Graypants: recycled cardboard lamps and sustainable design in Barcelona | Insmat Caldes

At Insmat Caldes we are distributors of Graypants, the design studio founded in Seattle in 2007 by architects Seth Grizzle and Jonathan Junker. Their proposition is as simple as it is radical: making high-design luminaires from recycled corrugated cardboard boxes, never treated with chemicals, laser-cut with millimetric precision and hand-assembled one by one with non-toxic adhesive. The result is called Scraplights: lamps that turn waste into objects of desire.

Graypants' philosophy can be summed up in three words: responsible design, responsible materials, responsible production. The studio manufactures by hand across two locations — Seattle for the North American market and Amsterdam, founded in 2012, for European distribution to over forty countries. In Amsterdam, Graypants also partners with social work programmes to provide craft-based employment where it is most needed. An impressive 75% of the cardboard they collect — donated by businesses and private citizens in both cities — ends up in the finished lamps.

The production process makes every piece unique and unrepeatable: the slight variations in colour, texture and corrugation pattern of each cardboard batch mean no two Scraplights are exactly alike. Light passes through the layers of cardboard and is transformed into a warm, intimate and enveloping glow — a quality that surprises given the simplicity of the means. All pendant versions include a 2-metre black textile cable and black metal canopy. Once assembled, every piece receives a transparent fire-retardant coating.

Our catalogue includes Graypants' most popular collections: Bell, Disc, Drum, Moon, Ohio, Tilt, Dome and the portable lamp Wick, available in the natural cardboard version and in the White series. We advise private clients, interior designers and architects throughout Spain. Contact us for personalised advice.