportunity blogger I wanted to post about something I came across in the Tarheel State too. During our recent vacation there, we took our recycling to the facility in Kill Devil Hills where there were the usual bins we're all very accustomed to: aluminum, paper, cardboard, glass... But there was an additional bin I'd never come across before - one for oyster shells. North Carolina has launched an unusual initiative that's helping to establish reefs off the Outer Banks. Browse the excellent website to learn more, or just feast your eyes on the following which I lifted from their homepage:

"North Carolina is launching an innovative recycling program to collect oyster shells from individuals and businesses and place them back overboard to help turn the tide on declining oyster stocks.

Baby oysters begin life as free-floating organisms but quickly settle to the bottom attaching themselves to hard surfaces. That's why oysters grow in clumps on pilings and concrete, but their favorite most productive place to grow is on other shells.

A mound of oyster shells placed in brackish water with good tidal flow will quickly become colonized by a multitude of marine organisms, including oysters. This mound, also called an oyster reef, serves a number of purposes - first and foremost, it helps produce oysters.

Secondly, it provides habitat for other beneficial organisms, such as algae, worms, barnacles, crabs, small minnows and fish. The small fish attract a diversity of larger fish and before you know it, you have a veritable metropolis of critters congregating at your reef and all you did was put the shells over - in the right spot.

Oysters serve an additional important purpose - they clean water by feeding on plankton and waterborne detritus. One oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day, so the larger and healthier our oyster population, the cleaner the water."

Got the blues

I love denim. My fashion-forward friend assures me that the streets of London will soon be awash with the stonewashed flavour of my favourite fabric, and I so I am going to try my best to love this latest version too.

When it's time for you to update your own personal jeans file, you may be interested to know that your old Levis can go toward a higher purpose (higher perhaps even than protecting your backside from nudity). Cotton From Blue to Green is a project that assists in rebuilding homes for communities in need. In the past three years, the Cotton From Blue to Green denim drive has collected 89,799 pieces of denim. The donated denim has been converted to UltraTouch, a natural fiber insulation that is obviously sustainable. This fluffy stuff has contributed to over 100 Habitat for Humanity houses throughout the gulf coast region of the US.