“Every material has a second chance”

Industrial designers Santiago Rolón and María de la Paz Cano, the creators and masterminds behind the sustainably obsessed design studio Aukán, will present products from their collections Sinfín and PET at this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan. Visitors can see the debut of Yang Wine Bottle Holder (Sinfín) created in collaboration with designer Ignacio Sikora. Born from experimenting with the material directly, Aukán’s experimental style tests the limits of conventional design by being both aesthetically pleasing and ecological.

The Sinfín collection includes lighting and home decorating products made from reused industrial timing belts and reconstituted leather. Duplex Mini Velador, Mini Colgante and the Sinfín Bowl exemplify three-dimensional never-ending frames. Yang Wine Bottle Holder is based on the concept of opposite forces; the sturdy steel center is held in place by the tension of flexible car tire inner tubes. Rolón and Paz Cano reference infinite lines of their designs with the title of the collection which means “without end,” in Spanish.

The designers will also highlight the dynamic Lume Lamp from the PET collection (first shown at Puro Diseño Fair 2012), which can be used as a night light or a hanging lamp. It is made from recycled plastic soda bottles with red, white, green or blue frosting on its surface.

PET is the name of the plastic from which the soda bottles are made.

The Argentinian born designers met during their second year at the Argentinian National University located in Buenos Aires, and began working together before completing their studies. Aukán was then created in 2012 with the mission of designing artful products using sustainable concepts. The team collects materials such as cardboard, industrial timing belts, reconstituted leather, plastic packaging, plastic bottles, steel tubes and wood, from garbage collectors, local people and businesses. What is their favorite conundrum? Repurposing recycled materials without revealing what they are.

“The most important thing is to make people not notice the reused material,” Rolón explained to ArchiExpo e-Magazine. “Almost no one believes us when we say that our products are made with some of their household waste. When we find a new material to work with, we find a new challenge. We think that every material has a second chance!”

Rolón and Paz Cano had a big year in 2014. Aukán was a finalist in the 2014 Arqadia and Basilio Uribe contests organized by the Buenos Aires National Academy of Fine Arts; it won a special mention for the Sinfín collection at Roma Design Lab and it was invited to Guadalajara, Mexico, for the exhibition Objetística Argentina.

Aukán’s third collection, Cartón Lleno, is an origami-influenced collection of small-item storage containers made from reused cardboard. At this year’s Salone del Mobile, the budding design duo hopes to exchange with other designers, brainstorm new ways of conceiving design, generate business relationships and find interested producers. Look for them at the Argentinian Stand in Pavilion 8, stand F32.