Robben BAI, Founder and principle architect of RoarcRenew 

After graduation from the Design Department of East China Normal University, Robben BAI plied his trade at Haim Dotan Architects, during which period he has participated in the design of reconstruction of the Israel Pavilion of Shanghai World Expo, Zhangjiajie glass bridge, 

In 2016, he established RoarcRenew, an architectural atelier that focuses on urban renewal, space reengineering, remodeling of old districts, with the aim to create a sustainable urban space, and respect forrevolutionary design and the history of architecture with an innovative thinking.

Material：Wheat straw, steel and cloth
Size：950*460*450mm

The original aspiration of the design is “Recycling bring out best of nature”. Wheat is one of the three major grain crops in the world. As we get ear from the wheat every year there were quite a lot of “useless” straw left in the nature. We use the recycled wheat straw as our raw material, fill them in the aligned mold and get desired shape with steel plate moulding, a straw chair comes into shape after these processing. What’s particularly interesting is the special treatment to the cross sections of the chair. For one side of the chair, the cross section was cut neatly and carefully polished, showing rootstock in the profile. For the other side of the chair, the growth texture was reserved to demonstrate great vitality of the wheat. 

As a young design firm in China, Roarc Renew would like to contribute the recycling of nature with interesting and pragmatic designs that not only environment friendly, but also have its unique logic and implications.