A green design 'habitat' made from a company's own waste

A "habitat" was recently placed inside of Bloomberg Media's London headquarters, providing employees with a new recreational space to take a break from their workday. This space is not only different structurally, but the entire thing is made from bits of reclaimed cardboard and pallets from Bloomberg's own trash bin. Behold: "Pupa."

The installation  was commissioned by Bloomberg Philanthropy by the design agency Arts Co., for a series of projects that are made almost entirely out of Bloomberg's waste.

The series, started last year, is called "Waste not want it," and has put the multi-billion dollar company on the map for its innovative and beautiful ways to reuse it's own waste.

According to the designers at Manchester-based Lazerian design, known for their outstanding furniture, the form of this intricate space was not only designed with nature in mind, but was in fact inspired by the shapes of natural habitats like cocoons, hives, webs, and the nests of weaver birds.

"The ceiling," says the project description, "assumes the appearance of a shelter; snug and cave-like, but it also references the vaulted ceilings of church naves." An interesting combination.

The original wasted cardboard arrived in damp bales-- so it was reconstituted at a factory in Stalybridge that uses machines installed in 1910.

Pupa is constructed in triangular sections, an idea taken from the structure of the cardboard.

Computer design was used to generate the form, but all of the pieces of the structure were laid out individually and were glued together by hand, connected to the ceiling by thin supports.

Some fascinating numbers that "reflect the almost Sisyphean task faced, whether by human, bird, or insect to create these sort of structures":

• 3,972 triangular cardboard borders make up frame
• 3,972 triangle inners fill the exoskeleton providing the cover
• 1,981 units build the table and pillar. Coincidentally 1981 is the year that Bloomberg was founded
• 180 wooden pallets taken apart for chair frame and legs
• 11,000 nails removed from wooden pallets
• 252 leather offcuts from make up the chair seats

Projects like this help put into perspective just how much is wasted by a company, even though the triangles of Pupa are probably just a fraction of it. However, this beautiful and functional design is certainly the sort of recycling that other corporations could look to for inspiration.

[Via Treehugger]

Photos: Alex Maguire/Lazerian Design

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com