How 6 Students Made Recycled Plastic an Award-Winning Collection

Furniture, lighting, and even a room divider might not seem to have much in common at first glance, but Lawrence Technological University (LTU) in Southfield, Michigan, found unity in an unexpected place: sheets of 100% recycled HDPE made from post-consumer plastic, including discarded milk crates. Created by six sophomore Product Design students at LTU, the collection transformed the material into a cohesive series of objects that explored craftsmanship, experimentation, and the creative potential of circular design, earning the university the Best of Schools award at this year’s WANTED Schools Showcase during ICFF.

A blue-walled exhibit displays modern furniture and lighting pieces made of light and dark materials, including a lamp, table, screen, and decor items, with Lawrence Technological University signage.

Photography by Jenna Bascom Photography

Developed in LTU’s Sustainable Systems course, the exhibition was created in partnership with Michigan-based manufacturer Design Declassified and supported by the Centrepolis Accelerator. Rather than treating recycled HDPE as a limitation, students embraced its unique properties, producing furniture and lighting that diverted approximately 1,300 pounds of plastic waste while demonstrating the material’s potential beyond conventional applications.

What makes the achievement especially notable is that the exhibition wasn’t assembled from projects across the university’s design program. Instead, the entire collection was produced by a single undergraduate class. The exhibition featured work by Ashgen Boyer, Dante Cerroni, Lourdes Davish, Sofia Eddy, Delanie Shorten, and Ryan Sukhraj.

A circular, speckled white and black sculpture with a hollow center stands upright on a matching arched black base, displayed on a white pedestal against a gray background.

A design project by Dante Cerroni. Photography courtesy of Steve Kroodsma/LTU.

“I teach the Sustainable Systems course,” says adjunct professor Erika Cross, who curated the exhibition and proposed applying to ICFF after seeing the caliber of work her students were producing. “Unlike most School Showcase booths, which feature curated collections of work pulled from across entire design programs, ours was a collection produced solely by undergraduate students within this single course.”

Because every student worked from the same recycled material, the exhibition developed a shared visual language while leaving room for individual exploration. The resulting collection included Cerroni’s Loop Lamp, Davish’s Phoji Room Divider, Shorten’s Nested Coffee Table, and Sukhraj’s Cloud Puzzle, each approaching the shared material through a different lens.

Three abstract, interlocking sculptural objects with a white and black speckled pattern rest on a plain white pedestal against a light gray background.

A project by Ryan Sukhray. Photography courtesy of Steve Kroodsma/LTU.

“The students didn’t have to worry about their pieces fitting our collection,” Cross says. “The material was the common denominator, but the students’ unique methodologies were the variables.”

That freedom led to unexpected discoveries throughout the semester. Davish collected waste shavings from the CNC router, melted them into translucent, veneer-like sheets, and stitched them together to create the Fade Floor Lamp, complete with a subtle black-to-white gradient. Shorten experimented with kerf-cut HDPE to create an expandable coffee table base that retained enough flexibility after heat-forming to accommodate multiple tabletop sizes.

A cylindrical lamp with a dark top and base, and a translucent white body with speckled details, sits on a plain white pedestal against a neutral background.

A project by Delanie Shorten. Photography courtesy of Steve Kroodsma/LTU.

For Cross, those moments reinforced an important lesson: meaningful innovation often begins by understanding a material rather than imposing preconceived ideas upon it.

“The real exercise was proving that recycled materials can achieve a high level of luxury and craft,” she says. “Ultimately, the goal was to design pieces so aesthetically compelling and structurally thoughtful that they stand on their own merits first, with their sustainable origin story as a beautiful secondary discovery.”

Receiving the Best of Schools award validated not only the students’ work but also LTU’s emphasis on industry partnerships and hands-on learning. Cross hopes projects like this continue to shape the future of design education, giving students opportunities to engage directly with emerging materials, manufacturing processes, and real-world collaborators while developing thoughtful solutions to increasingly complex challenges.

Tall, textured sculptural lamp with a columnar shape, transitioning from light at the top to dark at the base, standing on a plain background.

A project by Lourdes Davish. Photography courtesy of Steve Kroodsma/LTU.

Learn more about Lawrence Technological University’s Product Design program at ltu.edu, and follow the College of Architecture and Design on Instagram.