Indonesian non-profit Sungai Watch has unveiled the debut furniture launch from its design studio Sungai Design, aimed at creating useful products from the mountains of plastic waste that it fishes from Bali’s rivers every day.
The Ombak lounge chair, created in collaboration with American designer Mike Russek, is made using a sheet material produced entirely from discarded plastic bags, with around 2,000 needed for every chair.
The bags are collected by Sungai Watch, which is on a mission to eliminate ocean plastic pollution using its own system of floating barriers to capture the waste as it flows along Indonesia’s rivers.
Sungai design has launched its first-ever product
Since its inception three years ago, the organisation has installed 270 barriers and collected more than 1.8 million kilograms of plastic, resulting in a huge stockpile of material.
Plastic bags are the most frequently collected item and also the least sought after in terms of future value, which led the team to focus on creating a product collection using this readily available resource.
“Collecting and amassing plastic waste solves one part of the problem of plastic pollution, the second challenge is what to actually do with all of this plastic,” said Kelly Bencheghib, who co-founded Sungai Watch with her brothers Sam and Gary.
The Ombak lounge chair is made from discarded plastic bags
“As we collected hundreds of thousands of kilograms of plastics, we started to look at plastic as an excellent source material for everyday products we all need and use, from furniture to small goods to even art,” she added.
Sungai Design has created two variations of the Ombak lounge chair – with and without armrests – manufactured in Bali using processes that aim to minimise waste during production.
The plastic bags are thoroughly washed to remove any impurities before being shredded and heat-pressed to form hard, durable sheets.
The bags are heat-pressed to form sheets
Precision CNC cutting machinery is used to carve out the different components, which are carefully shaped to minimise material use and leave no offcuts.
The panels are connected by a concealed metal structure, resulting in a pure and visually lightweight form with a simple slatted construction.
Although the design is available in three distinct colourways – Granite Black, Ocean Blue and Concrete White – the upcycling process produces slight variations in the tone and texture of the material, meaning each chair has a unique quality.
Ombak means wave in Indonesian and the name references Sungai Design’s commitment to cleaning up rivers and oceans.
In line with this aim, Sundai Design has pledged to minimise its carbon footprint and put in place processes to audit and track the sources of the plastic used in its products.
The company is planning to release other products using the same material and, as a social enterprises, will donate part of its revenue to Sungai Watch to further the project as it seeks to clean up rivers in Indonesia and beyond.
The chair was designed to minimise material use and leave no offcuts
“There is so much potential with this material,” added Sam Bencheghib. “When you choose a chair from our collection, you’re not just selecting a piece of furniture; you’re embracing the transformation from waste to a beautiful, functional piece of art that has found its place in your home.”
Every year, Indonesia accounts for 1.3 million of the eight million tonnes of plastic that end up in our oceans, making it one of the world’s worst marine polluters.
Other attempts at collecting this waste and finding new uses for it have come from design studio Space Available, which set up a circular design museum with a recycling station and facade made of 200,000 plastic bottles in Bali in 2022.
The chair is available in three colours
The studio also teamed up with DJ Peggy Gou turn rubbish collected from streets and waterways in Indonesia into a chair with an integrated vinyl shelf.
“The trash is just everywhere, in the streets and rivers,” Space Available founder Daniel Mitchell told Dezeen.
“It’s not the fault of the people, there’s just very little structural support, waste collection or education,” he added. “Households are left to dispose of their own waste and most ends up in rivers or being burned.”
British design studio Seymourpowell has put cheap electronic goods under the spotlight with Un-Made, a project imagining four possible ways to design for quick disassembly and recycling.
As part of the project, Seymourpowell devised four automated disassembly mechanism concepts using an electric toothbrush as an example for their animated graphics.
Each of the mechanisms could be built into a product during manufacturing and then activated in a factory at the end of the item’s life.
Un-Made suggests automated disassembly mechanisms for an electric toothbrush
The first Un-Made concept is a pin mechanism. Similar to the action of opening a SIM card slot on a smartphone, it involves poking a pin into a small, sealed pinhole on the rear of the product to release the internal components.
The second concept is a vacuum mechanism. It involves placing the product into a vacuum, causing closed cell foams and air-sealed features within it to expand and bust the external housing open.
Third, there is a piston mechanism that works by pushing a piston through a cap on the bottom of a device and forcing all of the internal components upwards until they emerge through the top.
The first concept includes a pin-triggered release mechanism
The final concept involves using UV glue – a type of adhesive that deactivates under ultraviolet light. In this concept, the product is placed into a specially lit chamber to release the clamshell construction.
