Whenever we try to make something, there will always be materials that are cut off, left unused, and ultimately thrown away. Whether it’s paper, wood, plastic, textile, or even metal, these wasted materials end up hurting the environment sooner or later, whether directly or indirectly. There is now a more conscientious effort among manufacturers and designers to pay attention to such wasted resources, either by reducing their number or reusing them for some other purpose. The former requires smarter and more ingenious designs that utilize every inch of a material, which can sometimes be more difficult than it sounds. Fortunately, recycling and upcycling cut-offs can actually be easier, especially if you can combine them into interesting shapes that serve as the foundations of beautiful furniture and lighting fixtures such as these hanging lamps.
Designers: Anthony Frank Keeler, Sarah Coleman, Wisse Trooster
We saw Stackabl earlier this year as one of those efforts to upcycle factor off-cut felt. More than just a specific collection of chairs and couches, however, it was actually a tool that lets you design your own seat using stacked layers of material. Given their textile origins, seating furniture seems to be the most immediate application for this tool, but now you can also use the configurator to design comfy-looking lamps to hang from your ceilings.
Stackabl is like a DIY tool for designing your own pendant lamp. It lets customers dictate different parameters like the length of the lamp, the diameter of the “discs” of felt, and even where the actual lights will be located along the stack of material. Of course, you can also mix and match different colors, creating a composition that is as harmonious or as discordant as you like. You don’t even have to be limited to a single disc size since you can shrink or grow the circles anywhere along the length of the lamp.
The result is a modular pendant lamp that is both striking and sustainable. It’s almost too easy to compare it with a tower of pancakes if not for the more earthy tones that the material has. Since no two configurations are identical (unless you intend them to be so), each Stackabl pendant lamp is immediately unique and personal. The lamps also convey feelings of warmth and fuzziness because of the woven felt as well as the diffused light. It makes for a perfect mood-setter for areas that need to feel cozy and comfortable.
It’s not just the upcycled felt that’s environment-friendly, even though it’s the main focus of the Stackabl system. The aluminum used to hold things together is also upcycled, and the LEDs that provide illumination are considered to be more power-efficient than conventional bulbs. It’s not a completely green product, with the use of acrylic covers to diffuse the light and adhesives to keep things together, but it still takes an important step toward sustainability by giving leftover materials a new home.
