Creating Space for Nature-Based Plastic Solutions

Putting nature back in the picture, is paramount according to Daniel Mitchell, founder of the Indonesia-based, Space Available, a creative platform and ecological design studio on a mission to create a circular future. Led by a global community of artists, designers, scientists and environmentalists, Space Available is connecting the dots between nature, culture and design.

As specialists in circular design solutions, Space Available creates spaces, concepts, products and experiences based on the regenerative principles of the natural world. Its holistic approach involves bio-innovation, radical waste recycling, upcycling, future craft and digital communications for a new earth.

The Space Available ethos is built around education, conversation and collaboration. As Mitchell says, “We understand that in order to solve complex problems, we must operate as a collective –  learning, unlearning, and sharing, creating meaningful work for people and the planet.”

Working with Bali-based architecture practise, Sidarta and Sandjaja, Space Available converted a neglected two-storey building into the world’s first museum dedicated to finding solutions to the world’s plastic problem. Located inn Canggu, Bali, showcasing the idyllic island’s struggle with plastic waste by covering the facade of the museum with 200,000 waste plastic bottles. 

Built to host a line of designer furniture made from recycled plastic, the gallery gallery and retail and repair space, MoSA will also act as a learning facility that hosts workshops for the benefit of the local community. Space Available also intends for the museum to have a digital side, with rooms in the metaverse and a series of NFTs launching soon. Space Available also sells products of its radical recycling initiative online.

AdaPETation enjoys five minutes with Space Available founder Daniel Mitchell.

FIVE MINUTES WITH CO-FOUNDER DANIEL MITCHELL

What solutions are available to some of the most prescient challenges associated with our interdependence with plastic?

For us we believe building circular systems at a fundamental level is needed within the use of plastics and materials in general. We are using waste plastic as a raw material in a bid to change the perception of the meaning of ‘waste” – which we believe is nothing more than a surplus material with nowhere to go.

Which solutions have the best chance of success?

Ending the use of single use plastic. And then implementing incentives for the reuse of reusable containers. For now our solution is to use design as a vehicle for change by using waste plastic to showcase the possibilities. 

What is preventing solutions from being introduced at scale?

Lack of an alternative implementation of single use plastic, and governments not declaring an emergency on the plastic waste crises and forcing companies to innovate to find alternative solutions to there current model of single use packaging.

How can we accelerate the implementation of solutions?

Investing further in bio material technology as a long term solution. 

How can design help us transition to a new world?

We designed this mess. We should now learn from it and design our way out of it by not only recycling, but to innovate and invent the alternative at scale, which is in the bio space.

What other worldviews might help to inform a wise response to some of the challenges we currently face as a species?

Indigenous philosophies with modern technology.

How can we practise social acupuncture to help relieve some of the pressure points in our cultures?

We can start with trying to lift as many people out of poverty as we can whilst simultaneously restoring the natural world.

How do we sustain networks of hope?

We keep striving to improve our practices as individuals, which we can then have impacts on the community and the environment around us. 

Photography is by Tommaso Riva.