ROSKILDE
The UpTent →
2023
Rent A Tent - Upcycled
The Uptent is a sustainable festival tent developed for Roskilde Festival's Rent a Tent service, designed as a direct response to one of the event industry's most visible waste problems — thousands of single-use tents discarded at the end of every festival season. Crafted from recycled plastic sourced from Carlsberg's beer kegs, the Uptent gives industrial waste a second life as a durable, weather-resistant shelter with a clean, purposeful aesthetic that stands apart from conventional festival infrastructure.
As project lead at A:GAIN, I managed the full development process from initial concept and CAD modelling through material testing, production, and assembly, working directly with manufacturers, and buyers throughout, including several product showcases and testing. At the core of the design is a design for disassembly (DfD) philosophy: every component can be taken apart, repaired, and reassembled, extending the product's lifespan across multiple festival seasons.
Rather than designing for a single use, the Uptent is built to last — reducing material waste, lowering environmental impact year on year, and demonstrating that circular thinking and considered design can coexist with the practical demands of large-scale event infrastructure.
Rent A Tent
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Innovation
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Design
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Sustainable
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Design For Disassembly
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Rent A Tent ✳︎ Innovation ✳︎ Design ✳︎ Sustainable ✳︎ Design For Disassembly ✳︎
Showcasing →
Technical Drawings
Backplate: The backplate includes two holes for inserting the bottom plate's attachment pieces, ventilation holes to allow airflow through the structure, and a protruding locking piece at the top that engages directly with the roof plates' locking mechanism.
Roof Plates: Each roof plate includes four holes designed to accommodate the protruding attachment pieces of the bottom plate's locking feature. The plates also overlap slightly to help prevent rain and weather ingress while enhancing overall structural stability.
Bottom Plate: The bottom plate features protruding attachment pieces that slot through the corresponding holes in both the roof plates and backplate, forming the primary locking mechanism of the assembly. Reinforced folded edges along the perimeter provide structural rigidity, while the symmetrical mounting layout ensures straightforward alignment during both assembly and disassembly.
Trial and Error - Prototyping
The development of the Uptent followed an iterative process, moving from initial hand sketches and concept explorations through to detailed CAD modelling in SolidWorks, producing precise technical drawings for each individual component. This was brought to life through a series of two to four physical prototypes, each one refining key details such as the locking mechanism between the bottom plate and roof panels, the overlap geometry for weather resistance, and the overall ease of assembly and disassembly — ensuring the tent could be efficiently set up and broken down repeatedly across multiple festival seasons.
