Closed loop design

Participants of Design for Circularity met for the first time in Copenhagen to explore Danish design tradition, sustainable furniture models and learn from experts on circular design.

By Rowan El Shimi

Egyptian designer and Architect Heba Mahfouz is spending most of the visits to various Danish design showrooms sitting on chairs, stools and couches exclaiming that “they are so comfortable.”

“A highlight for me was to see how the ergonomics affected Danish design,” she says. “The furniture here is extremely comfortable, even if it doesn’t look like it is. We can learn a lot from the amount of attention to detail, the minimalistic lines, the minimalistic designs that are also so comfortable.”

From ergonomics to circularity

The ten Egyptian young furniture designers are on a week-long study trip in Copenhagen as part of DEDI’s Design for Circularity program – in collaboration with the Royal Danish Academy, Designdustry and Pinocchio Furniture. The program brings together these designers with Danish Master’s students enrolled in the ‘Furniture Design – Products, Materials and Contexts’ course at the academy to be immersed in both Danish and Egyptian design traditions to inspire them in their own designs of a stool which will be produced throughout the project. In its fourth iteration, the program this year is taking on a new challenge: to create their designs according to the principles of circularity.

Circular design is a design strategy aiming at minimizing or ending waste in furniture throughout all its process from design to manufacturing to use to discard. It’s about building furniture from either biological materials that can safely return to the natural world or if non-natural materials are used, to ensure that these materials can be reused or repurposed once their purpose is done. An important aspect of circular design is also durability – to design and manufacture products that can last but also ensure mechanisms for repair, repurpose, and remanufacture.

As part of the study trips, the Egyptian designers along with the Danish students, took part in lectures organized by the Royal Danish Academy bringing both experts in sustainable issues as well practitioners and live examples from Denmark who adhere to the rules of circularity.

One of the lecturers, architect Morten Emil Engel, founder of MEE Studio, who works with low carbon, natural bio-based materials and has worked on several public buildings such as the Danish Design Museum and the Opera Park.

“The lecture was very interesting as it was really broadening our horizons on how we can use natural materials or reused materials – it made me really want to dig deeper into that,” says Omar Altawansy, architect, and co-founder of rnkl, who produce hand-crafted environmental products.

In another lecture, Professor Nicolai De Gier, one of the facilitators of the program and owner of TAKT studio and furniture brand, showed the participants TAKT’s approach to circular design.

“TAKT’s furniture can be assembled and de-assembled which makes it so sustainable since if any part deteriorated or needed changing, you can just get this part and the piece can live even longer,” says Mazen Moussa, architect and rnkl’s other co-founder.

A session that stayed with several participants was Aroop Ratan Guha who introduced them to various tools for circular design, among which was the Digital Product Passport developed by the European Commission; it enables consumers to learn about product information across the entire value chain including data on raw material extraction, production, recycling etc. to help them make more sustainable choices – it is a tool that will impact various companies in the upcoming years, especially those who want to do business within the EU or export to the EU.

“It can also be a way for designers to set themselves apart for their sustainable practices,” says one of the participants, designer Bassem Ashraf.

Ancient Egypt in Denmark

The study trip was also an opportunity for the Danish participants to learn more about ancient Egyptian furniture design, ahead of their trip to Egypt this November. One of the program’s facilitators Amr Orensa, Head of Design at Pinocchio Furniture, gave a lecture at the academy on Ancient Egyptian Furniture design which was also attended by H.E. Egyptian Ambassador to Denmark Karim Sherif.

“Ancient Egypt is the first place where you see architects and you see people specialized in carpentry and manufacturing,” says designer and student Asger Emil Didriksen. “The chairs we see that are made maybe 4000 years ago really look like the ones we have today. It’s a place we can really learn a lot, because a lot has been forgotten, but we can still look at this old furniture and try to get in the heads of ancient Egyptian designers and workmen.”

Perhaps the most telling example of ancient Egyptian influence in Danish design is Finn Juhl’s Egyptian Chair which was first introduced in Denmark in 1949. The designers got to visit the Finn Juhl House and see the famous chair for themselves during the study trip.

Amr Orensa also shared with the participants about Pinocchio’s own approaches to circular design such as the exploration of using Mango tree wood, available in Egypt, as opposed to importing other woods. He also shared with them how he developed a stool using papyrus paper.

“It’s been really interesting to see how Amr and Pinocchio are working with sustainability and trying to use local materials. It’s really interesting to see the experimentation he’s been doing with using papyrus for furniture,” Asger Emil Didriksen says.

From theory to practice

After the fruitful trip to Copenhagen, the designers and students were given a design brief to design stools using Ancient Egyptian and Danish design tradition as influences along with following the principles of circular design in their final designs.

In November, the Danish students will be visiting Egypt. First, they will visit various Pharaonic, Coptic and Islamic museums and monuments to gain a deeper understanding of the Egyptian design tradition – after which all of the participants will come together in Egypt’s furniture manufacturing hub Damietta, on the Mediterranean sea, where alongside the skilled craftsmen at the Pinocchio Furniture Factory they will bring their designs to life. This will all culminate in an exhibition, open to the public, at the Grand Egyptian Museum on December 1^st.

“It will be really powerful to see the final products and see how we all evolved in this process – because we will all evolve,” Heba Mahfouz says.

This project was managed by Project Officer Doaa Fayyad. The project is facilitated in collaboration with Designdustry, Pinocchio Furniture Factory and the Royal Danish Academy.

Read more from DEDI:

Meet the eco furniture makers

Bilingual stools in Denmark

Making new waysf