Yinka Ilori I

Yinka Ilori is a East London based designer who tells stories through his upcycled furniture designs. Yinka specialises in up-cycling vintage furniture inspired by traditional Nigerian parables and African fabrics that he grew up with as a child. Each piece of furniture he up-cycles tells a meaningful, yet humorous story which can be shared with people throughout the world.

Yinka's design approach starts with the dismantling of the original components, which he then re- assembles into a new piece ready for use again. Deeply aware and passionately against the unnecessary waste of modern consumer societies in the west.

Manoteca I

Bologna-based designer Manoteca creates incredibly stylish one of a kind,  upcycled pieces of functional furniture. This desk one made from window shutters.

I really like the idea that in every object is held somebody's life.
I hope that who is going to possess an object will think about that and take good care of it.
Manoteca is a little house in a park, a lab where old and abandoned things are hosted, reinvented and reassembled.
They are all one-of-a-kind, handmade and treated with natural paints.

Kate Noakes

Kate Noakes extends the life of furniture such as tables and cabinets by restoring them and then decorating them with metal inlay making them contemporary and strong. Kate trained as a sculptor who used welded steel as her medium for exterior public sculptures. Kate launched her furniture range at TENT 2012

Tõnis Kalve & Ahti Grünberg

Two Estonian Designers Tõnis Kalve & Ahti Grünberg, have created a stylish  brand and range of furniture called 'Derelict' created from industrial scrap wood and clean industrial style metal. The combination of lived in wood and the clean lines of the metal creates an distinct look, combine with great design and craftsmanship and you have a success story.

"The Derelict concept is to transform imperfections of wood into highlights of the product, bringing out the textural beauty and colour nuances. The unique manufacturing process involves cleaning the recovered wood and bonding and calibrating it to the right size to achieve the envisioned look. While the designs follow a consistent idiom, each crafted item has a unique character depending on the used material.
Furthermore, each item of furniture has its own story to tell. Made of wood from an old camper’s house in the deep Baltic forests or the decaying 1920’s Tallinn Hippodrome – every piece created is catchy and meaningful." Derelict

Marianne Vitale

 

Marianne Vitale makes these beautiful sculptures, from scrap wood, that recreate barns, outhouses and bridges and then she riddles them with bullet holes or burns them. They are evocative of ghost towns of abandonment and society breakdown and yet they are sculptures of great beauty.
Marianne Vitale is a chameleon of an artist, her work changes and reinvents itself in genre and style so she has a very interesting and varied portfolio.

Jonas Merian

These pieces of furniture by Jonas Merian feature old biscuit tins as the legs, old biscuit tins are not available here but there are lots of cooking oil tins available for utilizing in design.

Greg Hatton

Greg Hatton 'Twiggie' designs and makes furniture from sticks, found wood and upcycled wood each piece is unique and has beauty, integrity and poetry about it. Greg's design processes are materials driven informed by the beauty of natural materials and found objects.

Dan Phillips I

Dan Phillips is a magician with the discarded and unwanted, the damaged and the found. The wonder of Dan's way of working is, that it is design and invention and ingenuity, his vision and working practice has the essence of all you need to design; furniture, products, fashion, houses . . . civilisation. Dan Phillips is also very funny, I hope you enjoy his TED lecture as much as I did. Pictured are some of his furniture pieces from Bone House.

Villa Dechets et Nantes by Frederic Tabary

A house constructed and decorated from 50 tonnes of scrap; pallets and rubbish. La Villa Dechets at Nantes was constructed by architect Frederic Tabary and scenographer Yann Falquerho. Frederic and Yann found creative, stylish and elegant solutions to reforming scrap materials into beautiful furniture and construction materials.

Junk+ion

Furniture created from old bicycles, suitcases and sash windows from Junk+ion.

"Junktion people take everyday objects out of context, sometimes attaching them to others, unrelated, and at other times turn them upside down o the table, take a step back and say: hmmmm . . ."

Junktion people love seeing objects in new ways, stuff that makes us think, stuff that makes us act, stuff that makes us laugh . . ." (thanks)

Piet Hein Eek

Outside bench by Piet Hein Eek made from upcycled timbers.

Interview with Piet Hein Eek (here)

Frederik Farg

Re-cover is a project by Frederik Farg that looked to classic design and tailoring as it's inspiration for up cycling second hand chairs. By using old chairs from flea markets and removing the backrest, replacing it with a new textile dress/structure?of mouldable polyester felt, he is creating “slow fashion” furniture, giving the old chairs a new glance.

INDIVIDUALS

Four Boston based artists all with individual studios who come together and collaborate in the artists collective !ND!V!DUALS. Using salvaged materials they create irreverent, fantastical sculptures.

Brent Comber

Brent Comber has made these alder logs/ branches into beautiful benches and tables. Brent Comber was a landscape gardener but renovating his house led him to seek out old timbers.

". . .I discovered the capacity of old wood to tell stories in its own rich and expressive language. This discovery inspired me to begin building objects from historically significant wood." Brent Comber