Poltrona Frau's "Second skin" project: turning "waste" into new eco-friendly materials
03/10/2018
Poltrona Frau has recently worked on a joint project conceived and developed by the University of the Republic of San Marino, involving 60 undergraduate students of Design laboring in a laboratory under the stewardship of Professor Massimo Barbierato.
The project is known as "Seconda Pelle" ("Second skin"), an initiative designed to give new life to waste materials from the processing of leather used by Poltrona Frau to upholster its furnishings.
The purpose of the initiative is to salvage materials that are usually regarded as "refuse" only fit for disposal, and convert them into into new types of products, such as: plasters, sound-absorbing panels and colors to be applied with paint-brushes.
Specifically, the leather waste has been pulverized, shredded, grafted and inflated, as well as, in some cases, combined with different materials such as plaster, cement, resins, wax, paper and marble dust.
The result has been overwhelmingly positive with new design opportunities opening up that have transformed the waste into coverings, transparent elements, surfaces, coatings, plasters, filaments and sheets of paper.
This is a truly winning project that supports sustainable and ethical production and is certainly an encouraging message for the present and for the future.
