The Jackfruit pillow
I did not want sustainability to mean compromising the suitability of the material. Instead of taking an existing product and substituting the materials with sustainable ones, I wanted to use a material simply because it's the most appropriate choice.
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I was fascinated by the texture and structure of a jackfruit peel. If you've held a jackfruit in your palm, you know the accupuncture-like sensation it gives. This project was an attempt to use it to develop a lifestyle product. What came about was a lot of experimentation with preserving and tooling the peel.
Duration: 2 weeks | Classroom project
The Goal
I had the lofty idea of creating bio leather from jackfruit peels. As enticing as that was, doing that while preserving the texture was difficult.
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I decided to try all of the following and see what happens. These methods were inspired by the processes used to tan animal hides.
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The experiments
Here is a gallery of images with jackfruit peels at different stages of the experimentation. I finally decided to go with the sun-dried peels. All of these experiments were noted down, and the results were exposed to tooling processes to understand the workability of the material.
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Click or hover on the images to learn more.
Crafting the product
Sun-drying the peels led to substantial warping of the material. The peel was flattened to an extent with a heat gun, and then cut into smaller, toolable pieces
Since they were a little too prickly for long hours of use, the pieces were grinded and finished for more durability. A pillowcase was fashioned to mount them for use as a foot and chair pillow.
The end result
