WasteAway , A Circular Focus Pod for Workplaces and Education Environments

WasteAway by Koskela transforms one of the office fitout industry's most overlooked waste streams , laminate MDF and particleboard workstation desktops , into focused, functional spaces for work and learning. Each year, thousands of these desktops are stripped from offices and sent to landfill when organisations relocate or refit. WasteAway gives them a second life.

This isn't downcycling. We upcycle: the reclaimed desktops form the structural panels of a focus pod designed for workplace and education environments , smart, circular, and built for real-world use.

The central design challenge of working with reclaimed material is unpredictability. Salvaged desktops vary in size, substrate, finish and condition , many feature cable management cutouts or scalloped edges that standard manufacturing processes can't accommodate. Rather than treating this as a limitation, we made it the design brief. Our solution: an efficient clip-based assembly system that accommodates dimensional variation across desktop sizes, paired with a removable slip-on upholstered cover that conceals surface inconsistencies and cutouts, creating a consistent, polished result from irregular raw material.

Each WasteAway 2-person back-to-back pod repurposes six reclaimed laminate desktops, diverting an estimated 85–145 kg CO₂e per unit from landfill , accounting for both avoided landfill emissions and the virgin particleboard or MDF that would otherwise have been manufactured. In Australia, where almost no take-back or product stewardship scheme exists for laminate board products, that impact matters.

The upholstered covers use waste wool felt padding (not fossil fuel-derived foam) and fabric preferenced from Instyle's 100% Australian-made eco wool textile range , keeping the material story circular from frame to finish. And when it's time to refresh, each cover can be reupholstered on-site without returning to a manufacturer.