Following the debut of their Urban Origin collection with the Haze copper wire series, contemporary Tokyo-based design studio we+ returns with the second series of the collection, Refoam. Giving form to new perspectives and values through the design project, Refoam presents recycled styrofoam furniture pieces, including tables, stools and benches, that attempt to reframe today’s inappropriate and overly complex relationship between humans and materials. The project transforms a typical recycling process into a new way of manufacturing furniture. Adopting a more simplified, efficient and environmentally conscious recycling process, we+ eliminates the need for transportation of materials and products for recycling and manufacturing. Instead, the project tackles a mountain of styrofoam waste in Tokyo, to metamorphose it into new usable products — directly on site of an intermediate treatment plant.

all images by Masayuki Hayashi

we+’s Urban Origin research project considers the origins of the overly complicated manufacturing processes in modern day society, and reevaluates the mass waste produced by cities as indigenous materials. The new Refoam project returns to the starting point of the relationship between humans and materials — using vernacular materials and treating them simply with our own hands — and explores new values for styrofoam. The furniture collection takes form from recycled waste styrofoam that is collected and repurposed in Tokyo, materializing as dark, minimal, monolithic benches, stools, and tables that retain the texture of compressed styrofoam. By considering Tokyo as the origin of used materials, the Japanese design studio simplifies the recycling process by manufacturing furniture directly from waste as an end product on the intermediate treatment plant site, giving a completely different value to the material.

we+ returns with the second series of the Urban Origin collection with Refoam

In Tokyo and its suburbs, styrofoam is commonly melted into ingots in intermediate treatment plants, then exported to Europe and Southeast Asia. Here. they are transformed into granules and then into inexpensive recycled products, mainly from China. In Japan, these products are typically sold in 100-yen shops.

Although recycling rates are high, the process remains very complex. Further, the process and scale of transportation between countries remains vastly damaging to the environment, and time and energy consuming. With Refoam, we+ therefore explores the possibility of using intermediate treatment plants to directly manufacture furniture as an end product, instead of ingots which are transported around the globe to manufacturing sites.

the furniture collection recycles and repurposes waste styrofoam that is collected in Tokyo

the dark, minimal, monolithic benches, stools, and tables retain the texture of compressed styrofoam

Refoam transforms atypical recycling process into a new, more efficient, way of manufacturing furniture

we+ adopts a more simplified, efficient and environmentally conscious recycling and manufacturing process

we+ uses intermediate treatment plants to directly manufacture furniture as an end product instead of ingots

the project reconsiders complicated manufacturing processes, and reevaluates mass waste as indigenous materials

name: Refoam (Urban Origin) designer: we+

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions’ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: ravail khan | designboom

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