Tag Archives: Circular design

This 3D-printed backpack is constructed from fully recyclable mono-materials to create a circular design loop

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Outdoor mountain sports brand Vaude developed Novum 3D, a 3D-printed backpack that’s made from mono-materials to be recycled and made within a circular design loop.

Vaude is an outdoor mountain sports brand that develops sustainable outdoor gear because they want younger generations to be able to enjoy the outdoors in the same ways we’ve enjoyed it. Supplying the clothing, accessories, and equipment necessary to take on your next hike, camping trip, or forest bath, Vaude is committed to a responsible and sustainable design process from start to finish and back again. Using innovative 3D printed back pads, Vaude’s latest product is a fully recyclable backpack made from mono-materials.

Designer: Vaude

Dubbed Novum 3D, Vaude’s outdoor backpack features a honeycomb construction that ensures maximum stability while keeping the materials needed for production to a minimum. Each component of the backpack, from the straps to packsack and even the honeycomb back pads is 3D printed from 100% thermoplastic material (TPU). Each component of the Novum 3D is also fully removable and recyclable, taking a big step towards a circular economy.

Sustainability remains at the forefront of Vaude’s design principles. As the designers note on their website, “Ideally, a product should be returned completely back to the production process at the end of its life cycle. This is true recycling, but it is still a big challenge for the textile industry at the moment. Many products consist of at least 5 to 10 different materials or mixed fabrics and therefore cannot be separated by type. For this to succeed, the entire product life cycle must be considered and redeveloped.”

While some might assume that sustainable design isn’t necessarily a comfortable design, Vaude’s integration of 3D printing ensures both. Looking no further than nature to define the backpack’s comfort, Vaude notes, “Innovative 3D printing technology creates an extremely lightweight suspension system. The honeycomb construction is one of the most stable forms in nature. This type of construction offers us the highest stability with the least amount of material. The lightweight, open structure also automatically provides ideal ventilation. At the same time, different degrees of hardness ensures ideal pressure distribution.”

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This tiny pentagonal home does things right by being portable, recyclable and biodegradable

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The Holiday Home is an eco-conscious tiny home in Belgium that was built using circular construction and bio-ecological building methods.

In an effort to close material loops, circular construction methods choose first to recycle and reuse before consuming new building material. In this way, circular construction is inherently eco-conscious and fairs well with architecture that’s rooted in the environment.

Designer: Polygoon Architectuur

Biophilic and organic architecture tend to rely on disused waste and recycled matter for building material, underlining a stalwart commitment to the land below each building’s foundation. Depending on circular construction and bio-ecological building methods to give rise to one of their latest projects, Polygoon Architectuur designed and constructed a tiny holiday home for a small family.

Located in Brasschaat, Belgium, the 750-square-foot Holiday Home carries a unique pentagonal shape characterized by a pent roof that extends the ceiling’s height to 22 feet. Three obtuse angles come together to form the home’s pentagonal floor plan, which was chosen for its organic sense of space. Polygoon Architectuur also heightened this organic experience through eco-concious efforts similar to circular construction methods.

In an effort to not disrupt the land it’s located on, the Holiday Home is propped upon eleven poles that function as the home’s foundation. This alternative to traditional foundations also helps to make the home appear like it’s suspended in midair. With this, residents can see for themselves how the Holiday Home harmonizes with its surroundings.

In addition to the environmental benefits that a platform foundation provides, the Holiday Home is moveable by design, Usually, mobile homes are constructed prefabricated offsite and then put together on location. The architects with Polygoon constructed the Holiday Home onsite in only five days using timber from local coniferous wood. Speaking to this process, Polygoon notes, “Local coniferous wood was chosen everywhere: budget-friendly, easily renewable and the client could get to work himself (such as with the wood fiber insulation).”

While the frame was constructed from local timber, the exterior facades were clad in bark planks to ensure a vapor-open exterior, preventing the home’s frame from drying inwards. Then, the interior walls were clad with oriented strand board (OSB), reinforcing the home’s impressive insulation. The home is comprised of two floors, allotting the common areas to the first floor, which includes the kitchen, dining area, bathroom, and lounge space. Upstairs, residents can find sleeping accommodations as well as extra storage space.

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Sustainable modular acoustic panels are made from a unique blend of up-cycled textile and mycelium

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Foresta System is a modular acoustic panel design made from a unique blend of fungal mycelium and upcycled textile material.

Mycelium is like nature’s hidden superpower. Mushrooms can be used for anything from cooking, health and wellness, and even construction. Packed with industrial-level strength, mycelium is a natural fungi material that has recently been used as building materials for various construction projects.

