We love seeing new furniture ideas that implement used, discarded, eco-friendly and recycled materials, but it’s not often that we find a chair that uses zero materials in construction. The OOoo Chair is an innovative concept that presses us to consider all of the energy and material waste issues associated with furniture production and disposal, but with a bit of amusement. So what do you have to do to get your hands on one of these chairs? Cut two leg-wide holes ergonomically apart, line them with recycled plastic, and you’ve just made your own OOoo Chair!
The furniture sector consumes 64 trillion BTUs of energy annually in the United States alone (equal to the power consumption of all of New York City over 6 weeks!), leaving a significant carbon footprint on our planet. The OOoo Chair, the brainchild of designers Martina Decker and Peter Yeadon, “intends to provoke a change in our behavior, and our way of thinking about furniture, through an elegant economy of means.” Opportunities to integrate furniture directly into architecture are typically overlooked, where these integral pieces are treated only as an afterthought to the primary design. But by embedding seating, directly into the structure, one can significantly reduce the energy and material that is used to make it, as well as the residual waste that occurs when a piece reaches the end of its useful life.
While we don’t suggest you drill holes into your apartment floor just yet, this concept can definitely find practicality and positive reception in public spaces such as restaurants, museums, or open pavilions. The OOoo Chair can become a compliment to any space, never offering more or less than what is actually needed.
+ Martina Decker and Peter Yeadon
Via Pruned
