New Opportunities Through Eco-Design: Ilaria Bianchi’s CastAway

The works of Milanese creative Ilaria Bianchi are heavily grounded in critical theory and concept: in ‘CastAway’ she designed furniture from materials found on the streets of London, questioning what constitutes waste.

Developed over two years, the project gives new life to trash; re-contextualizing both industrial and urban waste materials in a series of playful furniture pieces. In a statement about the collection, Bianchi ponders, “Can sustainable design thinking help us develop new furniture aesthetics and possibilities?” This is precisely the aim of ‘CastAway’. In the collection, familiar furniture forms have been mutated by the inclusion of waste matter. A wooden leg is wound to a plastic chair, and branch gives a blue smiling seat new stability. As with much of Bianchi’s interdisciplinary work, ‘CastAway’ is embedded in critical theory—offering a critique of consumer culture, and highlighting the issues of waste production and disposal.