Working with clients in major in-house design offices my studio follows what we call a materials centric approach: put the materials at the front end of the design process and let their intrinsic properties lead the way in creating new design opportunities. We look at how properties can be brought out and given an emotional, sensorial or functional story. Often these are with totally new materials but often that word ‘new’ needs to be explored with the essential family that is plastics. We dwell on looking at new materials to replace plastic. However, there is one sticking point in passing the blame on plastics: plastic, as a material for consumer culture, is not going away. Indeed, it does need to answer to very serious problems and to be challenged.
So how inventive can you get with a product if you could only use one material, one type of plastic? Without using glue, additional materials, no clips or screws, could you still get your product to perform all its functions? What are the materials centric opportunities if you try and just use one material? A way demonstrated by the Adidas Future Craft Loop a shoe that uses one type of plastic for everything meaning that there is no complex disassembly to recycle the shoe.
Plastic is embedded in our culture, our economy, our needs. Give it the feeling of a disposable product and we dispose of it. Combine two materials together, like rubber and textile, the product no longer becomes recyclable. But make the product feel like it should to be permanent and we might just want to keep it. Make products from a single material and you won’t need to separate them. Here are some examples of one plastic used in one product that take an alternative look at creating value through plastics, by extracting their properties, seeing where they can take a product and putting plastic to good use.
