SEOUL DESIGN AWARD

SMALLrevolution is a circular design and manufacturing company that transforms waste into a documented material resource. Rather than treating recycling as a downstream waste-management, the project intervenes upstream by redesigning how materials are sourced, valued, and transformed into design products and applications. By connecting waste generation, collection, materialization, design, manufacturing, procurement, and end use into a single circular framework, the project shifts plastic from a disposal challenge to a continuous resource.

Through documented closed-loop partnerships, plastic waste from healthcare, aviation, infrastructure, events and consumer products is retained as traceable secondary resources. Design, manufacturing, and procurement are integrated into a system enabling organisations to maintain ownership, traceability, and accountability of their waste across multiple material lifecycles.

These materials are transformed into furniture, interior products, architectural applications, and custom commercial solutions, demonstrating how recycled resources can meet both functional and aesthetic requirements. Each material stream retains its original colours, textures, and characteristics, eliminating the need for pigments, virgin plastic, or additional chemical additives while making the material's origin visible through design. The project creates lasting connections between material origin, design, and use.

Most recycling systems focus on waste management, where materials from multiple sources are combined and their origin, value, and identity are lost. SMALLrevolution applies a design-led systems approach, creating documented closed-loop partnerships where materials remain traceable across multiple lifecycles. This is a circular design system that extends the scope of design not only to the product itself, but also to the process by which materials move and are reused.

Since 2021, more than 66 tonnes of plastic waste have been reintegrated into commercial value chains through partnerships with Novo Nordisk, Lufthansa Technik, Airbus, Clever, Roskilde Festival and Danish hospitals. These partnerships demonstrate how circularity can become an operational model for resilient sourcing, industrial collaboration, and extending material lifecycles.

The project shifts perceptions of waste from a disposal challenge to a valuable resource embedded within everyday products, interiors, and public environments. By making material origin visible and traceable, it helps organisations, designers, and users understand their role within circular systems, demonstrating that circularity can operate under real market conditions.