Day 1 #LDF14 #LDFredesign

 

We opened our live 'workshop' yesterday in the Learning Centre on Level 3 of the Victoria and Albert museum. It was just as busy as we were expecting it to be, with lots of interesting nice people passing by and talking to us!

Below are two of the posters that we put up in our make shift workshop. The Great Recovery made them to illustrate some facts about our waste.

F A C T ! !

 

Below is the waste material that Charlie took off our first chair. We will sort  between recyclable textiles and waste that's destined for the bin. (Oops, looks like the picture is the wrong way up, but you still get the idea...)Charlie told us all this is natural material, the brownish fabric is called Hessian, and it's made from hemp fibre. The ginger coloured fibres that peep through are in fact coir fibre, from the husk of the coconut The cream coloured over padding, which was the final layer underneath the red vinyl that covered the chair for about sixty years, is cotton felt. All of these materials can be composted. 

And this is our first chair underway ...

 

The tension springs on the back and the coil springs underneath the seat are the originals. They just needed a bit of tweaking. The back springs are probably good for another sixty years as they are under very little tension when nobody sits on the chair and only minimal when somebody does. The seat springs have to work harder and therefore have a shorter life expectancy. They won't probably last for more than another 10 to 20 years.

Below, Galapagos's Charlie with his scissors, cutting the Wood Grain Blue fabric that Ella designed specifically for the installation. This fabric will go onto our first chair and we will show you more pictures as we go along.

Here's one of how it looked this morning, with fabric on the inside back and the first layer of padding on the seat, and two of our first visitors this morning taking a look at it.

This new padding is made from shredded recycled fabric, and Charlie calls it 'a very Galapagos material'. He likes to work with it as it is similarly long-lasting than the original materials that were on the chair.

Have a lovely day - and do stop by at our workshop @ the Victoria and Albert Museum if you can.

Hashtags for the week: #LDF14 #LDFredesign #elladoranvamldf14

Bye for now!

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