GoodWaste OPDC
Collecting waste material from an industrial site and using it to make furniture for the 25,000 new homes being built in the neighbouring town.
The first project of GoodWaste, a studio formed with Ambra Dentella and Rafael El Baz.
GoodWaste is an initiative located in Park Royal (London’s largest industrial site), that would collect the offcuts and waste materials from the area's diverse manufacturers—materials such as marble, steel and Corian—and use it to produce furniture and homeware for the 25,000 new homes that are currently being built in the neighbouring town. This represents a new model of manufacturing that is highly local and highly circular; dissolving the area’s waste problem while preventing an influx of low quality, mass-manufactured goods that must be shipped across the world.
The project highlights the potential of the so-called waste materials as a valuable local resource. While the initial test test for the project is the OPDC renegeration area (which includes both Park Royal and the neighbouring town, Old Oak), the model could feasibly be replicated in any other city, with the the materials adapting to the local manufacturing of that area.
The exemplar objects are all made from Park Royal waste and the designs celebrate this. Some are engraved with the name of the original manufacturer (and source of material) while others maintain the raw edges from the original offcut. In line with our design principles, each object is made from the leftovers of a previous object.
The project was a collaboration with Ambra Dentella and Rafael El Baz, where we had a shared research phase and system concept, but with individual object outputs.
My three objects demonstrate how GoodWaste would cope with the varying size of scrap material found in skips: the largest pieces can be cut down into shelves for the bookcase; medium-sized material can be repurposed as slabs for the bench; and any small pieces––including the offcuts from making the bookcase and bench––can be thrown into a terrazzo tile, in this case placed on a waste girder from a Park Royal steel manufacturer to form a side table.
Each object aims to reflect its industrial past, celebrating the fact it is made from offcuts, yet with enough polish that they could be desirable to the area’s residents looking to furnish their new homes.
Light and side table by Rafael El Baz
Vases & clocks by Ambra Dentella
