Green is everywhere, literally. These days, you can’t turn on the television, radio, open a magazine or surf the web without seeing ads of eco-friendly products and services. One green area which is taking off in a big way due to consumer demand is eco-home furnishings and there are countless companies who are using biodegradable as well as recycled materials to manufacture their merchandise. Artists/photographer/designer Nick DeMarco takes this concept to a whole other level by using actual trash to create his home furnishings. While he has only designed three pieces thus far, the 22 year old industrial design student is dedicated to bringing the green movement to the masses through his designs.

The California-born – Seattle-raised DeMarco’s artistic development began at an early age when his mother founded, the now annual, the Fremont Solstice Parade in Seattle. The event, which is in June, promotes free expression – including nude cyclist - while rejecting establishments. These themes would shape the budding artist throughout the rest of his life. Now enrolled at the California College of Art in San Francisco studying design, he is interested in environmental issues and considers himself a Design Cynicism, “I am interested in design because I believe that the massive climate changes fast approaching contain a silver lining of an opportunity to completely reinvent ourselves,” says DeMarco. “I hope that the new products and services created as part of the fledgling sustainability movement will not only solve utilitarian problems, but satisfy an innate need for cosmic, transcendental experiences.”

DeMarco doesn’t believe that home furnishing will change the world. Rather, he believes they are a gateway to awareness, “I think green furniture is a great way to introduce a household to the idea of being eco-conscious,” said DeMarco. “Furniture is in many ways the most anthropomorphic product in a household. They are designed to support, comfort and embrace the body. If a product made of something as unsettling as garbage can be embraced within such an intimate and familiar object it’s possible that it could be embraced everywhere.”

All of his projects have a sustainable focus, but as far as DeMarco is concerned they are only to the basic level of materials and shipping that every designer should be considering. His first project was a coffee table made from one piece of laser-cut acrylic and a collection of coat hangers zip-tied together. The intent is to use existing products and production methods in different and unexpected ways. The user would purchase only the table top and be required to collect the coat hangers themselves.

His second design was a chair made of wood, two mops and a dustpan. “This furniture project was intended to be paired with a web site that would inventory broken and returned products,” said DeMarco. “Using a web-based 3D modeling program like Google’s sketchup, the user would construct their own furniture out of the scrap pieces that had been inventoried.”

His latest and most successful piece is the inflatable garbage chair which made it into the 2008 International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York. The chair, which he has dubbed the XS, is made of clear industrial plastic sheeting and filled with trash, “The main thing I focused on with the eco-furniture I have made is involving the user in the production process. Human power is always the most sustainable method,” says DeMarco. “The XS Chair encourages recycling without reprocessing by exploiting waste for it’s current materiality; instead of using massive resources to turn old water bottles into new water bottles. This cuts down on everything from production to shipping to disposal.”

So far, the XS has been well received, “I originally imagined that the chair would end up in shared space - an office, a school, a lobby, somewhere that collectively produced more trash than they knew what to do with,” said DeMarco. “The response has been extremely positive so far, however, and several people have approached me to say that they would love to use the chair as an educational project for their families.” The XS is currently in production and will be available at Bevara Design House - www.bevaradesign.com.

While DeMarco still has to finish school, he is already making an impact on the way people think about “going green”, “Green is unavoidable,” said DeMarco. “It’s clear that the lifestyle we have grown accustomed to is not something that this planet, or even our species, is able to sustain.”

For more on Nick DeMarco, visit:

www.demarconia.com

>Written by d/visible contributor Tony Engelhart.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 11:54 am and is filed under Culture, Profile, Interview, Art & Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.