TWINE
Urban and Public Furniture Design
TWINE is a collaboration between London-based design studio HagenHinderdael and Amsterdam-based social enterprise Reflow. Together they transform discarded plastic into high-performance 3D printing materials and 3D printed products. Over 359 million tonnes of virgin plastic was produced globally in 2019 but only 18% of this material is recycled. Especially the use of single-use medicinal plastic equipment, which is at the forefront of our daily life due to the ongoing pandemic, causes enormous plastic waste, which cannot be reused in its entirety for safety reasons. Often containing polypropolene, medicinal waste is not biodegradable and when not disposed properly can end up breaking up and introducing even more microplastics into the sea and our food chain. With TWINE we propose a set of modular, 3D-printed plastic seating elements which can be combined in a multitude of ways – encouraging interaction and a variety of stories to be told, resulting in a dynamic movement of sculptural objects. Urban Outdoor Furniture should enhance interaction. It aims to produce a reaction, just like any quality piece of sculpture or painting, its goals are to communicate with and evoke exchange among the users. Just like the moments within a story, TWINE is a series of singular segments, which when combined in series create a dynamic, streamlined flow. The future of TWINE: We hope to push the development of our product and are undertaking research to use similar methodologies to transform single-use mask waste into 3d printing filament for a future range.