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waarmakers R16 shipping package is also an LED tube light fixture

 

 

 

 

‘R16’ by dutch design duo waarmakers is a cardboard LED tube lighting fixture, which serves as both packaging and a light at the same time, so that the least amount of waste possible is produced.

 


video courtesy of waarmakers

 

 

 

 

while designing their ‘ninebyfour’ lamp, a lighting unit made of elm trees from the inner city of amsterdam, they found themselves inundated with different linear LED’s in cardboard tube packaging. they felt uncomfortable with throwing away this cardboard as they believe, if used in the right way, it is an attractive material.

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waarmakers believe that there aesthetic value in the simplicity of the cardboard material

 

 

 

to tackle this waste issue they started to think how it could be reused, or repurposed. from a design perspective the use of LED’s holds the capability for a lot of different materials to be used, as they barely heat up. their solution was, in fact, the packaging material itself – the cardboard tube could also be the fixture. the ‘R16’ has been designed with sustainability at its core, using as little material as possible. for example, they have opted to not include the components to fix the lamp in place in order to encourage users to add their own pencil and coin.
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slot for user to add a coin independently

 

 

 

by pre-cutting the tubes with a laser-cutter, the cardboard can first be used as the packaging material, and can be turned into an elegant light fixture in a few simple steps. all necessary components are shipped inside the tube, and the package is only rolled in a single layer of kraft paper for shipping.

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a single sheet of kraft paper is used for the shipping of the light
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minimalist appearance can fit into a variety of situations
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user can apply different colors of fixings depending on the interior
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natural color of the cardboard lends itself to both soft and saturated tones

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waarmakers R16 shipping package light