french architect françois jaubert turns trash into eco-friendly surfboards

tired of always planned and busy life, former architect françois jaubert has decided to radically change his life and start over with designing surfboards. the artist just finds materials, such as cardboard, around and creates unique pieces by hand.

‘I felt like I needed to restart something from the beginning, take the time to learn something new, get stoked again, like when I was a kid,’ explainsjaubert in his interview for surf brand vissla. ‘I quit my comfort zone, took some surfboards and some basic tools with me and went to supertubes, peniche for 6 months. art came straight to me; getting barreled [surfers use this phrase to describe the experience of being surrounded by water under a wave — designboom] in supertubes was pretty inspiring and I started drawing visions that I felt in the water. as for shaping, in portugal it was not always easy to get materials to shape a board, so I started to look what was around me and use it. cardboard is everywhere and had has some pretty sick properties, in terms of rigidity and floatation.’

the architect claims that even though he’s not currently developing his career, his previous architectural experience is very important for his shaping work — minimalist and brutalist doctrine led by mies van der rohe and le corbusier still dictates the appearance of his creations. also, jaubert films almost every moment of his life and will reveal a film about it soon.

a trailer of soo to be revealed movie about françois jaubert

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: maria erman | designboom