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Minarc's RUBBiSH sink, made from old tires

By Rain Noe - August 30, 2010

in Object Culture

I have to recaulk my bathroom sink, an infuriatingly small-bowled object that splashes water everywhere yet is astonishingly heavy. It's a solid chunk of porcelain that doesn't deliver good functionality for the amount of matter it consists of, and I dread having to pull it off the wall cleat so I can scrape off the bad original caulking job, which was apparently done while the contractor was having a seizure.

If I had my druthers I'd own Santa-Monica-based design studio Minarc's RUBBiSH, a sink made from recycled rubber.

Melting down old tires is an awesome way to make a sink--not only are the resultant sheets easy to clean, they're only 1/8" thick and can simply be stretched over a form to give them shape, resulting in a super lightweight sink.

via 3 rings and architect magazine

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Sara Carter

8 years ago

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Edith

13 years ago

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Relax, haters! It's a bathroom sink!
I doubt you'll be draining any pasta or dousing burning pans in your bathroom. I think it's brilliant, and a great use of a waste product.
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MPK

13 years ago

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The rubber would probably smell if you burnt it, but go scratch your car tires and see if you get any smell off of them. Oh wait! too hard to scratch because the material is designed to have a strong resistance to wear. Think about a car driving on the highway at 60-70 MPH. Yes you can penetrate it with massive amounts of pressure put to a pin point. Otherwise the material is resilient probably self healing to some degree. Droog did a bathroom sink made of rubber but it was not recycled tires. Brilliant idea!
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StevenB

13 years ago

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To everybody who is worried about the sinks ability to survive a kitchen, read the first sentence again.
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AaronB

13 years ago

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Uh, tires are thermoset polymers, not thermoplastics. In other words, they cannot be remelted and remolded like a polyethylene, polyamide, etc. So any recycling of tires is inevitably downcycling. Although I do not doubt that this rubber sheet uses recycled tires, I imagine they are actually "ground and bound", not "melted and molded".
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jmrowland

13 years ago

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I have to wonder, since you could do the same thing with a piece of rubber pond liner, or, for that matter, a plastic dropcloth, why not melt the tires and mold them into a rigid rubber sink?
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Jean Wheizle

13 years ago

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How are you meant to wash your dishes in that shallow sink?
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Magic Beans Inc

13 years ago

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Theoretically this is a fantastic use of the excruciating amount of extra tire rubber that contaminates our earth. But, realistically the design is falling short. Obviously this would need to be an extraordinarily wide surface to avoid being splashed. If this concept was re-worked it could have some seriously potential!
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Inspiration

13 years ago

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i wonder if it smells or not. but it looks great anyway!
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pattyrock

13 years ago

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What about hot water such as straining pasta? Will the rubber soften, melt or smell when a hot pan is set on it?
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MariaD

13 years ago

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better not drop any silverware.
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Angel Ascanio

13 years ago

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This is a fantastic idea. However, I'm concerned about how FLAMMABLE the material is.

Congratulations anyway because of thinking in new options for disposed tires. Amazing creativity.
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Silvia

13 years ago

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There is a swedish sustainable industrial design team that made parquet out of tires. I've personally seen it and it is simply amazing!
And no, it doesn't smell bad at all.
Take a look: http://www.apokalypslabotek.se/html/the_parquet.html
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Fit2B Mama

13 years ago

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Hm, My hubby works for a truck salvage site in NW Portland ... This would be yet another fun use for all the tires they tear off old trucks.
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Sigrun

14 years ago

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Haha this is so not the same idea. The rubber sink is made out of recycled tires that get's a new live.The rubber would otherwise be polluting our environment-instead it is used to something useful - something that everybody needs - a sink. I really like the concept!! I heard that you could actually buy these sinks now and install it to your bathroom layout - that's pretty cool :)
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Owen

14 years ago

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Nice idea, but not a new one:
http://www.furnacedesign.co.uk/spring-washbasin/
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Wesley

14 years ago

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I like this idea, the fact that this would provide more grip for counter products is a plus, and it will be easy to maintain.
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Eric

14 years ago

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That would over flow in about 1 sec! Look how slow the water is coming out. Needs more depth.
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Joel

14 years ago

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I'd also be concerned about delamination on the edges... I'd prefer some sort of mechanical fastening though admittedly I like the crisp edge of the current design.
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Stan

14 years ago

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Nice idea but it probably really smells like rubber in your kitchen all day.....
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