Dirk van der Kooij is a Netherlands-based designer proving plastic has a place. Kooij turns discarded fridges and CD collections into functional furniture and objects made with heirloom longevity.

More than 12 million tonnes of furniture makes its way into landfills every year, and that’s just in America. This figure is a result of a fast-furniture fiasco that’s exponentially increased since the 1960s when things were made by hand with durable materials like timber. Now made en masse with flimsy or non-biodegradable materials, furniture is just another byproduct in our disposable culture.

Plastic is the obvious non-biodegradable material occupying real estate in landfills and the wild. Plastic has been used to make an overwhelming number of trend-driven, fragile furniture pieces that after their short shelf life, spend an eternity trying to decompose in landfill. But plastic’s inherent resilience, if used properly, is the ideal material to fashion timeless furniture intended for generational use. Led by Dirk van der Koiij, Netherlands-based design studio Kooij does just that, working strictly with plastic in a modality of circular design. “The world doesn’t need more furniture,” Dirk asserts, “so the least I can do is make sure we tread as lightly as possible.”

At first glance, Kooij’s vibrant ‘Meltingpot’ and ‘Menhir Bench’ appear to be terrazzo, seemingly composed of precious stones and opals. But this is just the marbled effect of melted plastic, the maintained colour of its previous material. Vivid colours are derived from post-consumer and post-industrial waste. Someone’s lawn furniture or vacuum cleaner. Discarded CD collections. Frisbees and children’s playsets.

“The world doesn’t need more furniture,” Dirk asserts, “so the least I can do is make sure we tread as lightly as possible.”

Of each object, Koiij asks: is this a permanent, worthy application of the resources used? Process and materiality are prioritised above form and are the leading factors in Dirk’s production of new furniture and objects.  “It wasn’t always this way, but we’re at a place now where all items in the collection are there because they are the best expression of the processes and materials we have on hand.”

Dirk doesn’t necessarily design chairs but rather designs and invents a process for repurposing plastic waste through 3D printing methods and robotic machinery. The process eventually finds its own form and this is the reason some of Dirk’s pieces look outwardly spontaneous. “It’s often better to surrender to a limitation than to fight against it,” Dirk notes. “The truth is, there are often other circumstances that have to be tightly controlled in order to make room for spontaneity.” 

Take ‘Elephant Skin’ as an example. Although Dirk comes from a background of woodworking, he began looking for other materials that could be used singularly. Pressed sheets of recycled plastic, much to Dirk’s surprise, offered versatility and a level of honesty that chipboard and veneered timber didn’t. Experimentation led to this first collection, ‘Elephant Skin’ whereby recycled plastic sheets were heated and slowly cooled in repurposed pizza ovens. As the temperature cools, the plastic shrinks and develops a highly textured skin. “ I liked that the pattern couldn’t be controlled and that the plastic seemed to behave as an organic material,” Dirk recalls. “This honest, uncontrolled plastic identity is something I’ve been exploring for nearly 15 years now. I like to compare it to the rings in wood or veins in marble.”   

‘Elephant Skin’ was the creative origin of Dirk’s career spent working with the unpredictability of plastics in search of something honest and functionally ornamental. Perhaps his most recognised design, ‘Chubby Chair’, is held in the permanent collections of London’s Design Museum and Vitra Design Museum (with other notable pieces joining the Stedelijk Museum, MoMA New York, MoMA San Francisco, and the National Museum in Oslo). Each of these playful chairs are formed through one of Dirk’s self-developed, plastic extruding robots and is 3D printed from roughly one recycled fridge. I’m sure you’ve heard that plastic lasts a lifetime, that plastic never breaks down. But when the material is approached with consideration of its enduring features, plastic can be a sensible material. Where will a melamine-faced chipboard chair be in 200 years from now? And where will a ‘Chubby Chair’ be 200 years from now? “If you’re feeling optimistic, and the world isn’t burning or freezing, then the chair could look exactly the same in 200 years’ time,” Dirk claims.

Browse the entire Koiij collection here.

Images courtesy of Koiij.