Wei Hsiang Chiu and Meizhu Li, Parsons Industrial Design alumni, have become The Core 77 Award honorees in the Furniture and Lighting category.

 

To complete his project, “Beer Stools,” Wei worked with local breweries to explore the issues of waste production and recycling, and test how spent grains, organic waste from the brewery process, can be reused in design. Inspired by successful utilization of recycled cork, Wei collaborated with Strong Rope brewery to fabricate a collection of beer stools made of compressed spent grains, wood glue and sawdust, having turned the mixture into a friendly sustainable material. You can find out more about Wei’s project here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meizhu Li has addressed the problem of food waste by designing a pickling container that would encourage people to preserve food scraps and extra vegetables for further consumption. The Pickle Nest project is meant to substitute traditional pickling jars, saving time and minimizing storage space as well as allowing the user to continuously add vegetable scraps into separate compartments without remaking brine. The container’s design is both user-friendly and informative, giving basic information about the picking process and making it possible to track it and record dates for each pickling.