How you react to CDs or compact discs probably depends on how old you are. It can range from nostalgia to “what’s a CD??” but we all probably know that this is mostly, already a thing of the past. There are still probably a lot of CDs lying around and because of their material, they’re just going to the trash heap and stay there for a long time. Fortunately, there are still people out there who are still thinking of ways to recycle and up-cycle things like these.
Designer: Boris Dennler
One such person is a Swedish designer that was able to create something called Compact Disc Chair which is made up of, you guessed it, around 887 deformed CDs and DVDs. Obviously, this is not something you can actually sit in for a long period of time but is more like a think piece or a work of art to be displayed and marveled at. And if you were born in the recent decade or so, this is probably something that you’ll consider an archaeological piece.
The designer experimented with various ways of heating and deforming the plastic materials of the discs. They fixed it with screws and then glued onto the frame which was a wooden skeleton cut by a digital mill. Because the discs are originally circular, the final output has the look of a combination of fish-scale, chain-mail, and mesh pattern. It is of course multi-colored so when the sunlight hits it, you get an iridescent chair that gives off all the sparkling colors you want.
It’s not a chair built for comfort of course but more like a masterpiece of something from “days past”. For the past 17 years or so, these items have lost their purpose and all that are practically useless now can find some purpose by creating things like this chair instead of just lying in trash heaps because of its plastic material. Whether other designers can create something a bit more useful is something we should probably wish for.
