Habitare Promotes Ecological Values

The EcoDesign special exhibition at Finland’s largest design fair Habitare introduces the views of leading designers on ecological furniture. On display are new chairs by 81 designers or design teams from 16 countries, including one by the exhibition’s curator and renowned Finnish furniture designer, Professor Yrjö Kukkapuro. He has for long been an advocate of ecological values in design.   Prof. Kukkapuro invited designers from all over the world to contribute to EcoDesign. “All participants were excited about the challenge and wanted to make their statement,” he says. The EcoDesign task was to design a chair with a minimum environmental impact, taking into consideration all aspects from manufacture to disposal, including material choices, durability and recyclability. .. Novel thinking on furniture Ecological design proved to be a challenging task. “We are so adapted to industrial processes and transporting materials over long distances,” Prof. Kukkapuro reflects the challenge. Most of the 81 chairs are unique pieces, some of which bear little resemblance to our normal concept of chair. A few of the chairs are in commercial production, including the 10-UNIT SYSTEM by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, produced and marketed by Artek of Finland. The 10-UNIT SYSTEM represents a novel, modular furniture concept, based on L-shaped units  manufactured from a wood plastic composite that uses recycled paper and plastic as raw materials. Some of the unique pieces have been donated by the designers to WWF, which will later auction them and use the funds for its projects in Borneo. .. Ecological exhibition design Ecological values have also been taken into consideration in the exhibition design. The tops of the exhibition’s café tables are made from marble removed from Finlandia Hall in Helsinki during renovation, and the legs are made from bicycle frames. The exhibition is produced by Advertising Agency Valo. The printer of the exhibition catalogue Edita has made a careful assessment of the ecological footprint of the catalogue.