While running through the Batimat halls with French journalist Cyrille Maury, a construction specialist who led the Lumière et Transparence guided tour around Batimat, we spotted colorful, high-quality and well-designed stools, unlike anything we’d seen before. Florent Ardouin, marketing and publications director for the Millet Group—the 70-year-old family-owned French window and door manufacturing company that recycles their products and turns them into furniture pieces—sat down with ArchiExpo to explain more about this project.
ArchiExpo: How does it work?
Florent Ardouin: The goal is to consider the life cycle of our windows. [RU édition] was [created five years ago to recycle windows and was] integrated into the Millet Group to give our clients a return pack, a big bag to hold their old windows, which we collect. We set up a recycling line right in our factory. We separate the wood, the glass, the metal. The glass and the metal are sent to recycling centers and the wood to a cabinetmaker who will turn it into furniture designed by an architect/designer. This could be a stool, a table, a semainier or a buffet.
This furniture is then sold in a furniture art gallery. We display in Los Angeles, Tokyo, New York, but unfortunately very little in France. Today, the French are not particularly interested in fine-art furniture. Investing in artistic furniture is not good business in France today, compared to foreign countries.
ArchiExpo: What’s the company’s objective?
Ardouin: Millet’s primary goal is not to sell. It’s an example of sustainable development and our philosophy. Our latest sustainable development plan: the vacant piece of ground at our Bressuire factory near Nantes. We put eight beehives on it and we’ve just produced our first honey. We’re going to send the 250 jars of honey to our best clients to make them aware of our hives. This is typical of the environment and of the concrete activities we’ve undertaken for the last 10 or 15 years.
We’re not forced to make such investments. I’m not going to say we’re losing money, but they’re not designed to make more. It’s part of our philosophy.
ArchiExpo: Do you think your clients will want to purchase these furniture pieces?
Ardouin: That’s funny. We’re getting more and more requests from our clients. It intrigues people. They’ve never seen a window like that. When our clients discover it, they ask if they can have it.
