Sustainable 3D-printed chair was built by designers using plastic waste generated by their own studio

Posted on 17/02/2022 by Sarang Sheth

The Ermis Chair by The New Raw displays the combination of human ingenuity with robotic accuracy to turn plastic waste into robot-aided 3D printed furniture.

Armed with large quantities of raw material in the form of plastic waste, The New Raw decided to close the loop and turn it into actual useful products. 3D printing large-scale furniture isn’t something that’s entirely new to the Rotterdam-based design outfit. Panos Sakkas and Foteini Setaki of design studio The New Raw have been known to print massive furniture pieces using the proprietary robotic printing arms that they designed and built on their own. Working with the robot and experimenting with new plastics requires constant experimentation, which then results in a lot of plastic waste. Determined to not let the waste end up in some landfill, Panos and Foteini decided to repurpose the plastic waste into furniture. The Ermis Chair is a result of that grand experiment, with its uniquely beautiful form and that absolutely gorgeous natural color gradient that comes from the extruded plastic filament gradually changing color through the print.

Designer: The New Raw

It feels strange to see a chair that massive and to think that it was built using 3D printing. Something incredibly unique about the Ermis’ design are those horizontal print lines. Firstly, they’re absolutely massive, which makes one wonder how large the nozzle on the robotic 3D printing arm could possibly be. Secondly, if you look at the side profile, the lines actually change direction, going from vertical on the front to diagonal, and finally horizontal at the top. It’s quite difficult to imagine how the designers managed to pull this off, especially considering that aside from actually rotating the chair WHILE it was being printed, the Ermis sports a beautifully pristine finish with little to no proof of any support structures.

The Ermis isn’t just a marvel of engineering and sustainability (recycled plastic, remember?), it’s also a phenomenally pretty chair. That gradient of light brown to blue has an instant beachy feel, with colors resembling the sand and the water. Look behind and you’ll see a sack filled with plastic pieces that served as the raw material for the Ermis chairs.

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These designers are using 3D-printing robots to turn the city’s plastic waste into beautiful public furniture

Posted on 23/11/2021 by Sarang Sheth

That detergent bottle you threw into recycling could someday turn into furniture instead of ending up in a landfill, if The New Raw had its way. The Netherlands-based studio is looking to turn Rubbish into Raw Materials, with its innovative material sorting system and its massive robotic 3D printers that effectively repurpose plastic waste into some of the most beautiful furniture ever. The Pots Plus, showcased here, absolutely reimagines what recycled plastic bottles are capable of. What was once a container for chemical detergents, soaps, or solvents, is now turned into an artistically fluid piece of furniture that welcomes humans and plants alike, with its amoeboid design that’s a cross between a chaise lounge and a large planter!

The transformation isn’t just a material one, it’s a philosophical one too. Mass-produced chemical-holding shampoo/detergent bottles, a perfect example of capitalistic use-and-throw culture, are turned into street furniture that welcomes humans and plants, and is designed to actually help the public as well as the environment. This design process relies on an extremely complex material processing system that The New Raw has perfected in their Rotterdam-based studio. Founded in 2015 by architects Panos Sakkas and Foteini Setaki, the studio aims at giving new life to discarded materials through design, robots, and craftsmanship. In every way, it’s the antithesis of consumerism. The benches aren’t mass-produced, but are painstakingly crafted one by one. They’re designed using recycled materials, are made for the welfare of public, and most importantly, they’re designed to last.

The benches come in a variety of organic shapes, designed around human contours and proportions. Designed to accommodate human bodies in relaxed positions, the Pots Plus create novel working and recreational spaces, replacing the benches found in public spaces. Designed for lobbies, libraries, airports, and a host of other spaces that see people resting, waiting, and working, the benches have enough space for humans as well as their belongings, like their small bags, laptops, tablets,books, coffee cups, etc.

What’s fascinating about the Pots Plus (and all of The New Raw’s work), is its sheer scale. The 3D printing robots they use aren’t your run-of-the-mill desktop or even industrial printers. They’re developed in-house by The New Raw to suit their larger-than-life needs, and the results look nothing short of stunning as if they were rotationally molded. The furniture, however, comes covered with a set of horizontal ‘stepped’ lines, a textural detail that’s common with all 3D printed objects. Instead of removing the texture using sandpapers, primers, heat-guns, etc., The New Raw celebrates those lines as a way of showing off how capable their massive 3D printing robots are.

On one side of the Pots Plus is a large opening to add a planter, which gives the furniture a vibrant pop of green, and reinforces its earth-friendly approach. Each bench then becomes a place not just for humans to rest, but for plants to grow too, turning common public furniture into a spot of fresh greenery that’s conveniently located to provide a canopy of shade while someone rests on the bench too!

Designers: Panos Sakkas and Foteini Setaki (The New Raw)

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Turning plastic pollution into design solution!

Posted on 06/12/2017 by Sarang Sheth

The guys at The New Raw make a rather interesting point. The one material property of plastic we consider a benefit is in fact a curse. Plastic is designed to last long, but its usage cycle falls vastly short of its actual lifespan. A mere wrapper, bottle or garbage bag has a usage cycle ranging from a couple of hours to a couple of months, yet this very material has a lifespan of anywhere from 500 to 1000 years, making its way into landfills and the oceans because it was designed to outlive its need.

The Print Your City project was spawned out of the need to extend the usage cycle of plastic by developing a technology to turn waste plastic back into a raw material. The New Raw transform waste plastic into public furniture using 3D printing, not just extending the life of plastic and minimizing waste as a result, but doing it in a way that doesn’t necessarily make the end-result look “recycled”, but rather a well designed, beautifully manufactured product.

According to The New Raw, individual citizens of Amsterdam generate up to 25 kilograms of plastic waste annually. The Print Your City XXX Bench, one of the first in the series of products uses 50 of waste plastic (an amount generated annually by two such citizens) to develop a bench with a unique, iconic aesthetic, the Amsterdam XXX branding, and the ability to seat up to four people!

The New Raw’s approach to recycling involves visualizing waste as a resource and raw material Their hope is to turn waste generated by the residents of Amsterdam into products that are designed to serve its citizens and use plastic’s long life-span as an advantage!

Designers: The New Raw & Aectual. (Supported by TU Delft)

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