This piece of furniture, signed Maison Tournesol, stands out for its design: it is entirely made from waste from the construction sector.
“It’s an environment that generates a lot of waste before, during and following the construction of buildings,” the 33-year-old architect-designer told AFP.
“Fifty million tonnes per year”, specifies his partner of the same age François Bois, before adding that this was where the idea of Tournesol was born. “We said to ourselves, we are going to do reuse and the circular economy, and that will be our hobbyhorse.”
In 2019, with two other young architects aware of environmental issues, Thomas Combes and François Bois founded the company, which designs and manufactures interior furniture from construction materials that would otherwise end up in the recycling center.
Circular economy
“Each year, two tonnes of waste and six tonnes of CO2 are avoided”, proudly launches François Bois, specifying that “the piece of furniture that Thomas is building requires around 25 kilos” of recycled materials.
The raw materials are recovered from manufacturers “just before they become waste (…) to start them on a new cycle” of life, he explains before launching: “that’s it circular economy”.
This economic model “has entered into the evolution of mores”, says Léa Querrien, project-innovation manager at Valdelia, a company which organizes the collection and recycling of furniture waste.
The expert underlines that “there are a lot of initiatives (integrating the circular economy) that are emerging in France”, in particular “between the world of furniture and the world of construction”. She specifies that “regulation has played a big role” in this development.
Since March 2021, the Anti-waste law for a circular economy (AGEC) “requires that between 20% and 40% of the supplies purchased by public services come from reuse, reuse or contain recycled materials”, she explains.
This market is one of the main customers of Maison Tournesol, which today has around a hundred, including also manufacturers who “want ecological and sustainable furniture to meet their CSR policy”, says François Bois.
This policy of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) requires since 2011 that companies “implement concrete practices of sustainable development in order to improve their impact on society or on the environment”, he recalls.
Innovative concept
STM, which designs, manufactures and installs signs, is thus one of Maison Tournesol’s partners to “follow a global CSR approach”, specifies Vincent Prieur, technical sales representative for this company in the suburbs of Toulouse.
The four designer-architects are supplied with composite aluminum trays which “have defects and cannot be used” by the company, he adds.
He is delighted that these panels, which are non-recyclable and therefore generally buried in landfills, “can be recovered, to make furniture”.
By reusing composite aluminium, Maison Tournesol stands out from other recycling initiatives, according to Léa Querrien who salutes these architect-designers for their “innovative side in the design and materials” used.
Sleek and easy to assemble, mixing metal and wood, yellow, white and black, the first range of “Zero” furniture – for zero carbon, zero waste and zero effort – was launched in 2022.
Buoyed by the success obtained, Maison Tournesol is launching its second collection, baptized “Mono” because it is unicoloured, at the Workspace show in Paris in April.
