Eekin tavaramerkki, sarjatuotannossa olevat kierrätyspuuhuonekalut ovat väreiltään yksilöllisiä. / Eek’s trademark furniture made of recycled wood is serially produced but unique in colour.
person”, says the tall Dutch man grinning from behind his desk. He prides himself on the trans parency of the production process. The 44-year-old Eek, who comes from a family of teachers, is a philanthropist. He acknowledges that he is just making tables and chairs, but the ambition is to make a better world. When asked how he came to use waste mate rials, he says it is in his genes. “My father would build rabbit hutches from scrap wood. Later on when I was studying, I would use the scraps of the rabbit hutches to build furniture.” The ultimate goal for Eek is to change the course of consumption in the western world. “What we consider luxury is not luxurious at all. We can achieve most by changing our own lifestyles. Recycling materials is only a small part of this change.” Eek believes that the change in people’s life styles will naturally follow as new generations gain power. “Young people are very informed, and they have a lot of ideas. Their consumption habits are quite different from those of the baby boom generation.”
Tuoleissa yhdistyvät perinteinen klassinen muotoilu sekä kierrätysmateriaali. / The chairs are a mixture of classic design and recycled material.
It is no coincidence that it is in the Neth erlands that Piet Hein Eek’s ideas have formed. Recycling materials is very much a part of local tradition. The population is dense, and all materi als are used well. For instance, there are many companies in the Netherlands that specialize in the recycling and reusing of demolition waste. These days Eek doesn’t have to go looking in rub bish skips to find old painted wood because his company often gets offered discarded materials. “We have to recycle because there are no more ancient oak forests here. The price to pay for cut ting down the last oak tree is too high.” www.pietheineek.nl
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