MULTIFUNCTIONAL FURNITURE
The new faculty building has a rugged, industrial look with many raw, natural materials such as oak, concrete and metal. We wanted to use the furniture to add colour to the interior and create a warm, cosy atmosphere. A 'home away from home' for the international students. A spot where they can meet up and interact with one another. In addition to more traditionally furnished classrooms, the faculty offers open-plan study areas with a more innovative character as well as laboratories, offices and several green courtyards. A requirement for the more traditional study area was for the spaces be efficient in use: i.e. to be multifunctional in terms of furniture and layout.
CONTINUOUS CONSIDERATION FOR REUSE
Bas de Jong, account manager at Gispen: 'We worked through a challenging process together with the ITC faculty and the architect. We held several sessions with Groen + Schild Architects on colour schemes and materialisation. Originally, the design was mainly based on new circular furniture. We continuously asked ourselves: what can we do with the faculty's existing furniture and returned products from other clients at our Circular Hub?' A scan of the existing furniture concluded that much of it could not be reused because it no longer met modern health and safety requirements. However, we did clean and reupholster 120 school chairs, which have now come into their own at the restaurant and study area. The remaining furniture was sustainably processed by Gispen. Jeroen: 'I like the idea that the items are given a new lease of life by Gispen.'
SIGNIFICANT CO2-REDUCTION OF NO LESS THAN 93%
We not only refurbished 319 desks and 300 school chairs, we also cleaned 418 office chairs and replaced parts and reupholstered them where needed. We also took old tabletops that had been returned by other clients and transformed them into 188 partition walls. Moreover, we repainted 20 lockers in a more modern colour, and supplied 80 refurbished student desks and 241 chests of drawers. As there was a desire for standing desk work, refurbished desks from Gispen's own stock from the Circular Hub were installed in the offices. Used desk frames were repainted and motorised to turn them into sit-stand workstations. Bas: 'All these repurposed products have resulted in a CO2-reduction of no less than 93% when compared to acquiring new furniture. It is to ITC's credit that they fully committed to creating a sustainable furnishing, which is not necessarily cheaper because of the amount of manual labour involved, but it does result in a significant CO2 reduction.' Items that were not eligible for refurbishment were replaced by new circular furniture, such as Gispen SETT sofas, NOMI chairs with removable and colourful covers, Gispen HUGG focus workstations and ZINN office chairs.
Bas: 'Eight weeks before delivery we were informed that the renovation of the building was delayed. A clever solution was called for seeing that everything was already in full production. By mutual agreement, we decided to carry on with production and put the furniture in storage with a partner of both Gispen and ITC: Convoi, who delivered the furniture in batches when the time came.' Jeroen: 'Gispen also came up with some other good ideas. One of which concerned the conference tables, for which the architect had suggested Forbo Linoleum Desktop tabletops for a slightly softer look. Gispen, however, came up with a more economical solution with the same appeal: tabletops made of chipboard with multiplex edge banding.'
Photography: Chris van Koeverden
