Inspiration boards for the Accent, Desk and Light projects. Popular themes are inspiration by Droog and Marcel Wanders, an interest in light-penetrable veneer, and objects that generate no light, but operate with existing light sources.

A Sustainable Desk

Sustainability can be akin to the word tolerance. It begs the question whether the process can continue, often without further investigation into the closed set of parameters for the experiment. Tolerance, often used to describe human interaction, is the process by which two people can coexist without either one destroying the other. It is not a happy word, although it is often used in such a fashion to describe how far human compassion has gotten. I feel the two words fall short of their intended goal, which is to see how much positive interaction can be done objectively.

A sustainable desk would be a desk that uses the least materials, least methods of production, least amount of human power to engineer and design it, and takes the least amount of energy to sustain. It would be the lightest desk, so that moving it let alone having it arrive at its intended customer’s destination would consume the least amount of energy. It would have the smallest footprint possible for desk work. The materials it is made out of would require the least amount of refinement from a raw material to get to the final product. The more energy used harvesting, refining, and shaping/coloring/etc the material, the more consumptive the final product is.

Despite severe limitations, the ultimate sustainable desk would also have strict requirements to goals of sustainability. It would improve the quality of the air in the room it resided in. It would not off gas any harmful substances; it would only produce oxygen and cleans the circulating air. It would be an intelligent desk that even cleans the off gassing of other harmful products in the room, rendering it safer for the household occupant. The desk would lighten the burden of the consumer to shop, travel, or purchase items that require much energy to produce and be made into consumables.

The desk could be an educational exercise, one that teaches the owner new skills or provides the opportunity for the owner to gain valuable insight into sustainability itself. It could teach the owner how to garden, how to read, or how to cook. It could be crafted out of 100% biodegradable materials, so that in the eventuality of the owner’s change in tastes or situation, the desk can be readily converted into compost or another item entirely. The desk could be made of modular parts that can assemble into other useful household items. The literature that comes with the desk could explain to the user how reassembly of the desk can provide a flower planter, a footstool, a wastebasket, a laundry hamper, or seating. The desk’s manufacture could be designed so that the labor pool required to assemble it is not exposed to any hazardous materials, chemicals, or manufacturing processes that are known to increase chances of workplace accidents.

Sourcing materials for the desk would require much research. How labor intensive is picking through waste stream materials versus existing materials? What are the environmental benefits to using waste stream materials, 100% recycled materials, existing sustainably harvest materials, and more? How sustainable are these materials that are considered sustainably harvested and ecologically friendly? What is the history of these “eco-friendly” materials and is their growth in demand going to be sustainable for not only the material itself but the environment from which its removed, the community that participates in its refinement and the resources it requires to be naturally made? User research into how friendly people are to the idea of a desk that produces food, plants, one that requires care or upkeep. Would people want a desk that requires them to compost it? Would they actually compost it once the life cycle is over? How can the desk be manufactured so that once its life is over, it practically recycles itself, or does not rely on being thrown out or recycling programs, rather it is collapsed and submerged in a garden?

Well, it turns out Horween mostly does Chromexcel leather, which is their proprietary chrome-based tanning method. The only completely vegetable-based tanning they do is for their Cordovan leather, and they are apparently only one of two industrial Cordovan producers in the world. They do a considerable amount of vegetable tanning, but its not wholly vegetable tanning unless its for Cordovan production. There are intermediary steps where chrome tanning is used, so even vegetable tanned-labeled leather goods can have chrome content.

Chrome and vegetable tanned leathers have different smells to them, and its common to hear they have different leather “feels,” although this moreso depends on other constraints of the material and methods of manufacture. Chrome tanned leather is much quicker to produce than Cordovan as well.

I was told you can usually tell the difference between chrome and vegetable tanned leather by taking a piece and cutting it, then looking at the cut. With chrome tanned leather there is a visible white stripe either below the surface or in the center, whereas vegetable tanned leathers are the same throughout the cut.

Therefore the only purely vegetable tanned leathers available for scrap would be cordovan, and the pieces would be very small, even an entire piece of cordovan is not very large as it is a cut of flesh from the horses butt.

On the topic of leather recycling, it is possible to re-use leather, even chrome and vegetable tanned leather than has been color-dyed and such. It is put through a detanning process wherein the leather sits in a leeching bath that removes the chrome tanning solutions for re-use in tanning, then the leather scraps are used to make collagen based products such as adhesives. It is not a genuine recycling, however both tanning solution and raw collagen material can be extracted from it.

According to the International Tennis Federation regulations, tennis balls must have a diameter of 2.575-2.700 inches. They must weigh between 56.0g and 59.4g. They can only be white or yellow, the “optic yellow” of modern balls being manufactured to that color due to their high visibility over analog television broadcast. Approximately 300 million balls per year are produced which generates 14,700 metric tons of waste. Balls in play at Wimbledon Championships are apparently now downcycled to make Harvest Mouse homes. The balls are not recycled, just repurposed with a hole cut in them.

Ingredients of a tennis ball by weight are as follows:

Natural rubber 100
‘General purpose furnace’ (GPF) black - a reinforcing filler - 30 
Clay 32
Zinc oxide 9
Sulphur 3.5
Diphenylguanidine (DPG) - an accelerator for the curative system - 2
Cyclohexyl benthiazyl sulphenamide (HBS) - also an accelerator - 1

The rubber is first heated and extruded into a rubber rod, which is cut into pellets and cooled. The pellets are loaded into a hydraulic press which forms them into half-shells and cures them. The edges are buffed and a vulcanized rubber solution is applied. The balls are either inflated via a chemical reaction or sealed under pressure to 12lb/sq.in. The cores are buffed and then a rubber solution is applied uniformly over the entire ball. Either Melton or Needle cloth is used and backed with a vulcanising solution, and die cut out of 60”x150’ rolls. The edges are coated with a vulcanising solution which makes the seam. The first piece is applied along the core seam, the next at a right angle to it. Its placed in a moulding press and heat cured to seal it. The balls are then tumbled in a steam atmosphere wherein the cloth fluffs for better aerodynamics. The balls are given graphics and then pressure sealed in canisters to retain their maximal pressure. Tennis ball pressure rapidly declines immediately after opening.