Pie Factory rebuilt Zellis’ Festival of Work booth for its second year in London in June 2023. Reusing the 2022 structure avoided the use of over 1,500kg of new materials.
Zellis · Festival of Work · London, UK · 2023 · Finance and professional services · Design; Production; Project Management
Zellis sells payroll and HR software to large UK employers, and the Festival of Work is where those buyers gather. 2023 was the second consecutive year, which made it a returning brief rather than a new one. The commercial question was whether year two needed a new booth. It did not. Zellis already owned a structure that worked, so the job was to bring it back, refresh what visitors actually notice, and put the saved budget into presence rather than carpentry.
The 2022 booth came back and went up again. That is the whole project, and it is where both the carbon saving and the cost saving sit: reusing the structure avoided the use of over 1,500kg of new materials, because the frame, walls and surfaces already existed and had already been paid for once. The surfaces are Polygood, a recycled plastic sheet from the Good Plastic Company, made from over 500kg of reclaimed plastic waste, the equivalent of over 21,000 standard water bottles. It is a hard, finished panel, so it takes the wear of a two day show and comes off intact for the next one. Structural elements are FSC plywood and zero formaldehyde FSC MDF. The banner is 100% rPET. The carpet was hired and is adhesive free, so it lifts at breakdown and goes back to the supplier rather than to landfill.
Reuse is easy to claim and hard to execute, because a booth built for one hall has to fit a different allocation the following year and still look current. The structure was specified from the start to come apart and reconfigure, so year two was a rebuild rather than a rescue. The graphics carried the change instead of the carpentry. Adhesive free hired carpet and a demountable panel system meant nothing was destroyed at breakdown, which is what makes a third outing possible rather than theoretical.
Reusing the 2022 booth avoided over 1,500kg of new materials, and the surfaces are made from over 500kg of reclaimed plastic waste. All suppliers were UK based and production was single use plastic free.
Polygood recycled plastic sheet. FSC plywood. Zero formaldehyde FSC MDF. 100% rPET banner. Hired adhesive free carpet.