Designer: Mogu

From home building to furnishing needs, mycelium provides an organic, yet durable construction material. Now used to create interior acoustic panels, the Foresta System designed by Italy-based Mogu takes a unique blend of mycelium and upcycled textile materials to create modular acoustic panels.

Constructed from a mix of mycelium panels, wood branches, and nodes, the timber frame that supports the different parts of Foresta can be mechanically fixed to the wall or vertical surface. Each node also carries integrated magnets that allow the acoustic panels to be mounted on the timber frame, allowing for easy removal and assembly.

The first of its kind to integrate mycelium into its build, Foresta has been granted the winning prize of the 2022 German Design Awards for its eco-conscious and innovative design. 100% circular by design, none of Mogu Acoustic products are made with synthetic material, nodding towards the company’s “extremely virtuous manufacturing cycle,” as the German Design jury suggests.

Made entirely from fungal mycelium and upcycled textile materials, Foresta is a collection of modular acoustic panels used to minimize the acoustic levels of noisy spaces like restaurants, offices, and retail businesses. Using the latest technologies in wood processing such as product parametric modeling, robotized production lines, and advanced manufacturing, Mogu was able to combine the refined aesthetics of wooden design with the cutting-edge nature of fungal mycelium to produce a truly innovative product.

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Carlo Ratti’s Orange Juice Machine serves OJ in cups made from 3D printed orange peels

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Sustainability isn’t as difficult as one might think. In the past few months we’ve seen so much in the way of using ecologically conscious materials, from t-shirts made entirely from eucalyptus and algae, to leather made from beer mash, to liquid soap bottles made from actual soap! The bottom line is, designers are always finding creative ways to deal with waste and to develop newer ways to manufacture products in a way that’s sustainable and circular. Take for instance Carlo Ratti’s Circular Orange Juice Bar, an innovative machine that uses every bit of the orange to provide a delightful drinking experience. At first, the oranges are laid out right on the top, in an innovative spiral rail. The oranges instantly become the juice bar’s branding, as their vibrant tangerine color is visible from a distance. Approach the bar, and the oranges, laid out in a nice umbrella shape, provide shade as you sip your juice. As for the juice, each orange is transported, cut, and squeezed by a machine fresh on the spot. The peel is discarded into the bottom pit which dries the waste out, pulverizes it to a fine powder, and binds it with PLA to turn it into a 3D printable filament. This filament is fed right into a 3D printer that prints your juice-cup right in front of you, with your freshly squeezed juice in it! You can discard each cup, as it’s completely biodegradable, giving you a product and experience that is derived from nature, and can return completely to nature with absolutely no impact!

Designer: Carlo Ratti Associati

Nike’s new free Circular Design Guide helps designers embrace sustainability

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We’ve all seen those memes about how our CO2 levels are at the highest they’ve been in 3 million years, and that we’re going to face major environmental consequences in the next few decades. It’s scary, but those statistics and numbers don’t help us come up with a solution to this massive problem. Guidelines do.

Years of Nike’s efforts to develop consciously designed products, practices, and behaviors has culminated in Nike’s “Circularity: Guiding the Future of Design”, a free-for-all design guide that lets students, designers, studios, and industry members embrace sustainability and ‘circular thinking’. Designed in collaboration with the students and staff of Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, while taking inspiration from Global Fashion Agenda and insights from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the Design Guide (accessible by clicking here, or right at the bottom of the article) aims at empowering designers with the right tools to design for longevity as well as considering a product’s entire journey in mind.

The guide looks at all aspects of the design process, and adds key insights to it, from making conscious material choices like Nike’s Flyknit technology that eliminates the need to punch out shapes from fabric (causing waste), or especially their Flyleather, an innovative “engineered leather material that looks, feels and smells like natural leather, made by binding at least 50% reclaimed leather fibers together in an innovative, environmentally sustainable water-powered process.”

Other chapters in the guide also talk about disassembly, or how your product would be taken apart to re-purpose or recycle different components, and even considering circularity in packaging, perhaps one of industrial design’s biggest afterthoughts.

“We have an obligation to consider the complete design solution, inclusive of how we source it, make it, use it, return it, and, ultimately, how we reimagine it.” says John Hoke, Chief Design Officer Nike. The Circular Design Guide in its entirety, accessible below, breaks down Nike’s efforts and processes in a way that helps others take key insights on how they can make their design approach more future-focused and sustainable.

Click Here to visit Nike’s Circularity: Guiding The Future Of Design