PANECO® House made from Waste Clothing
Amy-d Arte Spazio, via Lovanio 6, Milano
June 6-12 2022
Entry free
Milan Design Week 2022
Brera Design District | Fuorisalone
Designing the Earth’s Environment
Info www.paneko.tokio @paneco_sustainable | Res Relazioni Pubbliche / Maurizio Dell’Erede res@resrelazionipubbliche.it – dellerede@resrelazionipubbliche.it
WORKSTUDIO Corporation is exhibiting at Milan Design Week 2022 and in collaboration with interior designer Hisae IGARASHI will present an installation using PANECO, a fibreboard made from waste clothing. PANECO is a sustainable fibreboard made from compressed and moulded discarded clothing and textiles instead of using plant fibre sources such as wood chips and pulp. It was developed by WORKSTUDIO as the result of its initiative aimed at tackling the growing problem of waste clothing, and is manufactured using proprietary technology (overseas patent pending). Milan is a global centre of fashion and design and as such the ideal setting for the launch of PANECO, a new material born out of fashion.
Installation Concept:
Hisae IGARASHI has designed a living space created with PANECO to demonstrate the diverse applications of the product and express the cycle linking clothing and housing, which is an essential part of people’s lives. The collaboration with Ms Igarashi came about because she was a student of the late Shiro KURAMATA, a master of the Japanese interior design world and the person who inspired WORKSTUDIO’s president Kazuhiro HARA to enter the interior design industry. Ms Igarashi shares WORKSTUDIO’s vision of contributing to a recycling-oriented society and recognizes and embraces PANECO’s unique appeal, describing it as “a material that can be used in a wide range of applications. Each piece of PANECO shows the time that it has been used. The sight of its diverse expressions drifting through space as interior decorations and objects will bring in a little fresh air that is different from the nostalgia we have seen in the past.”
Our project seeks to demonstrate new possibilities for a recycling-oriented society enabled by PANECO, which recycles clothing destined to become waste into a resource made beautiful by the power of design.
ABOUT PANECO
Thanks to the changes of recent years, the new frontiers of industrial production, have accelerated in the way of protecting natural resources and Planet Earth. The issue of sustainability has become part of the public debate involving institutions, companies and citizens. Among the good practices at the heart of the green economy is the circular economy, a system whereby waste products and materials are reused, giving them a second life.
Every year we produce 13 million tonnes of waste from the clothing industry. In Japan alone it is estimated that around 1.2 million tonnes: most of the clothes end up being disposed of and incinerated, emitting huge amounts of greenhouse gases. The mission of Paneco a Japanese brand created by the Work Studio, headed by Kazuhiro Hara (CEO) is recovering used clothing and textile scraps to transform them into panels for interior design.
Paneco’s project begins with the recovery of waste from the textile chain – including leather and carbon fibre – and then moves on to the actual metamorphosis, which also involves various socially committed Japanese structures: the garments are removed of all superfluous components (zips, buttons, decorative elements) and then crushed and ground. Once processed, the material is ready for the final transformation: through a sophisticated system of presses, Paneco panels take shape, which in turn are 100% recyclable too. The result is a multifunctional product to support designers and which can be used in the most varied types of construction. As cladding or product design, for new solutions with low environmental impact: poufs, shelving systems, partitions, tables, seating, cabinets and much more. The panels have small irregularities and imperfections that make them unique, characterised by a stone effect that recalls the beauty of granite.
