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Vienna Design Week 2014: Recycling Design Prize

By Sam Dunne - October 6, 2014

in Design Festivals

Our tour around Vienna Design Week last week gave us a chance to finally get a first-hand glimpse of winners of the 6th annual Recycling Designpreis—the touring exhibition of the awarded works having already made their way slowly form Berlin to Hamburg to Dusseldorf this year.

The winners and shortlisted works on display showed some awesome creativity in turning discarded items into surprisingly desirable products—upcycling at its best. Some of the most ingenious pieces even managed to identify a material stream beyond the obvious—fashion student Viktoria Lepeschko made striking outerwear from the skins of old tennis balls and designer Michael Hensel created uncompromisingly industrial furniture from used escalator steps.

Furniture designer Henry Baumann snagged first prize with his clever and intricate use of fruit crates to create a range of benches, stools, lamps and coffee tables.

Second prize went to Daria Wartalska for her recycled tableware set—a slightly more sophisticated take on the usual turn-a-beer-bottle-into-a-wine-glass trick.

Clever use of waste corrugated card by designer Roswitha Berger Gentsch.

Pretty awesome drum-kit ensemble entitled 'Le Spectacle' by German artist Levent Kunt.

'Origa-mino' by Denis Janzen made from recycled printer paper and folded together without glue.

Third prize went to Laura Jungmann, Monika Nickel, Cornelius Reer and Matthias Blindow for their clever refurbishing reinterpretations of found objects such as chairs, tables and vessels.

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Matt

10 years ago

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I can't tell if the tennis balls were actually worn out it. They look pretty fresh to me, but I'm no tennis ball expert. If they are as new as they look, this would not qualify as recycling. It is it's more of a repurposing of tennis balls. These types of "recycling" projects make me scratch my head. They only lead to more production and consumption of the source material. The recycling credo is, in order of importance: 1. Reduce 2. Reuse 3. Recycle.
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hari

10 years ago

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The first thing to wear out in a tennis ball is its skin. Whether that kind of a jacket can be made from used tennis balls is anybody's guess. It should probably go down into the genre called 'recycle porn'.
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