RD Chair : Roughly Drawn
The RD Legs chair is a hand woven recycled plastic chair manufactured in 100% molten HDPE plastic waste around bespoke forming jigs. The RD chair is created via an experiential process developed by Cohda named U.R.E.
The URE Process
This “Uncooled Recycled Plastic” process was the result of a research project into the use of recycled plastics in design, with the aim of viewing plastic as metamorphic materials.
URE takes HDPE packaging in the form of used bottles and food trays and shreds them into a plastic flake. This material is then heated to a molten state, manipulated by hand and then fused together seamlessly to form rigid plastic structures. The RD chair uses no glues, internal support frames or additional fixings in its production and is therefore 100% recycled plastic. All that’s added is heat.
This chair design has been widely recognised as an iconic ECO product and was selected in the category of “Innovation” as part of the Classic Design Awards held at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
The chairs were produced in a limited edition run of 100 in four different colours: Red, black, green and mustard. All of the RD chairs found homes in private and permanent exhibitions, with many being auctioned off for charity.
Beyond the Chair
In addition to the widely recognised RD chair, a range of experimental furniture, lighting and limited edition designs were produced by Cohda to showcase the URE process; all of which now reside in museums or private collections.
Full lifecycle: As part of this experimental range Cohda shredded a chair, recycled it into a table, the table into a light and the light back into a chair.
Live Events
URE recycling factories were presented as live events at numerous design festivals. These live events allowed the public to be part of the URE process by feeding the events with their plastic waste which the Cohda team shredded, heated, reformed and offered back as 100% woven recycled designs.
Key Expertise
Recycled polymers
Extrusion and heat welding
Mould and jig manufacture
Ergonomics
Industrial design
Design for sustainability
Prototyping
Batch run manufacture