As part of Precious Plastic V4, The Precious Plastic Universe, I worked on developing a Sheetpress that allows people to produce 1mx1m sheets of recycled plastic which can act as a more weather resistant, sustainable and funkier alterative to what is typically used today e.g. plywood and MDF. The sheets can be integrated in to pre-existing building process but also open up a new range of processes and applications due to their unique and many ways, more advantageous physical properties. The development of the press was a team effort and designed in mutual collaboration between Enis Akiev, Michael Macris and Tom Kochtitzky and Jason Knight.
A download-kit containing all the information people need to build their own press (3D Models, Part Drawings, Materials Lists etc.) has been released online, open-source, that anybody can download for free!
Part of the Download Kit is a Build video, which demonstrates both how to build and run the Sheetpress. Curious how? Check out the video below!
The Sheetpress itself is a part of a Sheetpress workspace. A workspace is part of the local ecosystem. The local ecosystems are part of a global network.
This project was developed as part of Precious Plastic V4.
Precious Plastic is an community-owned network of independent plastic recyclers. Precious Plastic builds machines that allow people and research techniques and process that allow people to recycle plastic. Everything is documented and shared open source, online for free.
In 2018 the project was awarded a huge new workspace and €300,000 euros, with this the organization decided to make an open call to the world to ask for support, over 100 volunteers came and physically worked on the project + 100s more who supported us remotely over the internet. For one year we all focused our energy, living together, eating together, working together toward one common goal: Precious Plastic V4. The Sheetpress is just one small (its actually quite heavy) puzzle piece in a much bigger picture: The Precious Plastic Universe.