The intent was to create a device made from nothing new, distilling utility from the materials already circulating above the earth’s crust. We drew on a simple insight that in the not too distant future humanity will have extracted and worked much of the valuable minerals once buried in planet Earth. We will be compelled to reuse and celebrate what is essentially “above ground”.

We proposed the mechanical skin & bones be made from materials readily available in the lithosphere avoiding the need for extracting resources and reducing landfill.

• Major structural elements are crafted from recycled aluminium courtesy of soda cans with the knowledge that recycled aluminium requires 95% less energy than processing its raw counterpart.


• More intricate plastic parts are moulded from upcycled post-consumer PET from plastic drink bottles, with a lower carbon footprint than any other engineering- or bio- polymer.


• Whole & shredded rubber tyres are increasingly redirected to landfills, but contain a wealth of nutrients that can be extracted and for example re-employed as flexible keymats, dust/water gaskets, or impact protection.

A typical mobile phone contains approximately 44 of the 112 elements known to mankind. Through a principle of economy, we have reduced the number of components within the phone and considered more environmentally friendly technologies such as printed electronic components on non-toxic substrates.

The concept includes a number of features improving the energy efficiency. Drawing upon the fact that more than 50% of the energy a phone uses comes from backlighting the screen, we developed a new graphical look and feel that save energy without compromising style. Additionally, we have prototyped a series of no waste chargers, which power down once the phone is fully charged. This saves the typical 300 milliwatts of standby power wasted when we leave a charger plugged in.

The many small actions illustrated above, when multiplied by large numbers, can indeed change the world.

And most importantly, it works :-)

Post co-authored with the remade team.