Rags to riches: Designs from 2024 that salvaged and repurposed waste

Imagine a world like that of WALL-E, where skyscrapers are compacted trash and humans have been forced off the planet. A certain aesthetic prevails in movies such as this: solarpunk or steampunk language that pieces things together, a cyborg version of furniture, combining various materials, as found. It's a fact as plain as day that the creative industries—furniture, product, architecture and fashion—contribute the most to waste production, and movies such as WALL-E only present the inevitable conclusion to our habits of mega-consumption, amplified by our pursuit of the 'new'.

The notion of the 'found object', introduced in the art world by Marcel Duchamp through his 'readymades', has of late found an echo in product and furniture design practice, where such artefacts are incorporated and reworked as functional pieces. Highlighting principles of circular design, these objects that thread the line between functionality and artifice are as much product as a sign, a warning to mend our practices of overconsumption. Not only holding a sign up to design to make more mindful choices, designers have also focused on the memories and meanings we attach to everyday things that still, in the end, end up as garbage and in landfills. How can these memories be preserved or given a new shape?

Taking waste from quarries, factories or opportune finds from thrift stores and flea markets, over the last year, designers from the world over have reimagined the meanings we attach to waste. Taking a novel approach to sustainability, the objects they have created are over the top, Frankensteinian, and altogether delightful. STIR presents the best designs of 2024 that redefined the ways we can reuse that which seemingly has no use.

1. Not as Planned by Benjamin Foucaud

Earlier this year, French designer Benjamin Foucaud launched a series of upcycled designs, Not as Planned. Drawing inspiration from his everyday life and discarded objects from flea markets, Foucaud created the sculptures and functional objects from artefacts that did not fulfil their original purpose. Spotlighting the imperfection of the found objects he uses, the pieces in the collection include four vases, three trays, two Box For Nothing containers, a candlestick, a candleholder and a mirror. As Foucaud notes about the series, "They should not be in the category of beautiful objects. They came out of the cornucopia in which the ugliness and suffering of the world blew. Mine, that of my sad afternoons, of my social condition."

2. Fragments by Audrey Guimard

Using offcut tufa stone as a primary material, Audrey Guimard's sculptural designs for Fragments is an ongoing exploration of this tension between materiality and function. The series is a collection of different objects formed by arranging five stone blocks of the same size that had developed cracks, in certain configurations. Composed of table designs, totems and pedestals of various sizes, each furniture piece is unique in how it plays on the deformation of the stone.

Speaking about the genesis of the collection and her sculptural approach to design, the French artist tells STIR, "As with every new project, the inspiration comes from the stone blocks I have at my disposal…My eternal references are always tied to ruins and vanished civilisations, which led to forms of broken column capitals quickly emerging for this series."

3. AŠ-ŠĀRQIA and Rascal by Thomas Egoumenides

Tunisia-based designer Thomas Egoumenides' practice is the exploration of "a toolkit of different systems". In his work, the designer experiments with transforming discarded objects such as plastic bottles and spools from textile factories into playful artefacts: sculptures, lamp designs and even tables. A salvage-like aesthetic that celebrates the waste's previous lives defines the designs, hence questioning ways to revalue waste. The product designer's latest collection, AŠ-ŠĀRQIA, is an extension of this philosophy. Using thread spools from textile factories, Egoumenides creates a series of furniture designs, modular in nature, that users can modify if they so desire.

In his investigation into a language of salvage in design and an irreverent mode of operation that examines what might become of these objects once they have been discarded, Egoumenides notes, "The question of use was not there. [It was about] creating a dialogue between me and the object, having fun. That's why I call it a laboratory."

4. Lost Stories by Yuxuan Huang

Comprising a chair, table and two cabinets, Lost Stories by New York-based designer Yuxan Huang is characterised by a design language reminiscent of jigsaw puzzles. Hoping to highlight the stories of furniture that ended up in flea markets, Huang uses a process of deconstruction for the pieces in her ongoing series of wooden furniture. The idea is not only to repurpose objects that have served their use for previous owners but to give them new meaning and new stories to live.

"I have chosen a different approach: rather than merely cleaning and preserving the old form, I prefer to give these objects a completely new life and form. This method allows me to respect their 'time capsule' quality by retaining the marks of usage," the furniture designer said, emphasising on the pieces that embrace elements such as dirty paint, scratches, glue marks and dust - treading both the past and present use.

5. Play Memory Structure by Shigeki Yamamoto

The theme of turning scrap material and flea market finds into quirky objects that highlight the discarded artefacts' memories and lives continues with Berlin-based Japanese designer Shigeki Yamamoto's designs for coffee tables, Play Memory Structure. Combining colourful toys and other ephemera such as painted plates and strings of crystals, the tables display a distinct collage, bringing together whimsy, nostalgia and a defined modular structure through older pieces from his workshop.

An extension of the Play Anima sculptures by the designer, Play Memory Structure spotlights the playfulness of modular design. Speaking about the idea of giving new life to refuse through recycled products, Yamamoto tells STIR, "My Play Anima sculptures originated from the idea of giving new 'life' to leftover pieces that, for me, already contained a meaning or memory."

6. Stela series by Rebecca Appleby

Debris from sites marked for redevelopment is given new meaning in UK-based ceramicist Rebecca Appleby's Stela (2022-) series. Sculptures with a raw morphology, patinated, bearing the marks of time and neglect, are repurposed, chiselled and sculpted with clay for the series. Each is meant to be a poetic reflection of the cycle of genesis, being and decay of human life through building fragments.

As Appleby notes, the lives of humans mirror the lives of buildings; like us, buildings are sites that hold memories, and even once they are demolished, these scars, dints and graffiti-tagged walls relay these stories back to the keen observer. "These sculptures represent an autobiographical series of stela that commemorate and mark important personal events and experiences," she concludes.

7. Fresh Catch by Lauren Goodman

Canadian designer Lauren Goodman develops product designs from waste and discarded objects, with her minimalistic language drawing attention to alternative material resources and a culture of upcycling. Her recent collection, Fresh Catch, exclusively uses lobster traps culled from Maine's waters. Often, these end up adrift at sea, endangering ocean populations.

Using this refuse, Goodman deconstructs, organically rearranges and welds back together the meshed artefact, resulting in a quirky, 3D shelf design. Through her designs, Goodman hopes to foster non-exploitative design solutions that respect local communities, land and labour history.

"I used a series of hand tools to carefully disassemble the lobster trap while maintaining the formal qualities that developed from years of tossing around the ocean. Through this process, I seek to transport found objects from their original context while playfully gesturing to their former function," shares Goodman about the collection.

STIRred 2024 wraps up the year with curated compilations of our expansive art, architecture and design coverage at STIR this year. Did your favourites make the list? Tell us in the comments!