GOING FULL CIRCLE

A bespoke table made from discarded glass and a designer dress? It’s just one of the pieces crafted by a revolutionary micro-factory that reimagines and transforms trash into treasure.

A bespoke table made from discarded glass and a designer dress? It’s crafted by a revolutionary micro-factory that reimagines and transforms trash into treasure

For the trailblazing multi-disciplinary designer and creative director Emma Elizabeth, fashion is just one ingredient in a life-long obsession with design. “I dress to please myself,” says the founder of Local Design, a platform that supports and promotes Australian creatives. “I’m not afraid of colour or form or texture. And I think that when I’m presenting a project or an idea, whatever you wear becomes part of that concept. I use clothes as a kind of descriptor for what I’m trying to convey.”

Fashion also plays a starring role in an innovative collaboration between Elizabeth, property developer Mirvac, furniture maker Coco Republic and renowned scientist Professor Veena Sahajwalla. Using a revolutionary micro-factory developed by Sahajwalla and her team at the University of NSW’s SMaRT Centre, Elizabeth fused textiles — including an old Kenzo dress — waste glass and plastic to create a capsule range of furniture and artwork.

The resulting dining table, side table and wall collages played centrestage at the recent launch of Mirvac’s new Marrick & Co multiresidential development in Sydney’s Inner West, which is being billed as NSW’s first-ever One Planet Living community. A global ratings system hailing from the UK, One Planet Living provides guidelines to help organisations create better buildings and products that promote social, economic and environmental sustainability. “We were looking for a designer who would ‘get’ what we were trying to achieve and be able to translate the science of recycling into a beautiful and usable product,” says Mirvac’s general manager of design, marketing and sales, Diana Sarcasmo. “Emma Elizabeth has never been afraid to leap into the unknown — she is a true original and brings together interiors, fashion and industrial design.”

“The brief was essentially to work with the palette blue,” says Elizabeth, who was initially asked by Coco Republic to style the display apartment for the Marrick & Co launch. “When I first went to meet with Professor Sahajwalla and the SMaRT team I was just blown away. They have this amazing ability to create all these different materials — even from waste coffee beans.

“I asked what we could put into these machines and they said anything. So I threw a few old dresses and some Kvadrat fabric into a garbage bag and put it, along with some blue hospital gowns [a nod to the former hospital on the Marrick & Co site] all into the machine.”

After a mulching and heat-press process, the result was a ceramic-style tile with a painterly blue-green swirl that has similar properties to engineered stone. “It’s a creative director’s dream to be able to have all of the science, the machinery and the brains combined with the passion that they all have at SMaRT,” says Elizabeth, who transformed the tiles into a dining table. “It’s amazing what the possibilities are when you put scientists, creatives and engineers together.”

Professor Sahajwalla, who first hit global headlines by developing technology that turns tyres into ‘green’ steel, agrees. “It unleashes the imagination,” she says. “For us, it’s so cool. It goes to show that if you share common values, it doesn’t matter what discipline you come from. The enthusiasm affects the pace of change and can bring new ideas to the table.”

People around the world are excited about the innovations here, says Sahajwalla. The vision for the professor and her team — who are already collaborating with Mirvac on its next development, and with Emma Elizabeth on designs for Milan’s Salone del Mobile in April — is to set up micro-factories across the country, next to recycling businesses in regional communities. “You could take your old textiles or wine bottles down to the local microfactory to get products made, or have furniture designers with their own micro-factory to create bespoke products,” Sahajwalla says.

“It allows us to keep the materials in our economy without causing more pollution and it puts the power right back into the hands of the people,” continues Sahajwalla. “We can create some high quality products from waste, which I think is what fascinates people. And mentally we’ll all be so much happier as there’s a tangible sense of making a real difference to the environment.” localdesign.com.au; mirvac.com; smart.unsw.edu.au; cocorepublic.com.au