Most people think of pottery as a craft that produces delicate bowls and graceful vases, but there’s a hidden side to every studio. For every flawless cup, there are a dozen pieces that never make it to the shelf. Cracked mugs, warped bowls, and failed experiments quietly pile up, destined for the discard bin and, eventually, the landfill.
It’s a reality that pottery students see up close. In class, making just one perfect piece means tossing out countless others along the way. The waste is easy to overlook at first, but once you start to notice, it’s hard not to ask what happens to all those discarded ceramics. That lingering question was the spark behind Daon, a project that sets out to turn forgotten pottery into something new.
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Daon didn’t begin with a grand plan. It started with curiosity and a desire to see if there was a better answer to all that waste. Instead of treating broken ceramics as trash, the team started treating them as raw material. They dug into the process, looking for ways to give those cast-off pieces a second life, and let the project unfold from there.
The design draws inspiration from birds and their nests, one of nature’s original upcycling solutions. The main product is the nest, designed to hold and gather. The smaller pieces act as birds, able to flock together or stand apart, letting users mix and match as they like. It’s a playful motif that adds a layer of meaning to the collection’s practical side.
Getting from pile of discards to finished product wasn’t a straight line. The process started with carving gold foam to explore forms and figure out what shapes worked best. After that, the team experimented with blending recycled bisque-fired ceramics, adjusting the mix until it held together and looked right. It took more than a few tries to get it just so.
With the right proportions in hand, production finally got underway. The end result is a set of pottery pieces that carry their own story, each one made from fragments of past work, now transformed into something that feels cohesive and intentional. Every piece ties back to the original question about waste, showing how a problem can become a starting point for new design.
Daon is a reminder that not every project needs to start with perfection in mind. Sometimes, it’s about asking the right questions and being willing to experiment. By turning studio leftovers into something worth keeping, Daon gives new meaning to the idea of upcycling and makes it personal. Even the scraps from a creative process can be brought back to life with a little curiosity and care.
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