


Futuristic robot designed for enhancing digital interactions

Interview with Giovanni De Niederhäusern, CEO at Carlo Ratti Associati

[ Find out more about designers using waste to create amazing products, don’t miss Teun Zwets made a funky planter out of his own trash ]
Going deeper into details, Clarisse agreed to share with us the different stages the brick goes through, from discarded clothes to being used as construction material for the different projects they work in collaboration with.
The steps are:
Behind this simple manufacturing process lays a tremendous amount of work in research and development to reach this result. The glue used to bind together the textile fibers was developed with an engineer who is one of the first employees to join the studio.
“The ingredients used for our glue are secret but 100% ecological. The hardest part of the research was to make an ecological glue rot-proof, that doesn’t develop molds.”. Thanks to these innovations, the end product is a brick with very impressive characteristics.
“The brick has a very good mechanical resistance almost like a concrete block. This is why the structure of our furniture/ partition walls is made directly with our bricks. On another note, it has a good insulating quality, acoustic and thermal, and a good resistance to fire. Hence we can make panels that improve the ambiance of a room or a public space. It also has a good water resistance but we recommend indoor use for now.”
But more than a simple design studio, FabBRICK wants to reconnect with local manufacturers and promote trade of proximity. “At FabBRICK having a local production is at our core value and DNA. Even when it comes to our ingredients, machines and everything we use here. Local design production is possible, and we can do everything locally, just need to adjust and organise.”
Promoting local production doesn’t mean that the concept is exclusive to France. On the contrary, the studio envisions the possibility of a worldwide expansion, promoting local trade through a global vision.
“FabBRICK can be developed worldwide, the reason being that unfortunately, fast fashion is everywhere, so we can always be close to a source of textile waste...The next step is to [automate] the production so that we can recycle even more. At the moment the process is artisanal, the machines are manually operated. To start, duplicate our model locally in France then export globally the FabBRICK Factory.”
[ Curious to know about other products made out of recycled waste? Don’t miss Studio ThusThat’s lamp made from waste products from copper ]
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