Wine that Transforms into a Lamp: The Perfect Gift
by Jenna Watson, Barcelona 
on 12. 5.08
Image Courtesy of Ciclus Design.
The holiday season often finds companies giving gifts to their employees as a symbol of thanks for all their hard work throughout the year. Grupo Hera, a Spanish waste management and consulting firm commissioned a sustainably designed (and really cool) cava gift box from Ciclus with the theme of turning waste into resources. Cava is the Spanish equivalent of champagne, but much tastier. Ciclus surpassed their goal and is now also launching a jewellery line made from waste.
How this box turns into a lamp and a sneak peak at Ciclus Jewellery after the jump ...
In the above image you can see how this box acts as a carrying case for the cava bottle. It has a wooden outer packaging that slides off to reveal the cardboard inside and cava bottle. There is a "hidden compartment" below the cava where the electrical components for the lamp are stored. This wee cardboard box comes off and transforms into the base of the lamp, upon which you place the wooden structure to become the lamp shade.
This image, provided by the designer, shows how the instructions are printed on the box to save paper.
Ciclus is a sustainable design project by Brasilian, Tatiana Guimarães. She extends the life cycle of materials by turning them into new and more interesting objects. Real reuse. This industrial designer and graphic designer came to Barcelona in 1998, already inspired by the newspaper baskets she saw a friend's mother make in 1997.
You should definitely look at the Ciclus website to see the full slideshow of how the box converts into a lamp, and how Guimarães uses more than 70% of the packaging to create this illuminating piece. She has created this lovely looking employee gift that gives very nice light and even comes with a CFL inside.
Jewellery from Waste by Tatiana Guimarães, image courtesy of the designer.
Guimarães is currently launching her own line of jewellery using waste materials that are now available in stores in Barcelona. We are going to keep an eye out for this talented young designer and hope that all bosses look for sustainable gifts or donations for the holiday season.
More Sustainable Holiday Gift Ideas:
Holiday Gift Guide 2008: Give Green to Save Green
Planet Green – How to go Green: Gift Giving
Planet Green - How to Make Christmas Stocking from Recycled Wool Sweaters
Groovy Gift Baskets from the Groovy Mind
Hemp gift Wrap by Paporganics
Holiday Gift Guide for the Foodie
Holiday Gift Guide for the Philanthropist
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
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"Cava is the Spanish equivalent of champagne, but much tastier."
Says who? Just because it's Spanish and you're writing from Barcelona?
What an odd way to start.
You lost me right here.
Author's reply:
I should have said "in my opinion". I prefer cava to champagne, but everybody likes what they like. I hope you'll read the article anyway and not get stuck on my opinion about cava.
Wouldn't it be better if you just wrapped the bottle in newspapers and put a bow on it? You can recycle the newspaper and reuse the bow. This just seems like a colossal waste of resources, and the lamp doesn't look like it's bright enough to provide any useful light (more wasted resources: electricity).
Lately it's seemed like this site has been pushing "green" products, rather than advocating for people to actually stop consuming so much useless crap.
Hi,
would you really give, as a gift, a bottle of wine wrapped in newspaper??? for the wine I drink at home it doesnt matter if it's wrapped or not. But NOT a gift. You have to be realistic about people's habits. Lots of people want to be "stylish" and this is simply what it is: reality. So, if they want to be stylish, they could at least do it in a more responsible way. This lamp fits here. Who's 100% green can keep wrapping the bottle in newspapers. The stylish part of the world and their useless crap will not punish you. :)