shay castel's biodegradable series of everyday objects challenges consumerist habits

influenced by jiu-liang’s ‘plastic china’ film — an award-winning documentary depicting a portrait of poverty, ambition and hope — artist shay castel was deeply disturbed by the amount of waste humans produce. in an effort to bring awareness to this issue, castel’s thesis project expresses his views on consumerist waste. the design, titled ‘this is temporary’, advocates products with a temporary look and feel.

‘this is temporary’ is shay castel’s thesis project at the holon institute of technology 

‘at first glance’, explains castel, ‘you know they not going to last for long.’ this approach encourages consumers to use the products for the right amount of time, disposing of them with no shame thanks to its biodegradable nature. although the artist admits that his approach may not going to fight consumerist habits, ‘this is temporary’ is a small step towards challenging common ideologies. the project is available in three forms: speakers, clocks, and lamps.

the biodegradable speaker

rear-view of the speaker

a decomposition of the speaker 

the products are designed to easily open up for replacing electronic parts and recycling

the shell-shaped lamps connect through pop up buttons for easy assembly

the logo is inspired by food expire date labels

castel uses industrial manufacturing paper 

preliminary models of the project

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: lynn chaya | designboom