Same Difference?
Posted: November 3rd, 2010 | Author: Anthony Weston | Filed under: Other, Tom Dixon | No Comments »
I was sitting in my Design For Production lecture last week and spotted a chair that had a design that was very much like Tom Dixon’s Rubber Band Chair. It’s called The Ree Chair, designed by Pli Design Ltd which uses old Playstaion2 consoles for the front and back of the seat, and use 100% recycled plastic. The use of a single source material means that the specific properties are known and predictable, These parts are also 100% recyclable and can be turned back into another chair. The steel structure uses nearly 50% recycled content and is 100% recyclable.
Tom Dixon’s Rubber Band Chair on the other hand is a café-style chair originally put together with rubber bands and paper clips from the Tom Dixon studio. This clever yet simple idea I think really works to create an industrial aesthetic, whilst also addressing the importance of recycling and increasing already existing products life cycle’s. The chair has oversized rubber bands stretched across a simple galvanised steel frame to make a bouncy yet supportive structure.
To an untrained eye the look very similar, but these chairs are not necessarily the same. In reality they are two completely different chairs but with one common ideal, to re-use existing materials. I think they both work very well and further highlights the importance of sustainable design in todays design environment.
