Newspaper Bench: Upcycle Mundane to Extraordinary

Posted on June 21, 2008 by Matt Embrey in Concept+Design

We all have old newspapers sitting around waiting to be recycled but Belgian Designer Charles Kaisin is sitting around ON old newspapers that he upcycled into this amazing expandable bench. He endeavored to turn the mundane into something extraordinary in a way that would highlight the concept of recycling.

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Kaisin took regular newspapers, layered, glued and compressed them to create a building material that is as strong as wood. He then took these sheets and mimicked one of natures strongest forms, the honeycomb, to create this amazing expandable bench.

It is similar to the FlexibleLove but Kaisin’s design keeps the building material, newspaper, very conspicuous to serve as a visual reminder of environmental issues. His site explains that the process is simple and could easily be reproduced for minimal cost potentially making this cool concept available to the public. You can buy one right now directly from Kaisin’s store, but I would call it available because it costs 8,000 euros (that’s about $12,500.00, now that’s extraordinary).

Tags:

bench, Design, Furniture, newspaper, upcycle

3 Responses to “ Newspaper Bench: Upcycle Mundane to Extraordinary ”

Eric

23. Jun, 2008

You are 2 years too late on this news. http://www.inhabitat.com/2006/06/07/newspaper-extendable-bench/

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Matt

24. Jun, 2008

@ ERIC,

Thanks for commenting. I’m not sure how we are “too late” on this? We never said this was breaking news. There are a lot of products and ideas that are not new that deserve coverage. This is a feature on a product and designer that embody some sustainable ideals, not to mention it’s pretty cool.

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erin

16. Jul, 2008

just came across your blog. thank you for recognizing that while there are a ton of really cool eco-friendly new products and design out there:
1. you don’t have to be rich to be environmentally friendly (the term thrifty comes to mind)
2. that the average reader can build similar things themselves. I’m definitely going to try the newspaper yarn and this construction technique sometime soon.

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