Studio Swine has made a mobile foundry that melts aluminum cans using waste vegetable oil collected from local cafes as a fuel. Waste collectors known as Catadores mine the streets for materials to produce a furniture series with vernacular aesthetic, providing a portrait of the streets.
The Can Stools are made simply with sand casting technique using readily available construction sand from local building sites, and by casting an assemblage of objects found on the streets. The furnace and the tools are made with salvaged materials and a scrap beer barrel.
Can City suggests a future possibility where Catadores (waste collectors) can adopt this system to make use of free metal and free fuel to produce an infinite range of individually crafted aluminum items.
‘Can City’ was made for Coletivo Amor de Madre Gallery, São Paulo.
The project was made possible with the generous support of Heineken.
The Film was made by Juriaan Booji.
Studio Swine is a collaboration between Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves. Azusa graduated from the Bartlett School of Architecture and Alexander from the Ruskin School of Fine Art Oxford before both gaining an MA in Design Products at the Royal College of Art. Studio Swine explores design through material innovation and creating new sustainable systems whilst placing an equal importance on aesthetics, believing that desire is the greatest agent of change.
Operating in the fields of design, fashion & architecture, Studio Swine has worked with Veuve Clicquot, Swarovski & Droog. Studio Swine has exhibited at the Barbican, V&A, New York & London Fashion Week and Gwangju Biennale curated by Ai Wei Wei.
Swine has received international awards including the Gold Prize at BIO23 Biennale of Design Slovenia, Wallpaper* Design Award and recently nominated for Designs of the Year Award 2013 at the Design Museum London.