Goldfinger Factory teamed up with Arup to launch a new circular economy product range for the home and office this September to coincide with London Design Festival 2017.
Arup and Goldfinger Factory have developed 'Golborne,' a family of small, medium and large storage and desk tidy products that combine waste, blow moulded polyethylene milk bottles with waste timber from interior refurbishment projects. The food safe polyethylene containers have a soft, translucent quality that appears modern and contemporary. The cut solid timber lids add weight, warmth and character. All the components can be separated and replaced or recycled at the end of the products usable lifespan.
The collaboration is the result of a scoping study undertaken by Arup's product design team on behalf of The Crown Estate to identify how dry operational waste from Regent Street could be reused as a low impact resource for new upcycled products. The project forms part of The Crown Estate's ambition to eliminate waste from across its Central London portfolio, including Regent Street and around half of St James's, by 2030.
Stephen Philips, leader of Arup's product design team, identified Goldfinger Factory to partner with for the project. Created by Oliver Waddington Ball and Marie Cudennec, Goldfinger Factory is an award-winning design, making and teaching platform with a focus on upcycling that creates bespoke furniture and interiors, whilst helping artisans and artisans-in-the- making become self-sustaining, saving materials from landfill and providing skills training to assist people in gaining or returning to employment.
"We can't assume people will buy products on the basis that they are sustainable, the look and feel of the design and the story behind it has to stack up," commented Marie Cudennec, Co-Founder Goldfinger Factory. "The Golborne range offers a sustainable approach to the manufacture of functional and beautiful products, one that uses waste as a resource with minimum impact whilst providing less advantaged people with the know how to make a living from upcycling in the future."