Do all parts of a product get redundant at the same time? Or do some of those parts still have enough lasting power to serve in some other context, another life? Industry and marketing pressure has led to a superficial use of ‘innovation design’ and has encouraged ‘use and throw’ with the market infiltration of millions of cheaper products. We use so many products in our everyday life. After a prolonged use they break down but some parts can still be used probably to make something new; giving them a new life.
Newspaper is a product that is used every day and gets redundant the same day itself. Going old school and looking at processing newspaper to make paper mache, we looked at creating furniture and building blocks with it. It has negligible material cost, is easy to make, is light weight and most importantly is available in every household.
For building blocks we thought of the most basic shape, triangles. Triangles are known for their strength and hence we chose this particular shape. We also created indents so that less material was used yet it didn’t compromise on the strength of the bricks.
We collaborated with a school, Drishya where we taught the children the process of making newspaper into furniture and building blocks.
Final furniture pieces: