CANTI
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Research & Market Mapping

Extensive early research covered target markets, material perception, competitor products, and manufacturing processes. The key finding was consistent: recycled plastic has struggled to be positioned as a luxury material in furniture. That gap was the brief. Secondary finding: post-pandemic, people were investing more in their home environments and willing to pay for pieces that meant something and gave the user a sense of pride in material provenance. That's the market CANTI sits in.

Lo-Fi Prototypes — Foam & Card

Before touching wood, the form was worked through in foamboard and card — iterating proportions, leg geometry, and overall stance quickly and cheaply. The C-form leg emerged from this stage: a cantilevered profile that created the sense of visual lightness the brief needed. Forms that didn't work were ruled out here rather than in oak. The use of old pallet wood allowed for quick, low-stakes testing of joinery approaches and although ruled out the C-Leg form, did allow me to confirm the decision to go with removable panels early on, which was a critical part of the lifecycle design.

Biscuit Joinery — Tested & Abandoned

The first approach to the leg structure used biscuit joins on the C-form profile. It failed on structural strength — the join had too little shear resistance for a cantilevered load. Reinforcing it would have spiralled production costs and, crucially, made disassembly at end of lifecycle much harder. Both problems pointed the same direction: ruled out early, which is why you test. For a truly circular lifecycle, glue and biscuits were never going to work. The joinery had to be mechanical and reversible. The final solution was a combination of routed grooves and oak corner supports that the panels sit in and are held in place by friction and the weight of the table, with no fixings at all.

Rhino + KeyShot — 100+ Panel Ideations

Panel layout — the arrangement of plastic within the mahogany frames required extensive visual exploration. Over 100 variations were generated in Rhino and rendered in KeyShot: different cut patterns, grid arrangements, material proportions, and colour combinations from the SMILE plastic range. Most were discarded. The final configuration was the one that let the plastic's natural graphic quality read clearly without competing with the wood.

Colour Testing — Indian Ink + Beeswax

Many different finish approaches were tested across the removed extendable panels of the oak base — oils, varnishes, water-based sealants, and natural alternatives tested across 1 to 7 coats each. Indian ink was the winnder: it produced a depth of colour equivalent to oil-based finishes while being simpler to apply and, critically, compatible with cradle-to-cradle principles. It was great for showcasing the natual grain of the wood whilst also giving the table the large, dark presence. Beeswax as a top coat added protection without sealing the wood permanently. Both materials can be removed at end of life without chemical stripping.

Mould Engineering & Origin Collaboration

The original plan was to produce recycled plastic tiles in-house using a custom mild steel injection mould fabricated from plasma-cut sheet steel and welded box sections, with bolt fixings to attach to Origin Plastics' machine. I made this myself with help from the technical team. The mould geometry proved incompatible with their specific equipment. Rather than redesign the mould, due to time constraints the decision was made to source A3 SMILE Plastic sheets directly and cut panels from those. A faster path to the same outcome, with better surface consistency.

Panel Refinement — 2400 Grit

The plastic panels were wet-sanded through ascending grades from rough to 2400 grit, then taken to a buffing wheel and polished. That sequence is what makes the surface premium. Most people who've worked with recycled plastic have only seen it un-refined —it looks cheap because it hasn't been finished due to high cost in time. The buffed and polished result reads completely differently. 18 hours of sanding across the full build including plastic and wood. The table earns its price in labour as much as material.

Oak Frame Build & Final Assembly

The surface panels were routed out of the oak frame to expose the structure. Oak corner supports were added to carry the weight of the removable panel assemblies. The mahogany strips — cut with a mitre saw and routed to accept the plywood backing — were inked and waxed to match the frame. Assembly confirmed the logic: the panels are genuinely removable. The lifecycle works as designed. The grout between panels was the only non recylable material but was necessary to create a flush surface and spacing between tiles. It also helped drive the removable business model as the panels become wall art pieces. This method of assembly and disassembly is what allows the piece to exist in a circular lifecycle to function as intended.