Surfboard and surf cover made out of revalued construction waste
As our society keeps growing we can see waste piling up while natural resources getting rare.
Should we fear that the only raw materials we will have tomorrow is today’s waste ? “Surf Your Wall” aims to shed light on the potential of discarded building materials as a new re-valued and attractive resource. Our challenge is here to help an insulation wall panel reincarnate into something unexpectedly fun, a surfboard.
Cross-border/international
France
Poland
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Loire-Atlantique, Nantes
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
As an individual in partnership with other persons
First name: Weronika Last name: Remisz Gender: Female Age: 27 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Poland Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 23 Allée Colette Heilbronner Town: Paris Postal code: 75017 Country: France Direct Tel:+33 6 02 36 42 50 E-mail:weronikaremisz@gmail.com
First name: Jonathan Last name: Jube Gender: Male Age: 28 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: France Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 23 Allée Colette Heilbronner Town: Paris Postal code: 75017 Country: France Direct Tel:+33 7 80 04 53 98 E-mail:jonathan.jube@hotmail.fr
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Yes
New European Bauhaus or European Commission websites
Concerned by the issue of waste in the construction sector and curious about possibilities of giving a second life to discarded materials, we made up a challenge in creating a surfboard and surf cover made out of reclaimed materials.
The objective of the project is to offer accessible surfing equipment for everyone while prolonging the life of materials.
The source chosen is supposed to be commonly found on any demolition site in big quantities and be non recyclable. It comes from the building industry, which is responsible for one third of environmental pollution and stays still underexplored.
As a result, we chose an polystyrene insulation facade panel and a big bag used on the building site for transporting loose materials (sand, cement, gravel).
Reuse of such objects may prolong their life by twenty years, having an affordable price and providing water sport gears to a greater group of users.
Additionally, it will also make people aware of the potential of waste, by increasing its value and making it appealing.
sustainable surfing
material lifecycle extension
building waste rebeauty
local manufacturing
affordable sport equipment
The building industry is known as the “industry of thirds” as it consumes 35% of materials, produces 37% of waste and is responsible for 36% of greenhouse gas emissions globally.
The last IPCC report and the European Green Deal pointed out buildings’ energy renovation as a key action to reduce GHG emissions, calling for a “renovation wave”. We may expect a booming demand for insulation materials within the next years. Nevertheless, this should not put additional pressure on resources, waste and pollution.
The most commonly used insulation materials are oil-based foam panels, glass or mineral wool. They are made out of non-renewable resources and have a high carbon footprint. Biomaterials, such as hemp or wood wool, offer good alternatives to conventional insulation materials but their performances and production capacity are limited. We may expect conventional insulation materials to remain widely used in the future.
What will all these synthetic insulation materials become once their life will reach term ?
Discarded insulation materials are rarely recycled, even when recyclable, because of the difficulty to segregate damaged parts. They usually end up landfilled or used as combustible.
“Surf your wall” explores a new way of re-valuing discarded wall components, using the foam insulation panels as surfboard blanks.
Despite being a sport connected to nature, surfing is a polluting sport because of the environmental impact of its associated gears. Our objective is to find the proper waste to replace their polluting components. We chose insulation panels to replace the surfboard core, linen fiber and bio-based resin to make its envelope and reclaimed construction big bags for its cover.
Aesthetics do not come to mind easily while thinking about waste. But we believe that a soft transformation process can allow us to see them differently. Making their re-beauty attractive will be our best way to promote their use and make people accept them.
We believe that reused materials can create a deeper experience for users than brand new ones. Thanks to the story they tell and the materiality they show they can reconnect people to the reality of their built environment in line with surfers’ quest to reconnect with the environment.
Insulation panels and big bags bring a panel of uncommon colours and textures to the world of surfing equipment. While most boards are white and surf covers grey we want our products to stand out with the warm brown of insulation panels and the vivid orange of big bags. We will use a locally produced linen fibre to cover the boards whose tone matches the one of the insulation panel adding a natural touch to it. The unique and outstanding design of our waste-based products will be the best proof of their sustainability and a way for surfers to show and share their commitment to the environment. The playful design of our “Nemo” looking surf covers will catch people’s attention and give them a first positive experience of waste-based products.
Through our project we want to consider cities as a local and accessible material bank. We choose some of the most common and easy waste to find on a demolition site so that our project can be scalable and replicable in other territories.
Dealing with these local resources will involve searching for a local workforce to transform and shape them. We see our products as development and economic opportunities for local communities and we seek to promote social and solidarity economy through our manufacturing process. Our approach of considering every material as a precious resource will be the same towards people because we believe that the value of things and beings is the one we give to them. We are aware of the cost of a local European production but our business model will strive to balance this higher investment by using nearly free materials. Our objective is to propose qualitative and sustainable surf products for the same price as conventional ones but offering an opportunity for consumers to act according to their values.
We know that many of us are committed to protect the environment, however we still lack the possibility to act. We want our project to be an opportunity for people to play a role in the change, either by buying our products or participating in their fabrication.
We see our concept as a starting point of a “waste caring” community, an opening towards many other waste transformations and we would welcome people's ideas as possible development perspectives. Beyond producing surf products our core objective is to match society’s needs with the relevant waste in any other relevant field. We know the link is never obvious and requires a lot of creativity, that is why we believe our project could only rely on people's experience and ideas.
We are architects and we believe that people’s needs can be answered by good, meaningful and sustainable design. In our field we are the witnesses of a linear building industry that takes, makes, uses and then disposes of materials. We decided to find a playful way of closing the loop of our industry and we choose to start with the appealing and unexpected idea of making a surfboard from a wall component. We reached out to several french eco-organisms, organisations collecting building waste, to find our reclaimed materials (insulation panels and big bags). These organisations are a precious entry point to find the relevant waste for a project as it is nearly impossible for individuals to directly reach construction sites. Then we made the design ourselves during our free time. For the execution we sewed the surf cover ourselves from big bags. Then we asked a local craftsman to pre-shape the foam insulation panel with a CNC hot-wire cutter and assembled and finished the shape ourselves.
The disciplines reflected in the design are: circular economy, design, 3d modelling and craftsmanship using the knowledge of hydrodynamics, building materials.
We sought a cross disciplinary approach in order to bridge the gap between building and sport industries.
We took profit of the knowledge we got from our profession as architects and passion as surfriders. It allowed us to find a link between a waste and a need in order to create a sustainable, appealing and collaborative solution.
We find more and more products trying to involve environmental aspects in their production. However, very often presented is the use of recycled materials in the production of the water sport industry or partial use of bio based materials with lack of transparency on all components of the product. A recycling process uses energy and we believe it is necessary to reuse materials as long as possible before recycling them. Our concept takes into account the bigger ambition of implementing resources which already had a life before, assure their local origin and provide a qualitative employment for people who wants to engage himself in that initiative.
“Surf your wall” does not only refer to ocean activities and coastal territories as we target the production of water sport gears in general such as stand up paddles and wing foil that can be used on lakes and rivers almost everywhere in Europe.
Our concept only needs committed people, water and buildings as a material bank. We believe that these three elements can be found in many places and, as we decided to explore the transformation of some of the most common building waste, we hope to bring a new methodology and ideas for other to match more waste and needs.
The concept tackles the problems of construction waste and the use of polluting oil based materials in the surf industry. These are global challenges, since there still has not been found a system dealing with demolition remains on a big scale, especially materials chosen for the concept.
The solution should be provided locally, in order to limit the carbon footprint linked to transport of sources and products. It is envisaged to identify the local partners within various territories that could cultivate, identify available waste and transform it into what we need for the surf equipment.
