Archive for August 2008

What: Product launch of chair made from recycled computer games consoles; first to use 100% recycled plastic from a single source
When: Wednesday 10th September 2008, 6.30 pm to 9 pm
Where: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, 10 Great Marlborough Street, London W1F 7LP
Contact: To attend contact Christopher Pett, Pli Design Ltd, telephone 020 8670 6857, email office@plidesign.co.uk; website www.plidesign.co.uk

British-made chair, using 100% recycled PlayStation®2 consoles, to be launched in London on 10 September.

London, 1 September 2008, London-based Pli Design Ltd (www.plidesign.co.uk) will be launching its latest eco-friendly product, a chair made from 100% recycled games consoles, on Wednesday 10 September at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s head office in London.
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Selfridges’ flagship store on Oxford Street in London will feature a pop-up shop by Designers Block, called The New Design.

The shop is available from 10-23 September as part of the London Design Festival. The New Design pop-up shop, on the fourth floor, is selling designs that have been shown in the past at Designers Block exhibitions which are now in production.

The Reee chair was shown at Designers Block in Shoreditch in 2007 and it has been selected to go into the shop for the duration of the festival. You can buy one and take it away with you or you can order batches of 2, 4 or more chairs and we will deliver them to you. The Reee chair costs £99 in Selfridges.

Get along to Selfridges during the London Design Festival and don’t miss the window displays curated by Designers Block, including one window by our friends Sarah and Jason at Wemake.

Designersblock pop-up shop at Selfridges, London Design Festival 2008

Pli has been working towards sourcing all of our materials sustainably since we started in 2003. We have met and discussed novel, eco-friendly materials for our furniture designs with suppliers in India, China and all over the UK. We’ve built up a fair amount of knowledge and experience which we are eager to share with other designers.

So Pli was really pleased to be given the opportunity to talk at the Eco Design Network’s Big Picture Brunch in London on 18 September. Christopher Pett from Pli will be discussing our experience and ideas regarding from compostable panel furniture to biocomposites and recycled plastics.

The EDN Big Picture Brunch

There will be lots of interesting speakers there and we are looking forward to learning a lot and getting into some lively and illuminating discussions. Apparently the coffee and croissants are on the house so we hope to see you there!
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Christopher Pett from Pli will be on the panel of the Materials Masterclass on Thursday September 18, as part of the Greengaged event series, hosted by the Design Council during the London Design Festival. The seminar will run from 2 pm until 3.30 pm and there are lots more interesting lectures and discussions to follow on that day. You can register here. Come along and get involved in the discussion — we want to make it an informed and productive event.

greengaged seminar series

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Ed Boaden has joined Pli as an intern for a few weeks to work with us on the launch of the Reee chair. He’ll also be looking at the best ways for us to communicate the Waste Neutral mark which the Eden Project has given the Reee chair and generally how we talk about recycling and waste materials so it all makes sense. Ed has just graduated from Nottingham University with a Masters in Product Design and Manufacture — by pure coincidence he is now the fourth person to come through our doors with a degree from that establishment — and we’re really happy he has decided to spend some time with us.

Product design by Ed Boaden

In today’s world of overflowing information and complex interwoven processes, environmentally-committed businesses have a growing number of challenges to tackle. In such business environment, life cycle analysis (LCA) has come to be considered as a helpful device.

It is the conventional understanding of the notion of ‘device’ that has led Pli to carry out an investigation into alternative approaches to LCA. The traditional perception defines this ‘device’ as an operational tool, whether physical or electronic (i.e. software), used mainly to calculate input and output, therefore inevitably focused solely on manufacturing. Instead, during the productive time of my internship at Pli, we strived to develop a method that could embrace as many sides as possible to a product development process.

Now the initial findings of this investigation have been gathered in a white paper format, and is here for everyone to review (click here).

LCA representation of the Reee chair concept

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We’ll be having a launch party for the Reee Chair on September 10, from 6.30 until 9.00 pm in central London. This is our chance to thank the many organisations that have helped us to bring this new product to the market, since we started planning it in 2006, and show the finished product to our customers, press and partners.

Reee Chair

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In the last two weeks Pli’s latest product the Reee chair has gone into full scale production. It has taken two years product development to get to this point with the help of many, many people and organisations, from the designers Sprout to the subcontracted parts manufacturers and London Remade who supported the injection mould tooling.

Reee frame welding jig

None of this help and advice has gone to waste – the finished product is radically different from our very first conceptions of a 100% post-consumer recycled plastic seat. And yet the original idea remains exactly the same – a 100% post-consumer recycled plastic chair seat and back on a simple tubular frame.

Reee injection mould tool

Watch out for announcements regarding retail locations, launch parties and contract deliveries in the coming days and weeks – we have some exciting news to share – but in the meantime we are all just glad to be in production, frame by frame, part by part, diverting recycled material from landfill or down-cycling and using it for a high-quality consumer product instead.