Hello Awesome SF Team,

My project is one in which art, design, and sustainability meet. In short, I will be making a chair out of rice hulls. The chair will be circularly designed meaning its life will end by looping back into the earth plus the form allows for parts to be easily replaced rather than the whole of the chair being replaced.
In order to take circular design to the next level, waste can be synthesized to become the raw material. Rice Hulls, a byproduct of rice farming, is the material for the project. Due to their locality (90% of California rice comes from Sacramento County), and their abundance (about 3.9 million kg are produced a year in the US) it is the perfect material to reduce carbon and tell a local story.

As it stands I tackled this project during my final year of college however due to a lack of funding resources I was not able to complete the chair. However, after almost a year of experimenting, research, and prototypes I have found a way to synthesize rice hull concrete a sustainable, biodegradable, non-toxic, alternative to concrete!

As a designer and artist, this project represents the responsibility we have to find creative ways to create not only fascinating products but sustainable ones. Creating a chair is the designer's right of passage and with this rice hull chair, I look to become worthy (and Awesome)!