Hydro R100

Hydro brings “R100” home for Dutch Design Week

Each of the five design objects is brought to life within a self-imposed limit of a 100-km production radius in the Benelux region. From locally sourced aluminium scrap, harvested from demolished greenhouses and decommissioned lightpoles, to finished design objects.

By making products entirely from post-consumer aluminium, the emissions from the production of the material are drastically reduced, which has allowed Hydro to shift its attention to transportation emissions in the “R100” project.

For "R100" Art Director Lars Beller Fjetland, the idea for “R100” began to form last year: “Could it be possible to solve all operations from scrap collection, casting, extruding, machining and anodizing within a 100 km radius, creating five bold new designs from 100 percent post-consumer-based aluminium?”

The main hypothesis was that the 100-km radius would result in a dramatic reduction in carbon emissions related to transportation while also potentially reducing lead times and increasing efficiency.

The hypothesis held true. Comparing transportation emissions with last year’s project, the “R100” project shows a staggering 90% reduction in carbon emissions from transportation.

Harvesting old aluminium in the Eindhoven area

The project officially began in November 2024 with the harvesting of 52 tonnes of locally sourced aluminium scrap from demolished greenhouses and decommissioned light poles in the Netherlands. The old aluminium was recycled, and the five designs were created out of this material.

The entire project was contained within two clusters in the Benelux region and involved a range of Hydro plants. Working with small manufacturing clusters, which is not unique to “R100” but typical for how Hydro works with its customers, allows for full traceability of material, from scrap to final product.

The "R100" designers – all blissfully unaware of the 100-km production radius when designing – were offered complete freedom by Hydro, with no limitations to extrusion press size, product size or product typology:

“We wanted to make sure that the project mirrors a real-life use-case, where a designer or manufacturer gets access to everything Hydro can offer, from design support to production processes,” says John Delamboy, sales director for Hydro in the Benelux region.