edited by Annie Block
design wire
just reuse it
RASTKO ŠURDIĆ
From top: In Belgrade, Serbia, Accept & Proceed designed sneaker collection bins and signage for Nike, for the company’s Grind program, which recycles manufacturing scrap and post-consumer materials for use in other applications. Utilizing 20,000 upcycled sneakers, Blok 70, a park with a basketball court, gym, and playground, has been recently refurbished by A&P, the color and pattern derived from those historically used in warning signs but reappropriated and recontextualized.
Everyone knows that sneakers are for playing sports. But lesser known is that the materials composing them can be recycled into sport surfacing. Nike Grind, the company’s decades-old program contributing to its zero-waste goal, takes the rubber, foam, leather, textile, and plastic originating from manufacturing scrap, unsellable products, and used athletic shoes and repurposes them—totaling 120 million pounds to date—into running tracks, turf fields, and basketball courts. That’s what happened at Blok 70, a formerly underused, decade-old park in Belgrade, Serbia, that’s been eye-catchingly and sustainably revamped by creative agency Accept & Proceed using sneakers upcycled by Nike, one of many projects the London-based Certified B Corporation has completed for the brand worldwide. A&P’s scope encompassed the graphic design, colorways, and refurbishment of Blok 70’s basketball court and its 13-foot-high chain-link fence, the fitness area, playground, and bleachers, and also extends to sneaker collection bins in the city’s squares and inside Nike stores. “We’re immensely proud,” A&P creative director Matthew Jones says, “to have a role in sowing the seeds for an active future and better tomorrow.” MARCH.22
INTERIOR DESIGN
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