The Concept

Questions

As a member of the Parsons community that constantly has to use the printing lab, I often see piles of discarded papers laying around. This situation really led me to think about how ironic it is that the school pushes sustainability as a part of its agenda yet the students studying here are actually the ones tossing away papers as soon as the projects are done. In response to this situation, I wish to combine these discarded paper with Kombucha leather to create a notebook that is both aesthetically pleasing and sustainable. On a personal level, this design benefits me in 2 ways. Firstly, the papers that are to be disintegrated and recombined are mostly other student’s work and assignments from this specific timeframe. In a sense, these papers will longer be papers but a literal documentation of who, what, and when of this point of my life. Therefore, this design carries meaning for me. Secondly, I find this design to be a great and constant reminder of how, as little as I may think I am, I can also make a contribution to environmental causes. Since I intend to use this notebook as a tool to record my design ideas, whenever I design I will be reminded to take what I’ve learned in this class into consideration.

For the first week, I would like to focus on the drying process of my Kombucha leather as well as the collection of discarded papers. I will have to separate them by color as well as how to actually make paper and sewing. For the second week, I would like to have the book cover completed and the papers made and ready to go. The rest of my third week will be entirely dedicated to sewing the notebook and other minor touches. Most materials and tools required for this design can either be sourced locally at school or can be found at home. The only material I actually need to buy would be beeswax. Luckily, I found Andrew’s Honey which can be found at the Union Square Greenmarket every Wednesday and Saturday. Lastly, since my design is only a notebook and does not come with many different components, I do not think a lot of repairing process will be involved. Due to the fact that even the papers that will theoretically make up this notebook will have a lot of meaning. I do not intend to reuse the notebook cover by replacing the paper inside. In terms of the notebook cover, the repairing process will simply be sewing the parts back together and applying beeswax once in a while.