Life in the Material World Sure Looks Familiar
Environmentally conscious designers from around the world are taking on the challenge of creating new products from recycled materials. Seattle architect Tom Johnson has provided a showcase for such products with his annual International Design Resource Awards Competition.
“We knew there were a lot of new materials being created through recycling--mostly by engineers and research people--and we wanted to get designers interested in them,” said Johnson, who runs the contest, aimed at raising awareness about the environment, from his architectural studio. “We started the contest to bring them together.”
“This should be an interesting year. . . . We expect a broad range of entries from all over the globe,” he said of the fifth annual contest.
What kind of products is he talking about? Check out past winners at www.designresource.org. You’ll find a handsome lineup of “designs with memory,” such as dishes made from the glass covers of fluorescent light fixtures, baskets from reused newspaper and vines, bowls shaped from old record albums and a lamp created from corn-based biodegradable plastic.
Johnson loves to see this sort of ingenuity. He and his wife, Barbara, started the competition to encourage the creation of products that use sustainable materials.
A group called the Clean Washington Center in the Northwest, whose role is to find markets for recycled materials, funded the first year of the competition. “That allowed us to get it going,” said Johnson. “We had 200 entries, and every year it has gotten bigger.” This year’s contest is co-sponsored by a number of funding sources, including the University of Washington, Sustainable Northwest, Phoebe Haas Charitable Trust and Eco Design Institute in Tokyo.
They’ve had entries from major corporations such as Philips Electronics, which buys back and recycles its own products, such as CDs that the company grinds up and molds into other products. But most entries are from individuals or small groups. “They are making furniture or clothing or lighting,” said Johnson, “and many are start-up businesses.”
The competition’s six-member jury will judge students and professionals separately. Categories include furniture, lighting, consumer products, building components, clothing and packaging design.
The entries should contain a high degree of post-consumer recycled or sustainably harvested material and be suitable for commercial production, said Johnson.
Details are available on his Web site. Any interested designer still has plenty of time to work because the deadline is not until Jan. 31. The winning designs will be exhibited during Earth Day 2001.
“It’s an exciting time to be a designer,” said Johnson. “There is so much happening and so much opportunity.”
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Connie Koenenn can be reached at connie.koenenn@latimes.com.
