Sculpture Urban Camouflage in Upcycling Rubbish

Portuguese Street Artist and Sculptor Bordalo Segundo or Bordalo II takes many different types of refuse that include, plastic and metal parts, in some of his sculptures he uses an entire car to form his work.  We don't want to duplicate his history, it will be covered in the video below, we just want to say that in Portugal, street art is not seen as an offence and is encouraged by local government, to get the people in the neighbourhood involved in art.

Modern Architecture achieved Upcycling 4 Shipping Containers

From the outside you wouldn't guess that, this house was constructed using 4 Shipping Containers.

Animals Art made by Upcycling Scrap Metal in Thailand

Just look at what you can do, when you set your mind to recycle and upcycle precious resources like metal.

Star Wars, Environmentally Friendly Upcycling and Recycling

Gabriel Dishaw, is an Artist that uses his imagination, to focus our attention, on to the amount of items we send to the landfill every year.  It all started when he was at school in 9th grade, during an art class his teacher gave the students, 30 possible options for an art project, Dishaw chose "Junk Art" and he won 1st price, in the 3D category.  As mentioned above he is hoping that his art continues the conversation that more and more people are having around the word, to curb our seemingly insatiable appetite for waste.  Among his themes we have chosen his Star Wars one, for today's post.

Upcycling Keys to make sculptures and Accessories

Michael Moerkerk aka (Moerkey) describes his workspace as: "small space in our garage which is jammed packed with bikes, camping gear, woodworking tools and timber and now numerous bits of old copper pipe, keys and pennies which are the raw materials from which I create these works of art".  Below are some of his key sculptures for us to enjoy and be inspired by, finding a different use for items, that have reached the end of their usable life.

Upcycling Paper to make Animal Sculptures

More purposes for paper, once the primary function is of no use, upcycling, an alternative to recycling.

Upcycling an Entire Plane

Kevin McCloud  a British Designer, Writer and Television Presenter, best known in the UK for his Architectural program Grand Design.  In "Kevin's Supersized Salvage", McCloud teams up with 3 designers that specialise in upcycling (Taking waste material and giving it a different purpose like making a plane's wing drive shaft into an egg cup holder), to see if they can utilise all the parts of an Airbus A320 airplane and make them into something useful that people will be willing to buy.  The second part of the challenge involves @Kevin_McCloud beating the plane's scrap value by selling of all the items, whilst not sending anything to landfill.  There is so more to say so we will add the information in the article below the images.

If you like this article have a look at our other Sustainable articles.

Upcycled Faux Fur to Make Realistic Animals

As the title describes, faux fur, is used to make lovely little fluffy creatures.

Architecture with Recycled Shipping Containers

A use of containers, that is evolving to give the exterior, an extra element of design.

Recycled and Upcycled Steampunk Sculptures

Arturas Tamasauskas is a Lithuanian Artist that likes to get bits an pieces of discarded items like, watches cutlery, shells, car parts, piping and many many more... recycling and upcycling them to make these lovely little sculptures.  Where most people would see a piece of junk that should either go into the recycle pile or the bin, Tamasauskas sees a part to his newest sculpture.  By all accounts birds are the sculptures he most likes to represent due to their particular physiology.  See if you can identify all of the components that form these imaginative sculptures, it is amazing when you really look at the detail.

Double Wide Container Home with Rustic Interior

Simple house but very homely, quickly constructed by upcycling shipping containers.

Architecture in Upcycled Furniture and Suitcase Sculptures

All forms of upcycling are special and in most cases unique, Ted Lott's creations are no different.  He takes items that have a history, one of more owners that have spent time, shared experiences with their possessions.  In the case of the suitcase they have literally been on a journey.  Lott takes these items and gives them and architectural feel making them in to small habitations.  We love how he keeps the wood from the Architectural part bare, so that we can easily distinguish the old from the new, but appreciate how well they are integrated with one another.