PP Hive — Xuanhao

Xuanhao Li
An award-winning CMF & computational designer, crafting meaningful elegance.

About Me

Selected Works

PROJECT
ROLE
YEAR
ADVISOR
CREDITS
AWARDS

PP Hive
Researcher, Designer, Manufacturer
2024
HyunJoo Oh
CoDe Craft group, GVU Prototyping Lab, Interactive Product Design Lab
NY Product Design Awards | Silver
DNA Paris Design Awards | Winner↗
K-Design Award | Gold Winner↗
Muse Design Awards | Silver
SUSTAIN-X | 3rd place

Upcycling smarter, by revealing the materiality of waste:

PP Hive is a heat-induced self-forming table stand series made from upcycled polyethylene(PE) bags and newspaper.

By leveraging the heat-shrink property of used PE bags, PP Hive thermally fuses PE layers with laser-cut newspaper traces, resulting in designs that, after one thermal press, self-curve themselves from a flat plane into lightweight and durable table stands.

PP Hive extends the life cycles of two waste materials by transforming them into aesthetically pleasing, lightweight, and flat-packable new designs. The programmable self-forming fabrication method also aligns with broader sustainability goals. PP Hive reduces the carbon footprint during manufacturing by minimizing the need for resource-intensive molding or shaping interventions.

The thermal shrinkage of PE film, discover the magic from waste:

When recycling and processing plastic waste, there is usually an eagerness to quickly crush, shred, and melt all the forms down, transforming them back into small plastic pellets in order to recreate new plastic products.

However, this eagerness ignores the unique affordance for the form of PE plastic bags. Discarded PE bags possess thermal shrinkage properties due to their manufacturing process, specifically the blow molding technique. During blow molding, a heated plastic tube is inflated with air to form a thin, flexible film. This process aligns the polymer chains, giving the material its characteristic elasticity and thermal response. When reheated, the aligned polymer chains attempt to return to their original, contracted state, causing the plastic to shrink.

Leveraging this property, this project creates innovative products that capitalize on the inherent thermal behavior of used plastic bags, offering new applications and functionalities that are both sustainable and creatively unique.

Shape programmable fabrication:

The shaping of PP Hive was achieved through a single thermal press, involving the strategic layering of discarded PE sheets with paper waste. PP Hive's heat-induced self-forming mechanism lies in the thermal fusibility of the two materials and the interplay between the heat-induced shrinkage of PE sheets and the dimensional stability of paper.

Firstly, the controlled thermal press causes the PE layers to melt and adhere to the paper layers as a cohesive unit. Simultaneously, parametrically arranged laser-cut paper strips guide the overlaid PE layers to contract and bend the whole piece along corresponding directions. Based on parametric design methods, the curvature can be precisely programmed by adjusting the layer numbers of PE films and the widths of the paper strips.

Functional and circular design:

After the composite units self-form into a porous honeycomb structure based on the programmed curvature, PP Hive harnesses the load-bearing properties of this structure as a collection of lightweight, waterproof, and flat-packable table stands. PP Hive's dynamic contours, along with the patterns of newspapers visible through transparent PE layers, highlight the modern aesthetic of sustainable upcycling design.

Moreover, after being used and discarded, PP Hive collection is fully recyclable, contributing to the closure of a circular economy. The material ingredients and layer composition of PP Hive are similar to milk cartons, which can be recycled to fabricate paper products, packaging, and building materials.