Ella is one of the founder members of URGE which is a creative collective made up of designers, strategists, architects and makers.
We have come together to help drive change through transformation, education, innovation and communication. As a collective we are well versed in sustainability, and circular economy approaches. We partner with businesses large and small, helping to facilitate and accelerate change.
We have the ability to envision new ideas and mobilise people to bring their ideas to life.
We have asked each member of URGE to share their reasons for being part of the collective and their hopes for how it will help build a better future. Read an excerpt from Ella’s response to this question:
‘Since the pandemic, we have seen that community can be powerful, adaptive and caring. We have all felt the potency and value of our social economy and community, and the need for everyone’s good health and wellbeing. We want to harness this in URGE.
My URGEncy is to help promote the wake-up call that we have been given at this moment and to collectively advance on the raised awareness around the well-being of all life.
I have made or been part of making ‘products’ for over 25 years, thousands of products, in volume and design through my own manufacture and that of my licensors. It was over 10 years ago when I started to engage with re-use and re-designing old furniture, this led me to a residency at the RSA’s Great Recovery Project with (fellow URGE member) Sophie Thomas.
We started at a waste site looking at bulky waste and we ended up focussing our research and findings on the retrieval of a perfectly good sofa that was headed for landfill due to the missing fire label. There is much work to do in order to promote more ‘closed loops’. And my part in URGE’s community of creatives could support, inspire and promote this transformation. Through workshops, through Life Cycle Assessments, from individuals to large-scale companies. We could build carbon literacy events for businesses and the public through the lens of design and art-based activities and workshops.
My own company is working with our manufacturers and collaborators to close as many loops as possible in the stream of materials and manufacturing processes we share together. We have shifted from a stock-holding company to only making to order the products that are required.
Read Ella’s full article HERE.
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