Rotterdam harbour rope becomes 3D-printed rocking stools

Rotterdam studio The New Raw has turned scrapped marine rope from the city's harbour into a series of 3D-printed public stools, now shortlisted for a 2026 Dezeen Award in the sustainable design category.

The project, called Buoy, is installed on Rotterdam's waterfront. Studio founder Foteini Setaki collected the discarded plastic ropes, formerly used for managing boats, which would otherwise have gone to waste.

How is harbour rope turned into furniture?

The process is a closed loop with a detour. The ropes travelled to Maastricht, in the south of the Netherlands, where workers cleaned, shredded and mechanically recycled them into pellets. The pellets then returned to The New Raw's Rotterdam studio, where the team melted and 3D-printed them into stools, layer by layer.

"The material fuses as it is deposited, so no separate binder is needed," Setaki told Dezeen.

The recycling is not simple. Setaki explained that marine ropes are challenging to process because they contain a cocktail of materials that accumulate various residues over time. Careful selection determines which ropes have the highest polypropylene content worth converting into pellets.

No virgin plastic enters the stools. A small percentage of additives, including UV protection, supports long-term outdoor use — a caveat the studio has anticipated. "These additives are compatible with recycling the material again," said Setaki.

Why do the stools rock?

Each seat carries a subtly different hue determined by the colour of the original rope, not by added pigments or coatings. The stools sit on spinning top-style pointed bases, so they rock when someone sits down — a motion chosen to mimic buoys bobbing on water.

"We wanted the seats to carry a recognisable link to their maritime origin, through both their shape and the slow movement of floating buoys," Setaki explained. "Borrowing that movement brings a playful quality to sitting, and the connection to the harbour becomes something you can feel."

Each unique stool is engraved with its batch and production number and placed by Rotterdam harbour.

What does this change for other cities?

The studio frames Buoy as a model for designers seeking local, surplus resources to anchor their practice in place. "Working with a local waste stream is a way of strengthening the relationship between the city and its harbour," said Setaki. "The material's journey and the experience of sitting make that relationship tangible. This approach could also be adapted to other harbour cities, starting with their own discarded materials and local networks."

The claim is a promise, not yet a proven programme — the source names no second city. The award shortlist, however, signals traction: Buoy is nominated alongside a cement-free architectural material made of waste date pits and lighting for an Australian bookshop made from its own printing-rejected publications.

Founded in 2016, The New Raw is run by Setaki and Panos Sakkas and 3D prints locally sourced plastic waste into furniture. If the Rotterdam model travels, other harbour cities could soon sit on their own discarded rope.