Cameron Burnett

The Hire Ground distribution centre illustrates the need for large consumer companies to take responsibility for their products. The company Hire Ground focuses on a subscription based rentable office, kitchen, and outdoor equipment for Melbourne. The company also wishes to make us question the future of our products and whether we need to own all our belongings in the first place? Hire Ground aims to clean, fix, and recycle consumer products and turns recycled materials into prefabricated modules that can be used in construction.

The distribution centre takes responsibility for all products and when a product is returned, it will first be stored, cleaned, and fixed or if it is broken, then recycled. Here the product will be stripped down in the recycling part of the centre and turned into prefabricated modules. If products can be fixed, it will go straight to storage to wait to be rented out and packaged, then delivered.

Storage is also found on the exterior of Hire Grounds distribution centres form, as the modular blocks can be slid onto the structure, when they are not being rented. This means that the façade is always changing depending on demand. This aims to engage the Dandenong community in a continuously changing façade of different materials.

Customers will be immersed within the factory environment in the store, located in the heart of the distribution centre. They can experience the process of cleaning and fixing of the product or recycling into the modular components. The shop also means that consumers can rent products through a subscription-based platform. This is designed to follow our trend in always wanting the newest item. Disposing of the old one. At least Hire Ground in this way can make sure that our consumer goods are not being thrown straight into landfill, instead used again in construction.

Hire Grounds modular components could really take on any form and shape for their future design, they explore how consumer products can be turned into construction materials. As Hire Ground highlights the future, where every material is precious and where companies should take responsibility for where their products end. Hire Ground puts in effort to fix products and to engage customers to be interested in construction and to be educated on how we should care for our products, not just thrown away for the next best thing.