Design

Reduced Carbon Footprint Souvenirs by Héctor Serrano

Marcus Fairs

6 January 2008

This conceptual range of souvenirs by designer Héctor Serrano are emailed to friends and relatives, who materialise them on domestic rapid prototyping machines.

Called Reduced Carbon Footprint Souvenirs, the conceptual range was created for the Ten Again exhibition of sustainable design at 100% Design in London last September. See our earlier story on Flame Lamps by Gitta Gschwendtner, which were also created for this show.

The exhibition called for ten designers to produce a batch of ten products that explored sustainability issues.

Designboom has a good report on the exhibition.

Here’s some info from Serrano:

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REDUCED CARBON FOOTPRINT SOUVENIRS
Designed by Héctor Serrano
3D consultancy by Javier Esteban
Project sponsor by 3D Systems

A collection of souvenirs that can be send by e-mail and then materialize using a 3D Printer (stereolithography rapid prototyping). No transport or standard production methods are required so the object carbon footprint is reduced to the minimum.

The project questions the way objects are manufactured and new technologies are applied to propose alternative ways of reducing their impact on the environment.

The project becomes specially relevant as the 3D printers are getting smaller and more affordable. In the near future this technology will be as accessible as standard in-jet, so objects could be printed from our homes.