by Alex Davies, Paris, France
Design & Architecture

Image Credit: Merrn Haines-Gold
When it comes to recycling, paper is one of the bigger success stories. But now designer Merryn Haines-Gadd has come up with a way to recycle paper other than throwing it in the right bin- he’s made a chair. Taking the wooden frame of an old director’s chair, Haines-Gold used old magazines and loose bits of paper to remake it into a functioning chair.
Friction, not glue, holds the paper together: the pieces overlap like a stack of shuffled cards, and wrapped a single strip of plastic. Where the seat meets the binding, holes are bored into the paper and are attached to the wood by cord or zip ties.
While Haines-Gold notes that the design is available for sale, he presents it as a DIY project:
That is the beauty of the idea, it is very simple and can be recreated anywhere with any magazine you wish, it also does not even have to be a magazine, it can be loose bits of paper, as long as they are roughly the same shape and the surfaces are able to engage with each other, the friction will do the rest…..just don’t leave it outside.
So if you’re looking for a good weekend project, why not grab some old magazines and try your hand at making a chair? At the best, you’ll have a unique, home-made, green piece of furniture that you can personalize however you want (depending on what you read). At worst, you’ll have learned something about how friction works, and the paper materials go into the recycling bin (where they were headed anyway, right?).
(Source: www.treehugger.com)