Designed in collaboration with Samara Ieraci

Because of the circular nature of this project we decided to look for [used] materials that we could easily source and integrate for this lamp.

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Research

In a project we did in a previous class (Critical Materiality with Alice Jarry, Winter 2019) we focused on the plastic waste we produce in today’s world. A part of that project was a research and analysis of our recycling infrastructures. Because of the 3R mentality we adopted (reduce, reuse, recycle) we thought that reusing existing materials would be ideal for this project. Some materials that we thought about using are: scraps from construction sites (metal, wood, plastics, concrete), single use containers (plastics, glass), and used textiles.

It was after finishing a 35mm film roll that I realized how much waste is created with this medium. For every 24 to 36 analog photos there is an aluminum film roll and a plastic canister that is discarded. Digital photography solves this issue, letting people take hundreds or thousands of photos without having to change any film. But digital cameras are part of tech devices that get obsolete very quickly, so many people end up buying a new camera every few years. So in the end the sustainability of digital photography is debatable. RESEARCH Analog cameras are more mechanical, therefore easier to fix, and since they are not based on electronics they are more timeless items. This is the subject of a longer discussion…

We ended up visiting local photo labs and asking them what they do with the aluminum rolls and plastic canisters after the films were processed. Every single lab put them in a box or a bag and every now and then throw the whole contents in the recycling bin. I don’t blame them (what else could they do with used film rolls?). We asked a few of these stores if we could have some to use for our design project and they happily agreed. This is when we realized that we had found an interesting material to work with for this project. There was an abundant source of discarded film rolls and plastic containers in which people don’t see any value. So we decided to start from there and then explore the design possibilities based on the material, not the other way around.

Assessment

Over the last two months we explored different ways to use an object that people usually discard.

The more common way to approach this project would’ve been to develop a lamp concept (based on asethetics and functionnality), and then find the materials that would be used to actually produce it. In our case, since the theme of this project is designing for a circular economy, we decided to find a material that is already out there and find a way to use it to create a lamp. In a certain sense we could say that we worked backwards. As explained previously in this document we realized that film canisters and their bottles always get discarded, because the value of the film canister is the film itself, which gets developed and then scanned. The aluminum rolls and the plastic bottles are only a vehicle for the actual film, so when the negative has been used up people don’t see any value in the canister and the bottle anymore. This is why we thought it would be interesting to choose this material as the starting point.

Once we accumulated over a hundred aluminum rolls and plastic bottles we brainstormed ways we could lay them out to create our lamp. We spent over a week trying to find the best way to use the metal canisters themselves. Then we turned over to the bottles because of their ease of use and translucency, which could let light glow through as opposed to the aluminum canisters themselves. We realized that stacking the bottles would be a great way to build something that can be scaled vertically.