VTID Seniors Address Real Sustainability Challenges for Local Businesses

Industrial design seniors recently took part in a competition sponsored by SustainFloyd to address real sustainability challenges for local Floyd businesses. Various solutions were created to enhance cafe and restaurant recycling, create more efficient refill solutions, and promote clothing repair and reuse. Students presented research, posters, and works-like prototypes to representatives from SustainFloyd. "It was a pleasure working with a local community organization like SustainFloyd which has such a strong commitment to more sustainable behaviors. Advancing product reuse, repair and refillability will be evermore relevant as the 21st century progresses,” said Professor Brook Kennedy, “This project proves that design has the power to make a positive influence on society both at a global scale and in our own backyards."

SustainFloyd representatives, alongside Professor Brook Kennedy and Professor Dr. Yoon Choi, chose nine recipients for various monetary prizes.  

Two students were chosen for first place prizes. Tess Lunetta created Mendy, a set of patterns that encourage users to celebrate imperfections by teaching the practice of creative repair on damaged clothing. The rings press fit onto fabric and the graphics guide the user stitch by stitch to create a beginner-friendly and beautiful solution that adds emotional attachment to something that would've otherwise been discarded. Danielle Mason created Froth 'n' All, a set of specialty milk frothing pitchers made for cafe and competition use to address the escalating carbon footprint produced by dairy milk. Froth 'n' All reduces common cafe waste by replacing the numerical milk measurement system with symbol-based ratios and leveraging used coffee grounds as a secondary material to act as biodegradable insulation.

Second place prizes include Tina White who designed Yarn-Cycle (a designed process to turn clothing scraps into repurposable yarn), Farida Hanna who designed The Soap Bar (a redesigned refill station with creative and maximalist handle designs), Royce Childress who designed Refill Re:brand (an eye-catching visual rebrand of the existing refill station), and Ben Kobayashi who designed Floyd Cares (an app that connects the Floyd community and encourages sustainable practices).

Third place prizes include Ashley Greene’s Kirbo Kit (a kit to teach the basics of sewing and upcycling through crafting stuffed animals), Wyatt's Yeats’s Red Rooster Coffee Packaging (repurposable and elegant coffee bean glass packaging), Tommy Doubleday’s Floyd Tap House (a redesigned refill station with clear labeling), Frannie Polacheck’s Replay (recycling clothing into braided tugging dog toys), and Stefaan Meinert’s Floyd Refill 2.0 (interior design intervention for the refill station).

This is SustainFloyd’s third time sponsoring this project. “We were delighted to spend time with the students and hear some fresh new ideas. Design for sustainability is a critical part of creating a livable future."