Spanish designer Oscar Diaz has found a new way to rescue our Earth from discarded plastic bottles. In a series called “Found” the designer has cleverly produced a range of super-light flatware cut straight from the bottle. Each fork, knife and spoon assumes the bottles’ shapely angles and curves and feature an ergonomically designed grip that makes them as easy to pick up from the table as any other cutlery.
Instead of adding another utensil design to the boundless shapes and sizes that are already out there, Diaz took to “editing” pieces from carefully selected bottles that can be found on common supermarket shelves, and well, in the trash. Using a fairly straightforward production process, each piece is cut from a plastic bottle and then coated with copper and tinplated for a shiny, metallic finish. Since each utensil is essentially handmade from different shaped bottles, every new set is distinctive in nature — no molds needed.
As Diaz says “I don’t know if I can say that I completely designed it, but I do now look differently at things on the shelves when shopping.” In finding objects within objects, he reminds us that giving a little bit of extra thought to our surroundings we can yield some fresh and beautiful things in even the most banal and disposable things.
Found will be exhibited this year as part of Airmail, an exhibition at Idea Generation Gallery in London running through the city’s design festival from September 23 thru October 4.
+ Oscar Diaz
Via Dezeen
What a clever idea and I really like the designs from an arts perspective. Anything we should know about the copper and tin use? I don’t know about this from an environmental perspective.