E-trike and trailer

Konstantin Grcic, aluminium producer Hydro, e-motorbike pioneer Cake and electric performance car maker Polestar pedal their clean, not-so-mean machine

- NICK COMPTON

The Covid-19 crisis seems to have put a kink in history, compacted time, accelerated and re-directed existing trends, prematurely tipped tipping-points. It has made what were already good ideas more vital and urgent. Konstantin Grcic’s designs for a new kind of delivery vehicle – a lightweight, simple, flexible, super-functional trailer pulled by an electric trike – is that kind of idea.

When we first started plotting the launch of Re-Made, Grcic was inevitably among the first names on our wish list of collaborators, and the first to sign up. We knew scalability was vital, that whatever we came up with had to be possible and viable in many multiples. And Berlin-based Grcic is not just a premier league product designer, he is an avowedly industrial designer. Grcic works with big numbers.

Then we needed a maker, a material and a process that Grcic could run with. Hydro, the Norwegian aluminium production giant – like Grcic, a veteran Wallpaper* Handmade collaborator – seemed like a good fit. Hydro has 35,000 employees in 40 countries. Its aluminium can be found in buildings, boats, cars and much more and pretty much everywhere. It has also been investing in and developing recycled and lower-carbon aluminium. Hydro Circal 75R is at least 75 per cent post-consumer scrap. As well as avoiding the environmental impact of extraction, the production of recycled aluminium requires just five per cent of the energy required for primary aluminium. (Aluminium recycling is nothing new, of  course. The material can be infinitely recycled without a loss in quality, and there was a huge aluminium recycling drive in the US during the Second World War. It is estimated that almost 75 per cent of aluminium ever produced is still in use.)