2019 Edition

Low Five, a low chair for indoors and outdoors adapts to the need for lightweight, recyclable and environmentally conscious furniture. The seat is a fully recyclable monomaterial-shell, consisting of a thermoformed PolyPropylene composite, a PP foam and a PP fabric, without use of thermoset glues or harmful chemicals. The structure is made of freeform-bent aluminum, combining the legs and the frame in one workstep. Profound material research and the collaboration with various industrial companies proved to be a very satisfying, instructive process tackling real industrial constraints and possibilities, leading to an innovative, promising concept. The project forms an ongoing hands-on research, which started with my Master’s degree at ECAL, aiming to provide strategies and solutions by using fully recyclable materials, without neglecting the high expectations on aesthetics, haptics and functionality. Next to the design expectations on the product itself, I focused on the research and systems of those Monomaterials – combinations of the same recyclable material, without bonding additives, capable of fulfilling different functions (structure, comfort, aesthetics and haptics). The possible applications of this knowledge and material combinations is to be extended on different consumer product categories, while maintaining the concept of using the one same material in different states. this reduces the need of material separation at the end of the product cycle and highly simplifies the recycling process.