BAL8

22 September 2020

BAL8 (Balotto) is the first street furniture rising from what we use to call “waste” but also the minimum set for social gathering: 2 seats and 1 coffee table.

Inspired by the hexagonal geometry of the ancient walls that protected the Medieval Bologna and the Circular economy concept, BAL8 is a set of 3 objects.The design of BAL8 aims to boost socialization and foster the regeneration of those spaces of the city that have proved to be fragile and lacking of quality elements. The name combines the local Bolognese slang “Balotta”, which means “company”, “let’s stay together”, “group of friends”, and the number “8” to recall the closed loop of the materials and the infinite symbol.

BAL8 prototypes are produced with the technical support of WASP and thanks to the collaboration with r3direct for product testing & development. The principles behind BAL8 derives from circular economy indeed the production uses only secondary raw materials and recycled materials. The set is moulded entirely from pellets (about 5 Kg for one piece) of polyphenyl polimers derived from Plasmix granules, a mix of the plastics PP, HDPE and LDPE obtained from the recycling of “dirty” plastics, which in the linear economic model would be destined to landfill or incinerated. The characteristic dark grey colour and its materiality result from the cleaning and regeneration process.

To complete the set, a soft and colourful cushion to make BAL8’s circular section object usable as a coffee table but also as a seat. The pillow made with the reuse of old advertising banners of the Municipality of Bologna and the badge holders of the Biografilm Festival, and is the result of the “UPCYCLING” project, coordinated by Raffaella Gueze with the students of the Master’s Degree Course in Advanced Design of the UNIBO and the Orplast technical support.