Design Challenge and Design Ideas

The challenge was to create an alternative to plastic-heavy, single-use event displays by designing a modular, flexible product made from renewable materials. The focus was on minimal environmental impact, ensuring easy transport and quick assembly. Carbon sequestration was considered, exploring whether the display could serve as a carbon store and be made from materials like wood and cardboard. Another key feature was designing for easy updates, allowing changes like contact details without remaking the entire display.
Following zero-waste principles, the goal was to maximise raw material use and ensure the product could either be repurposed or compostable when no longer needed. With all this in mind, it was also important not the sacrifice aesthetics and create something that would be a unique and beautiful sustainable solution.

How the brief was fulfilled

The choice of materials helped fulfil several aspects of our design challenge at once: those materials were virgin sawn-wood and recycled honey-comb cardboard. The wood is employed as the outer frame for each side of the cube. This wood is also a carbon store, and can potentially be re-used many times with new artwork. The honey-comb cardboard can potentially be printed on both sides, which presents the opportunity to have two different displays from a single cube. The recycled cardboard is also fully compostable, and could be used in a no-till gardening scenario. Updating the display with small changes is also straightforward as any side of the cube can be replaced while the others can be retained.
As multiple cubes can be arranged in various configurations, with additional cubes added if needed, this solves the modularity aspect of the design. Waste is minimised through equally dividing the eight-by-four feet honey-comb cardboard raw material into equal two-by-two feet sections. Similarly, with the wooden corners, the 16 feet lengths are equally divided into eight sections.

The cubes can be relatively easily transported and assembled. They look fantastic, and can be viewed from all sides, which is uncommon for a display sign. Extra cubes can be added, providing modularity. Sections of the artwork can be replaced, saving waste, and the associated cost of re-making a complete new display. The production process has almost zero waste as the product’s dimensions fully utilise raw materials. Both the wood and cardboard act as carbon stores; with the wood potentially storing that sequestered carbon for a much longer period. The cube’s wooden corners can be re-used many times. Both the wood and cardboard will decompose, mitigating the often negative impact of other sign
materials.