“Designed and upcycled in Hong Kong” is the tagline for Kevin Cheung ‘s practice. The designer’s home city of 7.5 million people generates plenty of trash, and Cheung has carefully isolated what things are consistently thrown away: Bicycle rims, umbrellas, old rice cooker pots, plastic bottles. Cheung experiments to see what useful objects can be made from these cast-offs, and gets the saleable ones into production by employing disabled workers at a local NGO.

Some of Cheung’s projects:

Rice Bell

Cheung’s process of transforming old rice cooker bowls into bicycle bells has been set up as a production line manned by local craftspeople.

Bottleship

This workable two-person boat, made from 360 PET bottles, was a one-off project for a DIY TV show.

Lumi-Rim

By refitting banged-up, discarded bicycle rims with a translucent inner tube filled with LEDs, Cheung creates overhead lighting.

Bicycle Pop-Up Trailer

Wood discarded from the local convention center becomes bicycle-towed vending or dining platforms.

Umbrella Piano

The handles and shafts become legs, the tines become producers of musical notes in this reinterpretation of the kalimba, a Zimbabwean musical instrument. Built for an exhibition.

“Instead of continually draining new resources/materials to create new products, Kevin is experimenting with waste materials, reusing them to create new products and also collaborating with different NGOs to produce the products locally. He wishes to inspire people to have a new perspective of how products are being made, consumed and disposed.

“Upcycled in Hong Kong, in a socially conscious way. All upcycling products are made of waste produced in Hong Kong, by employees of local NGOs’ Sheltered workshop, providing job opportunities for people with disabilities. It is not only a locally made product but also a product that can benefit society throughout the whole production process.”

Check out more of Cheung’s work here.

Source: core77