Honorable Mention 2017 / Home Interior Products / Professional

PET Lamp

• Company
  ACdO, Spain
• Lead Designer
  Álvaro Catalán de Ocón
• Client
  ACdO
• Project Link
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Back in 2011, Alvaro Catalan de Ocon took part
in a project focused on the reuse of PET plastic
bottles as a way of addressing the plastic
waste issue in the Colombian Amazon. As an
industrial designer, his starting point was
focused on the deep contradiction that is
hidden behind each PET bottle: a product with
a very short lifespan that takes decades to
decompose. Alvaro reconsidered the role of the
plastic bottle by merging local weaving
techniques with industrial lighting. At this
moment, PET Lamp is a consolidated project in
different communities of artisans worldwide,
which enables tradition and local culture
cosmogony to be reflected on the final product.

PET Lamp started as an awareness project,
strongly linked to the PET bottle reuse. Over
time it unfolded also as an anthropological
study of different indigenous weaving
traditions, underlining the role that craft
knowledge can play in local culture, and
accentuating preservation of craft knowledge
and tradition.

The PET Lamp project was initially founded in
2012 through a collaboration with artisans from
the Cauca region that had been displaced by
the guerrilla war in Colombia. The lampshades
created by these artisans reflect the
community character and their culture
symbolism. PET Lamp company is born the
same year and the collection EPERARA-
SIAPIDARA is exhibited for the first time at the
Salone Internazionale del Mobile Milan in 2013,
raising interest among international media,
allowing PET Lamp to reach corners of all the
world.

In 2014 the collection CHIMBARONGO (Chile),
made by wicker artisans, is launched at the
Salone Internazionale del Mobile Milano, within
Rossana Orlandi exhibition. In 2015 ABYSSINIA
(Ethiopia) collection, made by women artisans
from Addis Abbeba is released. Just a few
months later PET Lamp travels to Kyoto (Japan)
where a project with bamboo artisans is
developed.