Re-ply

Re-ply is a social initiative set up by BVN’s New York office. With a mission to up-cycle the plywood material used as barricades to protect businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic and racial protests, we transformed the product into a cost-effective ‘kit-of-parts’ for outdoor furniture and planters, allowing restaurants to quickly re-open for social distanced outdoor dining. Since then the product has expanded to include a ‘kit-of-parts’ for communal spaces, learning areas and retail environments. The ‘kit-of-parts’ solution allows for customisable applications of varying site conditions. This project brings together our passion for the environment; reusing plywood, and the application of CNC-cut which allows for maximum efficiency and minimising of material waste. The ‘design for manufacture’ approach used for the restaurant furniture was a micro-scale translation of the design principles BVN has been developing over the last five years in workplace and flex office projects, in the US and Canada. Working closely with CNC equipped fabricators, it was possible to build and iterate products in very short timeframes to meet the demands of the re-opening city. Our solution employs technology in the 3D fabrication files that are sent to any CNC woodworking operation. This allows for scaling across the country and supporting manufacture in local communities. We are constantly refining the process and evolving the kit as we deliver each project. We have moved from furniture into pop-up architecture, as well as implementing weather proofing solutions, catering to the changing seasons, and responding to the ever-changing, pandemic-related, city guidelines. The program is designed to allow for scalability and to be easily deployed locally anywhere in the world. The nature of the bespoke pop-up projects require designs to be modular, movable and quick to install/uninstall, whilst still producing a feeling of a substantial quality and form, as well as offering a refined product in line with our clients’ premium aesthetic. As such the ‘kit-of-parts’ can be re-configured in a number of ways to produce a variety of outdoor dining, working and meeting settings, all allowing for a customisable application depending on site conditions. With the experimental nature of re-ply as a start up in NYC during a pandemic, we have been continuously learning and improving our workflow and products, especially given the nature of the speed and development/evolution required for each new project. It has pushed us to learn as much as we can - from understanding the end-user’s point of view, to testing new methods to improve our production process, and also to push further in how we can maximise sustainability in our design. Our ultimate challenge is how to make better use of building materials. We have learnt about the limitations of waste management and recycled materials, which has increased our understanding and prompted us to enquire and learn more. We started with a focus on upcycling plywood but have since widened our scope to recycling other materials for construction.