Launched at Norway’s Milan showcase, Norwegian Presence, this April, Bello! is the first product collaboration between one of the contemporary greats of Norwegian design – Lars Beller Fjetland – and the country’s leading specialist in renewable energy and low-carbon aluminium – Hydro.
Named with a portmanteau in honour of both its creators, Bello! is an elegant and timeless bench made from almost 90% recycled – and 100% recyclable aluminium, giving it a minimised carbon footprint, one-fifth of the global average. No traces of the aluminium’s former life – as a drinks can, car part or window frame, for instance – remain in the finished product.
Lightweight, strong, highly durable and available in custom lengths and heights, Bello! was conceived as an indoor/outdoor seating solution with public transportation hubs in mind. The internal support structure of the bench allows for additions such as tables, lamps, and chargers to be easily integrated, as well as enabling multiple benches to be seamlessly joined together. Because Bello! can be produced in a wide spectrum of different colours using natural anodising, it can be customised to suit the style of any setting, domestic, municipal, or commercial.
An experiment in extrusion
Bello! is produced by the process of extrusion, in which heated metal is pushed through a shaped opening using a press to create the desired shape – similar to the way in which one makes churros, or pasta shapes such as rigatoni or penne. In fact, as a lover of Italian cuisine, Beller Fjetland very much had penne rigate in mind when developing the concept.
“The subtle ridges add so much value – you just have to run your fingers across the surface. These tactile discoveries mean so much to me. With this design I really wanted to emphasise the possibilities of extruded aluminium. It is very much a culmination of everything I appreciate – from the planes, trains and buses that were designed in the 1930s–1970s, to brutalist architecture and, last but not least, pasta!”
– Lars Beller Fjetland
As well as being a beautiful and functional piece of furniture, Bello! demonstrates aluminium’s potential as a practical and sustainable design material. With up to 80% of a product's environmental footprint determined during the design phase, Hydro has instituted a programme of collaboration with designers such as Lars Beller Fjetland in order to drive innovation in the design industry and encourage the creation of more sustainable products in recyclable aluminium.
Although nearly 90% of the aluminium that forms Bello! is already recycled, there are no signs of its former life – perhaps as part of an engine or window frame – in the finished bench. It is 100% recyclable at the end of its life – which, thanks to its durability, strength, and adaptability, will be a long one.
