urban mining – urban tooling

Werkzeuge für (über)morgen aus Materialien von hier und heute

Semesterprojekt
Methodische Gestaltungsübung, Sommersemester 2019
bei Prof. Mareike Gast, Philipp Witte und Karl Schikora
2. Studienjahr Bachelor

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Nickeltree Sap Tap – A Tool for Harvesting Metal – by Anna Freudenberg Emissions from various anthropogenic sources are likely to increase the heavy metal pollution in soils and make them infertile. For the growing world population, the renaturation of land by means of special phytomining hyperaccumulative plants could therefore become more and more important. The former endemic nickeltree Pycnandra acuminata could be grown in a way that it could also be cultivated in milder European climates. It can be used to regain the valuable nickel from the tree sap and simultaneously detoxify the soil. The Pycnandra acuminata tree is considered the most productive hyperaccumulator of heavy metal in the plant kingdom. An adult tree concentrates in different tissues, the bark, the leaves and in latex sap a total nickel content of about 37 kg.

Another Project called Mono – A three-dimensional Circuit – by Anniek Timmermann It’s no secret that the way we are currently dealing with electronic waste is problematic. There’s room for improvement not only in how we dispose of e-waste and recover valuable material from it, but especially in how we design products in the first place. This project is supposed to demonstrate an alternate way of designing and using electronics. Instead of being soldered inseparably onto a circuit board, here conductor, insulator, resistor and light bulb are designed for a quick and simple disassembly. This allows for the components to be separated into mono-materials. The structure of this basic, exemplary circuit allows electronic components and building components to become one. How could other electronic components be designed for disassembly? Which other possibilities lay within the exteriorization of electronics from the body housing of devices? And what are possible ways of integrating this extended building structure into our surroundings? With my project I would like to trigger these and other questions.

Cut Hair – On Your Own – by Johanna Abendroth When imagining the future of hairdressing, it is plausible to think that due to decreasing numbers of young talent, either only very high-cost-services or low-cost-service will be available. People seeking a haircut would therefore need to empower themselves in order to keep their hair individually styled. The classical tools that every hair-dresser uses on their clients are scissors, comb and razor. This project proposes a modified version of these tools in a way that the client can use them on their own hair. The movement of the hand is directly transferred to the function of each tool which is kept in place by a ring attachment. The comb serves as an aid for sectioning the hair and guiding the scissors. When not in use, the comb can rest on the thumb. When cutting hair, it is easier to rely on the natural perception and tactile feedback of the hands. Therefore the scissors are placed in between the index finger and the middle finger. After the cut, or to touch up untidy neck hair, the razor can be used. The exchangeable blade is placed parallely to the length of the index finger. These tools allow cutting hair in a way that one can rely on the sense of touch rather than the sense of sight. This makes the client less dependent on a sometimes confusing mirror image. The material used for manufacturing the tools consist of old hairdressing scissors made from stainless steel. The scissors are forged, hardened, then sharpened. The comb is punched and polished whereas the razor is punched and milled.

Ropetition – Repeat the Life Cycle of Unusable Clothes – by Leonhard Burmester My concept for three textile processing tools deals with the question “What do we do with our textiles if passing them on (selling or donating) is not an option?” Since the recycling of fabrics is still difficult, I wanted to extend the lifetime of supposedly worthless fabric remnants, which in fact have been produced costing large amounts of energy and water. For this procedure, the roller knife is used to cut the fabrics into long strips. The hand sewing machine sews short strips together and finally, the battery drill attachment spins the individual strips into a strong rope. In order to be used as long as possible, the tools can be dismantled and repaired easily. Roller knife: The roller knife can be extended by adapters so that several standard blades can be used at the same time. Hand sewing machine: A mechanism of the hand sewing machine moves the needle and the hook, which grabs the upper thread simultaneously. The hook knots the upper thread around the bobbin thread, creating a secure bond. Rope gear: A planetary gear, consisting of four gears, turns the strips into a rope

DNA Safe – A way to protect even the smallest of us – by Milan Behrens My work deals with the question of protecting earth’s biodiversity and preserving it for future generations. It was particularly important to me that the design is participatory. Whether young or old, everyone should be able to contribute. That’s why I kept my toolset as simple as possible. The production is easy and cheap. At the same time, something that was originally meant to take life is transformed into something that is able to protect and preserve life. The whole concept is conceived as an open source library. A field of application that I found very appealing are kindergardens and elementary schools, which caught my attention while working on the project. I myself often spent time in the woods during my early childhood. To connect this directly to the possibility that children, for example, could collect insects for the library, seems to me to be not only sensible in a way of preserving the insects but also in a way of sensitizing the children early on to something that has meanwhile become very urgent: the extinction of species. This is also a good opportunity to encourage a sense of responsibility at an early stage, as it is primarily us humans who bear for our environment.

