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04/13/2022

Oiko Design Office: Design and Science for the Transition towards Circular Economy

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Exhibition in the il.lacions gallery of the 27 recycled plastics chairs by Oiko Design Office. Photo courtesy of Oiko Design Office.

Exhibition in the il.lacions gallery of the 27 recycled plastics chairs by Oiko Design Office. Photo courtesy of Oiko Design Office.

Hook lamp by Oiko Design Office for Faro Barcelona. Photo courtesy of Oiko Deign Office.

Hook lamp by Oiko Design Office for Faro Barcelona. Photo courtesy of Oiko Deign Office.

Ice bucket by Oiko Design Office. Photo courtesy of Oiko Design Office.

Ice bucket by Oiko Design Office. Photo courtesy of Oiko Design Office.

Selection of materials for Tous. Photo courtesy of Oiko Design Office.

Selection of materials for Tous. Photo courtesy of Oiko Design Office.

OiKo is a design office and materials consultancy focused on the transition to the circular economy, founded by Jose F López-Aguilar and Salva Codinach. At OiKo our approach to design is based on knowledge of the material and the users’ perception, to resolve new realities and provide companies with products that are more competitive, more sustainable for the planet, and more exciting for users.

We interviewed the OiKo Design Office studio to talk about their trajectory, their research work for the recycling of plastics and other materials and their application in the housing sectors, and the methodology they use and how they disseminate it.

Interiors from Spain: Can you tell us briefly when you created Oiko and your goals as a design office and consulting firm.

OiKo Design Office: OiKo was born in 2016 after some time reflecting on how a design studio should be in the 21st century. From the beginning it was clear to us that today, design is much more than drawing. OiKo was founded by Jose F López-Aguilar, who is an environmentalist and holds a PhD in materials, and Salva Codinach, who has a background in business management and extensive experience in the industry. We met at Elisava in the early 2000s, where we were studying industrial design. While we never worked on school projects together, from the beginning we were united by conversations and the desire to do things and add value. That was our main objective then and now: to add value.  The world will continue to run without us,but knowing that what we do is better than doing nothing is a big deal. It is a clear goal of ours to integrate the sciences (both chemical and social) into the design process to help companies achieve more sustainable, more competitive, and more desirable products for people.

Interiors from Spain: Tell us about your research work on new materials: lines of work, materials used, and results.

OiKo Design Office:
A large part of the work we do revolves around plastic recycling. We have also recycled cork from wine and champagne corks, hemp, and other natural fibers, such as esparto grass, and at the moment, fabrics. With fabrics we are currently engaged in the development of a cascading utilization process in which a textile is transformed into different materials with a differentiated range of applications and generating new life cycles with maximum performance over time. We are very excited about this project.

We have really touched almost every possible area with recycled plastics. We have been exploring the aesthetics that are created in the domestic environment, as we were able to exhibit at the Il.lacions gallery in Barcelona and at the Fernán Gómez gallery in Madrid. We have also developed highly technical solutions for lighting in which the challenge was to overcome the demanding electrical safety regulations, but without contributing any toxic additives. In another of our major projects, at an aesthetic level but with a significant process engineering load, we have developed a model of thick injection of waste from white goods. You may have seen it used in the LAUS trophies, and we are now bringing it into the domestic environment with a fantastic leading brand in its field.  

Interiors from Spain: How do you apply your research to product design? Can you give us some examples of this work? Which brands from the decor sector (lighting and other sectors) have you worked with? Any new projects?


OiKo Design Office: Our decor clients are CosmicGandía Blasco, Expormim, LampEstiluz, and Faro. We have just launched, under the Diabla brand of the Gandía Blasco group, the Balconi chair, a folding chair covered with post-consumer recycled plastic. Like other recycling proposals, there are some doubts as to whether this is truly a post-consumer waste. In this case, the remnants of labels on the bottles as well as the perfumed odor suggest that it is made from detergent and soap bottles.

Interiors from Spain: What scientific methodology do you use to calculate the environmental impact? How do you approach the process of communicating that impact in order to ensure that a brand maintains credibility in its commitment to the circular economy?

OiKo Design Office: Our team uses Life Cycle Analysis, the methodology with the highest scientific consensus when it comes to validity of results. It's easy to fake data, misrepresent, or outright lie in accounting. Our clients can attest to the reality that our approach to working is characterized by strict rigor and radical honesty in all we do. Often, our results are not favorable to their interests, and we tell them: hey, you are not doing it right. You have to change this or that process. Or your material proposal, which you thought would save the world, is in fact a disaster. Then marketing must decide whether to go ahead with their idea, at which point we step aside, or work together and correct the course. In any event, we are committed to conducting studies that are verifiable and replicable by a third party.

Interiors from Spain: Finally, can you tell us something about your training and dissemination work?

OiKo Design Office: Dissemination has been in our DNA from the beginning. Jose has been an editor for several publications for years and is responsible for the Eco notebook section of Arquitectura y Diseño magazine. We do workshops on perception of materials and eco-design. We have promoted the series of interviews by Diseño Hoy together with the Barcelona Centro de Diseño (Barcelona Design Center) that can be seen on their website. And at a more formal training level, we have been teachers at Elisava for ten years. Perhaps less involved now due to the activity in the studio and to the need to balance family life, but yes. We aim to educate the general public about what we do and all the possibilities that design offers.

 

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