Print Your City!

Print Your City! explores the concept of applying 3D printing to plastic waste, as a way to re-design urban space. 

The founders Foteini Setaki and Panos Sakkas of The New Raw, the studio who created this project, want to tackle the problem of city and marine plastic pollution, by upcycling and recycling using post-consumer waste. 

Print Your City! transforms the plastic waste into meaningful applications for the built environment. They work to create closed loops for plastic and involve local communities in the shaping of their surroundings. It is a call for action, rallying citizens to recycle household plastic waste in order to transform it into raw material for public furniture, via a 3D printing process.

The creations are not just practical, but are pieces of art. The team says that the annual waste from every three residents should be enough to 3D print two big plastic benches for deployment in public places throughout the capital of The Netherlands. 

• In Amsterdam: the project "XXX" was the first prototype designed for the city. It was developed in collaboration with the AMS Institute.
• In Thessaloniki, this project is part of the  “Zero Waste Future” program developed by Coca-Cola in Greece.

The shape and size of the bench developed can be customized to meet specific needs, and businesses could also have logos or messages integrated into the design. And at the end of its useful life, the bench itself can be recycled – perhaps to make more street furniture.

The projects can be commissioned by clients or self-initiated, for the purpose of applying circular concepts for social and technological innovations.

As a result, they have been working with various institutions such as AMS Institute, Technical University of Delft, Coca-Cola Greece, Hong-Kong Design Institute, City of Amsterdam and others. 

Foteini and Panos are also lecturers and head various circular design workshops around the world.