Lab La Bla constructs miniature golf course from recycled denim and mining dust

Malmö studio Lab Bla La unveiled Surface Club, a bar and mini-golf course made from waste materials including Tetra Pak packaging, at the Stockholm Furniture Fair.

The practice, which was founded by Victor Isaksson Pirtti and Axel Landström, designed Surface Club as one of the fair's two design bars where visitors could rest and have a drink.

Lab La Bla constructed the bar using wall panels made from recycled Tetra Paks – a type of packaging normally used for milk and juice cartons – as well as making a miniature golf course for the fair.

The duo decided on the playful design to let the "shy Swedes" kick back and relax while networking.

"These commercial fairs can sometimes come across as controlled and unsentimental places, so we're bringing a bit of chaos and nostalgia into the mix," Landström told Dezeen.

"Making a mini-golf course lets people gather, we have these shy Swedes and then having a sports activity to hide behind is a nice little icebreaker."

The flooring for the miniature golf course was made by Swedish company Bolon and given an innovative new surface by Lab La Bla, which used a patented coating process to apply denim fibres using a modified spray gun.

"We have this recycling station that recycles old denim to become new jeans, but in this process, they have a fall out [of material]," Isaksson Pirtti told Dezeen.

"So that is what we use, the dust that gathers up in the factory."

The process can be adapted to suit a variety of different materials, according to the designer.

"For this particular technique you need a spray gun," Isaksson Pirtti said. "But the spray gun can move anywhere, so you might as well source whatever waste you have."

"For the coating, we only work with materials that are going to landfills or being burned for energy, so it's really end-of-life material use."

While the denim-waste coating gave the floor its blue colour, the orange stripes came from another waste material source.

"It's old wine corks gathered up from restaurants that we grind into a powder," Isaksson Pirtti explained.

"From a distance, it kind of looks like suede," Landström added. "But when you get closer it has an abrasive quality that reminds me of brick."

In addition to the flooring, Lab La Bla also created furniture pieces from recycled materials for the installation. Square stools and chairs dotted throughout the golf course were constructed from waste mattress material.

"It's a new business that just started that has a method of recycling mattresses and foam," Isaksson Pirttti said. "Old pieces of foam are rearranged, ground down and repackaged."

The tables and the bar were covered in mining dust, another material that the studio has worked with extensively.

"For Stockholm Furniture fair we did a Swedish theme, so that's the mining dust," Isaksson Pirtti explained.

Following the end of the fair on 11 February much of the furniture will now be returned to the restaurant, from which it was borrowed.

Meanwhile, the specially constructed flooring and furniture pieces will be reused for a construction fair that will be held in the same fair building later this year.

"The bar was done with this cardboard sheet material that is circular, so we can just tear off the coating and turn it into a new coating, while the sheet material goes back into Tetra Pak," Isaksson Pirtti added.

Lab La Bla has previously created an interior for an energy operator's headquarters and designed more products from waste materials for an exhibition in Malmö.

Surface Club was on show as part of Stockholm Furniture Fair, which took place between 7 to 11 February 2024. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.

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