- 3D-Print
- Light
- Product
On average, each person in the EU produces 32 kg of plastic packaging waste annually. Moreover, almost half of all plastic products are only used once before they are disposed of shortly after use. This applies above all to plastic bottles, regardless of whether they are offered in reusable or disposable systems. This is not only harmful to the environment and an unnecessary consumption of resources, but also a pity because with every discarded bottle a design piece is lost from which potentially something new could be created.
A plastic bottle consists of different polymer plastics, usually HDPE (High-density polyethylene) for the screw cap and PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) for the bottle itself. We use these resources to create a high quality, durable and personalized design product by reusing the bottle as a design element in a new way and recycling the screw cap into a formable „digital material“. The screw caps are first washed, shredded and then processed into a recycled filament that can be processed by a 3D printer into any desired shape.
The Tappodario is inspired by a chandelier and uses 3D printing technology to create a customisable light object. All technical, functional and design aspects are brought together in a sophisticated form. For this purpose we have integrated the geometry of the bottle screw caps into a platonic solid. The dodecahedron we use enables a compact radial arrangement of the bottles as well as effective illumination of the light object, which radiates evenly outwards from the centre of the Tappodario.
A broad variety of plastic bottles can be screwed in via the integrated standard screw cap, allowing the desired chandelier design and lighting mood to be individually determined. In addition, an E14 thread for the lamp socket is integrated in the model, so that the lamp simply needs to be screwed in. Only the material of 22 screw caps is needed to produce a Tappodario, without any additional support structure. At 55 grams, the printed model is very light as well as extremely stable thanks to the statically balanced geometry of the platonic solid.