(smow)offline: Real recycling

Platform 21 Repair Manifesto

About a 100 years ago we mentioned Platform 21and their Repair Manifesto.

Inspired by yesterdays rant against designers who find using PET bottles a suitable demonstration of how design can help save the planet, we revisited our previous post on Platform 21 and subsequently their Repair Manifesto

And still love what they are doing. Especially the Repair Hub where you can exchange addresses of skilled craftsmen and women.
If you should be in or near Amsterdam you can drop by and repair whatever you want.

And if not, check out Platform 21 and let yourself be inspired.

It may seem odd that a company who exist through the sale of furniture should encourage people to repair their furniture, but so contradictory is it not.

For why would you invest in piece of furniture, only to throw it out because it is partly damaged or broken?

That would be daft.

And also against the wishes of the designer and the purpose of the design.

A chair such as the new AC 4 by Antonio Citterio from Vitra, for example, is not only made of 51% recycled material but is itself 94% recyclable. As is the case with much of the Vitra seating programme.

Where's the problem? A Vitra Office Chair

Additionally chairs such as the plastic, wire and aluminium series by Charles and Ray Eames are designed and built to be repaired and rebuilt; spare and replacement parts can always be bought and in simple cases exchanged yourself or for detailed work by qualified and insured Vitra contractors. smow are always happy to advise.

Similarly all parts of the USM Haller system can be replaced, exchanged and rebuilt as and if required.

Wooden furniture, for example Thonet chairs or Moormann – well everything really -, can either be invisibly repaired by specialists or creatively by yourself.

Its meant to contrast... A chair repaired by a student at Textile Department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Holland

Even plastic furniture as typified by Kartell is not beyond repair and fixing when things go wrong.

And things can go wrong – a misplaced bottle of red wine, an overenthusiastic child, a police raid at 3 in the morning. We’ve all experienced such moments.

But don’t blame it on your chair, table or sideboard.

It was worth the initial investment … it’s worth repairing.

And you’ll do much more for the environment that those designers with their PET bottle lamps