Norwegian-born designer Amy Hunting has made something out of nothing. Her Patchwork Collection of furniture was crafted using factory waste collected in Denmark. Obviously, this is an earth-friendly manufacturing process, since it reduces/reuses waste. The collection includes a chair, a book box, and a set of 12 lamps that fit inside each other.

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Eco-Friendly Lamps Made From Factory Waste

Patchwork Lamp

takes its cue from a Russian tradition: the Babushka doll. These nesting dolls, usually shaped in the form of mothers (hence their other name, matryoshka, meaning little mother), need to be produced from the same piece of wood. Otherwise, moisture content and expansion-contraction characteristics would cause the dolls to not fit together, creating a useless set of painted ladies. Here is where Hunting's project differentiates itself: her nesting lamps are also crafted from a large solid block of wood, but that mass was made up of small cut-offs. Essentially, Patchwork Lamp is reinvigorating the idea behind the Babushka dolls by maintaining and simultaneously subverting the woodworking technique. Each nesting lamp is handmade and varies slightly, another riff on the matryoshka dolls, which look similar to one another but retain individuality.

Now working in London, Amy Hunting graduated from Denmark's Designschool in 2008, where she studied furniture and spatial design (I like to imagine her working on realigning planets and constellations). After working for Established and Sons, she set up her own studio in East London. Besides furniture design, Hunting also works as a freelance illustrator-you can see some of her work in a short film titled Little Scraps of Paper.