One Man's Trash

Old newspapers line the kitchen counter where Cecilia Vietto and Fabián Andino chop vegetables on a cutting board made from repurposed wood. Their bedroom is lit by a lamp whose shade is composed of old VHS tapes, the unravelled strips of film swaying in the breeze from the open window. The terrace is equally as eclectic: a family of succulents sprouts from an old bathtub and a few broken down shopping carts compose a barbecue pit.

It’s a house made entirely of things its owners have picked up off the street. To some they may be waste or trash, but to Cecilia and Fabián the items are raw materials with potential to become something else—something more useful, valuable and specifically designed for their home. To them, upcycling isn’t just a job, it’s a way of life. 

Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is when products destined for the dump are redesigned to serve a better purpose. Not to be confused with recycling, upcycling is a relatively new term and has gained popularity over the past decade. The second half of the recycling process, downcycling, extracts recyclable parts and uses them to make new products of lower quality. This often takes energy, can produce harmful emissions and wastes non-recyclable elements of products. Upcycling, on the other hand, preserves the product and repurposes 100 percent of its materials. 

At Cecilia and Fabián’s studio, Espaibuenrollo, they sell notebooks, photo albums and lamps, as well as mounted skateboards, planters and other interior design elements. Espaibuenrollo opened in 2007, after the couple moved to Barcelona from Rosário, Argentina, but living sustainably has always been a priority for them. Cecilia admitted that what they do in their shop alone doesn’t make a huge impact on the world, but they are contributing to the bigger picture. “We’re not a big corporation that influences a lot of people’s lives on a daily basis,” she said. “We have small-scale ideas, but even these can make others more conscious and are important for the future.” Cecilia and Fabián specialize in upcycling paper and cloth waste but any material can be upcycled. 

At her shop Lucirmás, Lucia Bruni makes her merchandise from repurposed glass. Lucia and her partner Marta receive up to 50 used bottles from neighboring restaurants each week. Lucia designs each product, sketching endless drafts of cutlery, lamps, coat hangers and candle holders. Sometimes, she searches in bins herself for glass of the size, color and thickness required for a new vision. After freezing, cutting and coloring the glass, Lucia’s products are ready to be sold. 

When Lucia began creating her products in 2006, upcycling wasn’t valued like it is today. People were wary about paying artisan prices for objects they deemed trash. “When I first started out, no one was producing things like this,” she said. “People’s reception of this type of product here in Spain was slow. And even though my pieces have as much aesthetic as anything you could find at Zara Home, for example, some don’t value the work as such.”

Lucia also refers to upcycling as "super-recycling" and finds pleasure in creating beautiful yet practical designs. She hopes that her work will not only save things from being thrown away unnecessarily, but that she can encourage others to look at waste in a more creative, sustainable way. “I want to inspire people to see things in a new light,” she said, “and to do the same as me in their own homes. The idea is to take better care of the objects that we have and to stop being so quick to replace them the moment they lose their store-bought sheen.”

Spreading awareness and more sustainable practices is the goal of many upcyclers. At their architecture and design studio Transfodesign, co-founders Faku Uzal and Nada Tozija offer speciality furniture and accessories. Nada’s sister Neda, who joined Transfodesign in 2012 and is in charge of all marketing and commercial activities, said the group focuses on interior design in order to demonstrate how individuals can introduce more sustainability into their daily lives. 

Their best-selling product is a sofa shaped like a fridge and actually made from a repurposed refrigerator—what was once its interior now serves as the seat of the couch. The idea surfaced when the refrigerator in the old Transfodesign studio broke and the team wanted to dispose of it properly. Since fridges are constructed with a lot of composite materials, they are reusable, not recyclable, so they had to find a different way to give it a second life. This is one of many instances that they relied on design as a problem solving tool. 

To promote their belief that every problem can be either defined or solved through an eco-design approach, Faku, Nada and Neda participate in events and fairs such as PechaKucha Barcelona (where young designers meet, network and exhibit their work to the public), Barcelona Design Week and The Brandery (the Barcelona fashion and trend festival held in the city since 2009). Since the start of 2015, their focus has shifted to launching and promoting the new TransfoLAB BCN, where the magic of product transformation happens. TransfoLAB is a 300m2 space dedicated to design, innovation, creation and experimentation with waste.

For partners Ignasi Villena and David Estevan, the pairing of seemingly futile materials with household products brings them the most satisfaction. At their studio, Dr. Únic, they construct mirrors out of tennis rackets, lamps out of faucets and candle holders out of copper tubing. The name Dr. Únic accurately emphasizes the distinctness of each product. Although they make dozens of lamps out of taps, for example, each tap is uniquely shaped, colored and sized—each has its own history.

“We think of ourselves as doctors who have the cure for neglect and abandonment,” said Ignasi. “If you consider that the products are sick, we give them the love and attention they need to again be valuable. We are open to sharing this philosophy with others because at the end of the day, seeing people lead more sustainable lifestyles would give us the most satisfaction.”

UPCYCLING COURSES

Upcycling Barcelona  |  Diputació, 356  |  €60 per month (4 classes of 2 hours)

TransfoLAB BCN  |  Ciutat de Granada, 71  |  €15-€35 per workshop

Joyas en upcycling  |  Portal Nou, 16 Bajo  |  €18 per class