RE: From waste wood to new possibilities

This exhibition explores how damaged wood and returned furniture can move beyond disposal through design and material research. Offcuts are reimagined as the foundation for new materials and spatial applications, challenging conventional ideas of waste.

The exhibition presents the outcomes of a collaborative initiative between the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), School of Design, IKEA Hong Kong, Carbon Lite System (CLS) and DFI Retail Group.

The initiative is led by Dr Ho-Yin Tse as Principal Investigator (PI), with Prof. Sunny Choi serving as Co-Investigator (Co-I).

Featuring prototype works developed by Product Design students, the exhibition showcases creative approaches to waste-to-reuse-and-redesign. It also marks the beginning of an ongoing partnership through which IKEA Hong Kong will continue to provide wood waste materials to support student learning, experimentation, and sustainable design innovation.

CEE team

Dr Ho-Yin Tse (Wood to Light)
Prof. Ben Leu, Dr Jerry Guan & Mr Edrick Ho (Wood to Fuel)
Mr Raffel-Dharma Patria (Wood to Colour)
Mr Muhammad-Ali Shehzad (Wood to Ethanol)

CLS company

Mr Pirry Leung

Dairy Farm International Holdings Ltd. trading as IKEA Hong Kong

SD team

Prof. Hee Sun (Sunny) Choi
Dr Paul (Chi Hang) Lo
Mr Man To Yiu

Exhibition assistant

Kyle Ka Ho Yu, Rita Wu

Student teams for furniture prototypes

Brooke Gabriella, Scarlett Chole M, Maeva Putri Aurelia, Tsui Sing Choi Max, Kwun Ho Tang, Polina Lemeshko, Valentina Tantowi, Timothy Liew Melssen, Ayu Dhyana Jayanti Sai Savitr