Australian designer Tom Fereday creates extraordinary furniture range with recycled aluminium

The award-winning Australian designer Tom Fereday has created a stunning furniture collection made entirely from recycled aluminium. The furniture collection comprises a chair, sofa, and table, all of which celebrate the industrial aesthetic of the material.

The Cove Lounge chair, which has been shortlisted in the furniture design category for Dezeen Awards 2023, has side panels made from uninterrupted and highly polished metal, culminating in a protruding lip on its top edge.

The seat is designed with thick cushions upholstered in aniline leather, and cushions can also be upholstered with textural wool fabrics upon request. To make the collection, Fereday sourced repurposed aluminium from the waste streams of Sydney's machining industry, which was then melted down and formed using a process called sand casting.

Tom explained: "The Cove Lounge was named after its sweeping curves that form the ends of the seats, developed as a single arc form referencing the minimal cove forms found in architecture."

The result is an eco-friendly and visually stunning collection of furniture that beautifully showcases the soft and hard materials that constitute the pieces. To further help reduce the environmental impact of the furniture, it is transported flat-packed and assembled using only a single Allen key to increase transport efficiency.

Fereday declared with pride: "The Cove Lounge acts as a sculptural centrepiece to space, working elegantly from any angle with the entire structure revealed as a design detail and not hidden. Its mirrored form is designed to reflect its environment, enhancing or contrasting both old and new environments."

"The cast frames are mirror-polished to celebrate the natural beauty of aluminium and seamlessly joined by polished aluminium dowels that reveal and celebrate the entire structure of the Cove Lounge," the designer concluded.

Recently, we came across a similar furniture innovation by Hydro, where the Norwegian metal giant supplied its low-carbon aluminium for the creation of Bello! a sustainable furniture line.