Living on an island requires one to think more sustainably than anywhere else, and there is an urgency for proper waste management. To decrease the amount of waste and consequently reduce environmental impact, it is imperative to avoid creating new materials.
This project was born from the concept of taking advantage of local, discarded materials in order to create sustainable furniture and bringing forth awareness about our environment.
Two kinds of discarded materials readily found in Hawai'i are unwanted furniture and abandoned fishing nets. Furniture left on the sidewalks will likely end up incinerated in landfills or carried to the ocean. Abandoned fishing nets (dubbed ghost nets) are responsible for 10% of all marine litter and exert multiple destructive effects on the marine environment.
The chairs were designed to address these two kinds of waste; old chairs were collected from the streets while cordage from fishing nets was woven into their structures, enabling many design variations.