peebee.

What we define as waste is usually something we no longer find useful. We give value to things in accordance to what we need in our lives to be solved. But things not only exist individually, they're usually a part of something else or a product of manufacturing, something that only works by adding a something extra. Discarding things has become an easy task, making people more and more detached from their belongings. Getting used to throwing away instead of fixing or repurposing. We want to explore deeper into this subject so we can try to make the supposedly "useless" into "useful" again.

We started by imagining something fun and easy to use. In this way people would be driven towards fixing their furniture instead of discarding it. Modularity and replicability are key concepts for this project. The aim was to create something people can adapt as an extension to their furniture which would serve as a bond between the broken piece and another object. We came up with the idea of creating a type of key that could join two pieces together. This would create a sort of mutant object which would gain new life, purpose, function and aesthethics.

In the exploration of new fabrication methods we decided to approach laser cutting. We found this process easy to use and would also facilitate the replicability of the product, reducing human error, cutting down time and material waste. The first test was done in cardboard in order to see if the pieces would bond together correctly and then we used the metacrilate.

While assembling the pieces we realised there were some complications with our design. Some of the pieces fit together but were hard to connect to other pieces when trying to assemble a chair we found in the trash. This helped as a useful insight for future improvements. Also, the tolerance for the bonds need to be adjusted so the cube can fit tightly without adding extra glue, which was needed in this case.

When testing the use of the key some other issues came up. We realised we hadn't tested well enought the mechanism so it can actually hold still two pieces together. In this case we were trying with a chair that needed a seat and some extra supports for the legs. The cubes couldn't be attached to the pieces and then bond together. The cubes needed to be joined and then attached to the piece which would make it less user friendly. All of these setbacks were annotated and we are currently working towards improvements.