In this exclusive movie, Eindhoven designer Piet Hein Eek says the furniture he started making from recycled timber in 1989 took off because it stood out against the uniformity of other industrial products.

Eek made his first piece of furniture using scrap wood while he was studying at Design Academy Eindhoven in the 1980s.

He says the idea came to him when he was walking through a lumber yard looking for material to repair a cupboard for his sister.

"In Holland we have a tradition of recycling and have huge places where all the old wood is stacked," he explains in the movie, which Dezeen filmed in Milan. "I thought, this is so beautiful."

Intrigued by the rough aesthetics and ready availability of the material, Eek designed and built an entire cupboard out of salvaged floorboards and planks from demolished buildings for his graduation project.
"I started puzzling and piling up pieces of wood [to make the cupboard]," Eek says. "And that was totally new. Nobody had used scrap wood for domestic purposes."

This movie was filmed by Dezeen in Milan. The Scrapwood furniture was shot in London, with products provided by design store SCP (www.scp.co.uk).

Read more on Dezeen: http://www.dezeen.com/"p=925248

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for the latest architecture and design movies: http://bit.ly/1tcULvh

...