Old Harbour Rope Becomes Rocking Stools in Rotterdam

Discarded rope from Rotterdam's harbour is now a set of public stools that rock when you sit on them. The project, called Buoy, was made by The New Raw, a design studio based in Rotterdam, the Dutch port city. Dezeen, the design magazine, reported the project on 1 November 2026.

The rope once helped manage boats in the harbour. It was taken to Maastricht, a city in the south of the Netherlands, where it was cleaned, shredded and recycled into small plastic pellets, the tiny granules that serve as raw material for new objects.

Back in Rotterdam, the pellets were melted and 3D-printed at the studio, one thin layer at a time. 3D printing builds an object by laying down material layer by layer, the way a wasp builds a nest. No virgin plastic, meaning plastic made new from fossil fuels, went into the stools.

The colour of each seat comes from the rope it was made from. Nothing extra is added. No pigments or coatings were used, so every stool carries its own hue.

The shape is deliberate. Each stool has a pointed base, similar to a spinning top, so the seat rocks as someone sits down. The movement is meant to recall buoys bobbing on the water.

Every stool was engraved with its batch and production number. The finished pieces were placed beside the harbour, where people can sit on them.

The New Raw was founded in 2016 by Foteini Setaki and Panos Sakkas. According to the studio's website, it turns plastic waste into durable furniture for cities, brands and architects. Its pieces are designed to be fully recycled at the end of their life. The studio handles each job in-house, from the first brief to the finished object.

Buoy has also been shortlisted for a 2026 Dezeen Award in the sustainable design category. The design shortlist announced in September also includes projects by Bocci, Kvadrat and Fuseproject. Winners have not yet been named.

For anyone who sits down, the stool is the first thing to move. The rest of the process, from harbour rope to pellet to printed seat, happens out of sight.