Ewan Alston

GoodWaste is an initiative located in Park Royal (London’s largest industrial site), which would collect the offcuts and waste materials from the area's diverse manufacturers — materials such as marble, steel and Corian — and use it to produce furniture and homeware for the 25,000 new homes that are currently being built in the neighbouring town. 

This represents a new model of manufacturing that is highly local and highly circular; dissolving the area’s waste problem, while preventing an influx of low quality, mass-manufactured goods, which must be shipped across the world. The project highlights the potential of the so-called waste materials as a valuable local resource. While the initial test for the project was in Park Royal, the model could feasibly be replicated in any other city, with the the materials adapting to the local manufacturing of that area.

The exemplar objects are all made from Park Royal waste, and the designs celebrate this. Some are engraved with the name of the original manufacturer (and source of material), while others maintain the raw edges from the original off-cuts. In line with our design principles, each object is made from the leftovers of a previous object. 

The project was a collaboration with Ambra Dentella and Rafael El Baz, where we had a shared research phase and system concept, but with individual object outputs.