eWoven Chair

I had an idea. Kate is an amazing weaver and design thinker. We were curious. We decided to test out some ideas and co-created upcycled furniture using e-waste—old electrical wiring and cables. We collected the e-waste materials from friends, online sources, thrift stores, and e-waste centers. Kate wove some e-waste textile samples (Not shown here. But trust me, they are beautiful.) 

A year later, the perfect curbside junk appeared—an old metal framed chair destined for the landfill. Its original woven seating had reached its end of life in all its mangled, tattered glory. But the metal frame was perfectly usable. Same for all of the speaker wire, audio cables, telephone cord, and other e-waste discarded. It just had to have a reimagined use. 

Plastics and metal consumer goods require a lot of raw materials and energy up front to manufacture. It's a disgrace that so much ends up in a landfill only to sit there for decades, sometimes centuries, when it could instead offer a sustainable solution for extending the life of consumer materials just in a different way than it was originally intended. Previous owners of such products did what most of us do—they threw the products away because they weren't of use to them anymore. Yet the material is very much usable with some creative thinking and circular design in mind. Kate Shaw is the master-mind behind the weaving plan and patterning design. I collaborated with the vision and production assistance.