The Project

As part of the London Festival of Architecture’s Fitz&Sitz design competition, Love Design Studio collaborated with award-winning artist Marie Louise and Foils Architects to design and fabricate a sculptural bench made from hyper-local waste.

The resulting piece, The Love Seat, was one of nine benches selected for installation across London between June and August 2025. Each bench was created in response to the festival’s themes of ‘Voices’.

Love Zero Waste

The project forms part of our Love Zero Waste initiative, a call to radically rethink how the refurbishment industry operates, driving true circularity and zero waste.

By working with hyper-local materials and circular processes, the initiative seeks to challenge traditional perceptions of waste, reducing environmental impact while opening up new opportunities for innovation and storytelling.

The Process

Originally destined for landfill, discarded oyster shells from Bentley’s Oyster Bar, were hand-scrubbed, baked and crushed, then added to a custom mix to form a new terrazzo-like surface.

Inspired by the S-shaped loveseats of Fitzrovia’s Georgian past, the bench reinterprets a historical form through the lens of zero-waste design

The Result

The Love Seat now sits proudly in the heart of the city, returning reclaimed materials to the very place they originated. It demonstrates how waste can be transformed into artistic craft, and how design can begin new conversations about sustainability, materiality and community.