ROAPS is a chair that repurposes retires climbing ropes into pieces of furniture. It takes an expensive, but now useless, material and turns it into something beautiful that the climber can use again. 

For this project I structured a mock-company that takes in retired climbing gear and repurposes it into usable furniture. Rock climbing gear, in particular rope, is an expensive investment that has a very short life span. It has to be retired after a certain amount of falls or wear-n-tear begins to show. The furniture functions as a way for climbers to reuse a useless-to-them material cheaply into something that they can be proud. Their old rope/gear will become part of their lives again in designed furniture pieces.

The furniture products are designed “build-it-yourself” kits. The consumer would purchase a prefabricated kit of pieces that would be shipped with instruction and they could assemble it at home. Climbers would use their own gear while others could purchase the “Complete Kit” which gear and the furniture piece. The ROAPS Chair is a simple sling chair that has its own unique weave pattern that can be completed with a 60 meter rope {the most common personal rope size}. The frame is designed to be cut on a CNC router so that it packs and ships flat. The main two pieces slits together and has a central tension piece that holds it in place and takes all of the force from the seat.  

ROAPS is designed to be shipped and woven at home but, as an added feature, it also fits a size D Butterfly Chair cover. This gives the ROAPS a unique ability in personal customizability, flexibility, and an added non-climber appeal.