Toxic Algae – From Fishing to Farming – by Nikolaus Hößle The port of Gioia Tauro is the hub of the international illegal garbage business. In the Mediterranean, industrial fishing will come to an end by 2030. The reason lies in the replacement of traditional fishing by aquaculture and the overfishing of the sea. Algae are already being used in sewage treatment plants to purify water, as their high lipid content enables certain algae to accumulate heavy metals and other toxins. My Toxic Algae project deals with the purification of the Mediterranean Sea through the cultivation of algae. In order to bring the topic to life, I have come up with a fictitious tool manufacturer who produces algae farming tools from old fishing boats and tools. The tools of the fictitious company “algaeferrum” are manufactured industrially for the most part by drop forging and metal spinning. A textile factory specialising in protecting clothing against toxic substances produces coated clothing for algae fishermen. The metal for the tools is extracted by algaeferrum in cooperation with several ship cemeteries and recycling centres, where stainless steel, aluminium and lead are stored by the abandoned fishing industry and can be purchased cheaply.

Fytò – Clean up the Past – by Tatjana Simbürger The groundwater was enormously polluted by heavy metals. Industry made an essential contribution to water pollution. Sewage has polluted our soils. A biological water treatment process has been developed. Here, one uses the filtering effect of the water hyacinth. Heavy metals are deposited in the roots of the free-floating plant, which are delivered to collecting stations and then burned to recover the valuable metals. Through genetic modification, the leaves of the hyacinth contain the exact amount of minerals required by the human body during the day. The stems of the plant are used to make utensils. The knife for harvesting the plants and the beater for compacting the braided tissues are made from old agricultural machines. The tools are drop-forged.

cutlery dies and cold forged fork at Carl Mertens

Viele Rohstoffe wie auch Metallerze aus geologischen Vorkommen sind zunehmend aufwendiger und riskanter abzubauen. Gleichzeitig wachsen anthropogene Lager vor Ort – in Form von Deponien oder auch langlebigen Gütern, die schon jetzt ungenutzt sind oder in naher Zukunft unbrauchbar werden. Diese wertvollen Materialien machen wir uns durch Urban Mining zu nutze, um daraus Tools für morgen zu gestalten und zu formen.

Wir widmeten uns dem archaischen Material Metall und seiner ebenso ursprünglichen Verwendung für manuelle Werkzeuge, denn kaum ein Material ist selbstverständlicher in diesem Kontext. Wir untersuchten derzeitige Handwerkszeuge aus Metall hinsichtlich ihrer Gestalt, Ergonomie, Funktion, auch kultureller Funktion, ihrer Nutzer, Herstellung und Materialität und nicht zuletzt ihrer Notwendigkeit.

Anschließend entwickelten die Studierenden eine nächste Generation der Tools – aus Metallen, die schon jetzt im Einsatz sind und morgen den Rohstoff darstellen werden. Ein Schlüsselaspekt für die Gestaltung eines Werkzeugs für eine Zukunft lag darin, diese Zukunft ganzheitlich abzuschätzen und vor allem zu gestalten – ein weiterer in der Recyclingfähigkeit und der Nutzung von Materialkreisläufen. Die Tools wurden in Metall – zumeist im Aluminiumguss modellbautechnisch umgesetzt.

Dank an

Lena Tuxhorn, Remondis
Günter Rützler, Hazet
Christian Darmann, Carl Mertens
Manuel Bickel, Wuppertal Institut
Konrad Schoch, Wuppertal Institut
Holger Glockner, Z_Punkt
Markus Reuter, Helmholtz-Institut Freiberg
Felix Müller, Umweltbundesamt
Conrad Dorer, Umweltbundesamt
Ina Turinsky
Carsten Theumer, BURG

urban mining – urban tooling
tools for tomorrow and beyond from materials here and now

Many raw materials as well as metal ores from geological deposits are increasingly expensive and riskier to mine. At the same time, anthropogenic deposits are growing locally – in the form of landfills or even long-lived goods that are already unused or will become unusable in the near future. We use these valuable materials through ‘urban mining’ to design and shape tools for tomorrow.
We dedicated ourselves to the archaic material metal and its equally original use for manual tools, because hardly any other material is more self-evident in this context. We examined current metal hand tools in terms of their shape, ergonomics, function, also cultural function, their users, production and materiality and last but not least their necessity. We then developed a next generation of tools made of metals that are already in use and will be our raw material tomorrow. A key aspect for the design of a tool for the future was to assess this future holistically and above all to design it – another aspect was the recyclability and use of material cycles.

thanks to

Lena Tuxhorn, Remondis
Günter Rützler, Hazet
Christian Darmann, Carl Mertens
Manuel Bickel, Wuppertal Institute
Konrad Schoch, Wuppertal Institute
Holger Glockner, Z_Punkt
Markus Reuter, Helmholtz-Institute Freiberg
Felix Müller, German Environment Agency
Conrad Dorer, German Environment Agency
Ina Turinsky
Carsten Theumer, BURG

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