Polyethylene Is the most common plastic in the world. Used for food packaging, shopping bags, detergent lessons and much more, the often items for one -time use are omnipresent in our daily lives.
For computational designer Xuanhao LiPolyethylene became a fertile source to imagine a new way to re -use the omnipresent material.
While he worked as a textile developer, LI noted that the plastic films courses and textiles were thrown into the trash during transport. He started to collect the material and experiment with his properties, in particular his transparency, malleability and flexible texture, while it went through a heat press machine. “The goal was to merge polyethylene films into sheets that balance stiff and flexibility, while reaching a blurry transmission for lampshades,” he says Colossal. “No material is inherently unattractive or cheap.”
When Li looked at a documentary on sea turtles, those plastic bags confused for jellyfish, the explorations found their shape. “The spooky images of drifting plastic and the tragic impact on the life of marine moves me deeply,” the designer shares. He also visited the Georgia aquarium in Atlanta to observe the living animals and their spherical bodies.
After developing the material, LI created digital motifs that imitated both a knitted structure and the quality shape, which he cut with the help of a CNC machine. He adds:
I attached tentacles with varying widths, according to rhythmic patterns that abstract the textures of the quality tissue … For the upper part of the jellyfish, I used a smooth, overlapping stratification technique, which used the delicate, rounded bell of the jellyfish. For the base I used an opposite technique, in which the pieces were knitted with the edges opposite each other, which resulted in a ribbed texture that called on the complicated, flowing form of jellyfish tentacles.
Is resulting Polycycle -LightingAn elegant collection of table lamps. Standing at different heights, the designs together reflect the changes in shape as a jellyfish and swims through the water. Li hopes that the series functions and both a functional object and a call to reduce plastic waste that threatens the life of the marine.
Polycycle -Lighting has won countless prizes, including the title of the design project of the year for This Chinaand can be seen on the Red Dot Design Museum In Singapore.
Li is currently working on a new lamp series made from discarded silk cocon statements to make his debut in London Craft Week in May. He plans to concentrate more on home and fashion design in the coming months, and you can follow his latest projects His website And Instagram.
