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A Second Designer Experiments with Using Plastic Bottles as Heat-Shrink Joinery

First Charlène Guillaume, now Micaella Pedros

By Rain Noe - June 4, 2018

in Materials

A couple of years ago we looked at the work of Charlène Guillaume. While studying at France's ENSCI-Les Atelier (the National School for Industrial Design), Guillaume experimentally used discarded PET bottles as heat-shrink wrap to join wood:

Bottle It from charlene guillaume on Vimeo.

While not aesthetically attractive, we thought it a worthy experiment, precisely what design students should be undertaking before practical employment precludes it.

Now I see that London-based designer Micaella Pedros has done something similar, some might say identical, to Guillaume's work, about a year after Guillaume released it:

Joining Bottles from Micaella Pedros on Vimeo.

Pedros' Joining Bottles project page makes no mention of Guillaume, so it's possible Pedros was unaware of Guillaume's project and developed the idea independently. In any case, Pedros' work is more aesthetically attractive (in my opinion) to Guillaume's creations.

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I hope Pedros continues to push the work further. We'd be happy to see any use for discarded plastic that might keep it from making its way into the ocean and killing whales.

o

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Donald Jones

6 years ago

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How about using this technique to hold raised garden beds together with out nails or screws? How about trellis for some climbing flowers or beans, gourds, squash? Think inside the box.

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Brian Peers

6 years ago

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She (Micaella) has done well to explore this means of incorporating waste material into a functional device. It’s stylistic taste is obviously not for most people but it is certainly an interesting use of material to perhaps make a statement about the environment we live in. It reminds me of the ideas that swirl around inside of the mind of Creatives such as the participants in a TV show currently on here in New Zealand who are challenged weekly with new design briefs. It’s worth a watch just to see how designers work under the pressure of time and material constraints. https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/design-junkies

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Andrew Hayward

6 years ago

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As someone who likes to go freedom camping and rig up all manner of luxuries on site, I could see this being a nice alternative to using rope etc to lash things together. Will be giving it a go next summer.

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Alex Netz

6 years ago

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Here we go again with the pseudo-enviromentalist.
This unscalable, unpractical, and downright ugly use of used plastic does nothing to save the whales. The whole piece of “furniture” will be trash next time the owner moves.
You can commend the designers on originality, on ingeniuity, and if you like the product, you can celebrate their style. But waving the save the earth flag in these cases doesn’t benefit no one.
Plastic bottles can be reused to hold liquids, in fact thr multilayered PET bottles used by perrier and san pellegrino are thick and of high quality. Also, PET is 100% recyclable and there are streams for recycling it all over the world.
But I guess that doesn’t make for a good blog post

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- Richard C
  
  Alex Netz
  
  6 years ago
  
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  Why so serious? This is not a consumer product being pushed in the millions. It was a designer thinking outside the box and finding another use for trash. If you don't appreciate creativity then this isnt the blog for you.
  
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  - amunta nul
    
    Richard C
    
    6 years ago
    
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    What's the point of a design blog if you can't give well-thought constructive criticism?
    
    Just because it's "creative" doesn't make it good, and it definitely doesn't mean you should only give it praise.
    
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- ben offer
  
  Alex Netz
  
  6 years ago
  
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  Couldn't agree more, straight wood would probably be easier, use less material, be more functional, look better, and not require a torch/fuel to put it together.
  
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Juan Cano

6 years ago

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Well, he's definitely pushed the concept much much further, and his choice of music was awesome. Nice work.

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A Spector

6 years ago

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LOVE IT!!

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