Circular Living Exhibition, London Design Festival 2016
Elvis & Kresse is an environmentally motivated design practice. By environmentally motivated I mean that we exist to solve environmental problems. We started by solving London’s hose waste problem, and over time found more and more wastes that no one had tackled yet. Wastes that didn’t deserve the indignity of landfill but were perhaps too niche for mainstream recycling companies to see potential in. By transforming burnt out redundant fire hose into luxury goods and accessories we have developed a reputation for alchemy. Our Fire Hose success proved that we could do it, that we had just a little bit of magic in our methods; this is why our small design practice is now involved in design projects with much larger companies, ones with equally large waste problems.
Being circular should be the ultimate in design, the pinnacle that every designer aspires to achieve. But it is tricky, it also has to be commercially viable and attractive to our wonderfully complex customers and clients. Our new leather reclamation project is set to achieve this.
We have been working on it for years. It has had clear, evolutionary phases, it is designed to adapt, to be re-imagined by consumers and other designers, to have a life long past our ‘tinkering’. It will only ever be truly circular if it ceases to be ours; if it becomes yours, theirs, and then someone else’s, in some other form. It could be our best work, but we won’t know that until we lose complete control of its future. How exciting.
Maybe this is why it is going to take a while for designers to truly embrace circularity. They are trained to make something that is the best, but if you are going to be circular you are aiming for the best being yet to come.
We are featuring two pieces at the Circular Living Exhibition at the Building Centre as part of London Design Festival, 2016. One is a rug, another is an upholstered chair made from reclaimed scaffolding. A rug that can be remade into upholstery? Why not.