The Un-Made project was led by Eddie Hamilton, a senior industrial designer at Seymourpowell, who was driven to make the work after researching what electric toothbrush to buy for himself.
“Inevitably I went for the cheap one, at which point Amazon smugly pointed out they’d sold 10k+ of that model last month alone,” said Hamilton.
Another mechanism uses a vacuum to burst open the product’s external housing
“As an industrial designer, I spend time obsessing over the product I’m working on, typically thinking of it in isolation,” he added.
“But one thing I occasionally fail to remember or adequately picture is the true scale of that product once manufactured. 10,000 units sold per month seems vast.”
Using Amazon’s bestsellers list, Hamilton ascertained that fabric shavers, steam irons, wireless doorbells, wireless computer mice, digital tyre inflators and USB-C adaptors were all items selling in their thousands each month, at a price of less than £20.
While designing products so they can be repaired is important, the associated expense may not be something that customers can justify for small items sold at this price point, Hamilton said.
“Even if we change societal attitudes, the bottom line is whether you should open that cheap toothbrush to replace a failing battery when you only paid £24.99 for it two years ago,” he said.
“I’m optimistic for some product categories to get the ball rolling, namely expensive and bulky items. But I’m also a realist that we need alternative strategies adjacent to repair. This is where we must design for disassembly.”
In Hamilton’s view, disassembly and recycling is a worthy “next best option” to repair for cheaper objects, as it keeps the materials in a circular material flow.
The piston mechanism disassembles a product by pushing its components up and out
The Un-Made design team took inspiration from Agency of Design’s Design Out Waste project, which looked at three strategies for keeping a toaster out of landfill. But they particularly wanted to explore just how efficient the disassembly process could be made through automation.
The cheaper and easier the process, they say, the more motivation there is for companies to pursue this approach and recover the components and materials inside their devices.
“A huge part of the reason e-waste ends up in landfill is because of product complexity and the inherent challenges involved in their disassembly,” Seymourpowell lead designer Alex Pearce told Dezeen.
“To date, because e-waste has been considered too time-consuming and costly to disassemble – there has been no (commercial) incentive strong enough to make it a viable option.”
The fourth Un-Made concept uses UV light to dissolve the glue holding the device together
The materials inside even cheap devices are valuable, Pearce points out, particularly when there are supply shortages or when it comes to rare-earth minerals.
“When you consider that more gold exists within a ton of e-waste than within a ton of gold ore dug from the ground, a straightforward economic imperative becomes clear for companies who are able to recover and reuse these materials,” said Pearce.
Seymourpowell imagines disassembly taking place either at the manufacturer’s facilities following a take-back procedure, or potentially at a public recycling centre if disassembly processes have been sufficiently standardised.
The London-based studio is known for its innovative product and transport designs, as well as concepts that challenge current norms. Recent projects from the studio have included the two-in-one reusable Bottlecup and a spaceship cabin for Virgin Galactic.
Design research agency FranklinTill has compiled a list of principles to help designers, makers and brands avoid greenwashing when sourcing textiles.
By making it easier to identify textiles that have a greater positive impact on people and planet, FranklinTill hopes to enable a shift towards regenerative materials.
“We can only move towards a regenerative approach to textiles by understanding the full lifecycle of our materials,” said co-founder FranklinTill Caroline Till.
“As designers, makers, brands and manufacturers, we need to think of materials not as static and linear, but as dynamic, evolving systems, to holistically consider the full impact to the wider ecosystem they are a part of.”
FranklinTill has curated an exhibition setting out its nine principles
The defining characteristic of regenerative materials, according to Till, is that they restore and nourish the ecosystems they are part of.
“Sustainability, by its very definition, is all about maintaining the status quo, while regeneration seeks to actively heal and put back better,” she said.
FranklinTill first unveiled its nine principles of regenerative design in an exhibition at the Heimtextil trade fair in Frankfurt in January, with a second show planned for the Techtextil fair in April.
In an online exclusive, we are also unveiling them here. Read on to see all nine, with captions written by FranklinTill and examples of material innovation in practice:
Designer Fernando Laposse works with local communities in Mexico to process sisal, a fibrous material made from agave leaves, which he turns into hairy furniture
Enriching Communities
“To go beyond sustainability and become regenerative, we must focus on both the social and the environmental impact of production.”
“This means spotlighting how materials are made and by whom, looking to improve livelihoods with better pay, working conditions and future prospects.”
British manufacturer Ponda produces BioPuff, an insulating fibre filler material, using bulrush plants grown on natural wetlands
Replenishing the Land
“Focused on high yields with an over-reliance on pesticides and water, modern industrial farming damages land.”
“Regenerative farming works holistically to reverse this, rebuilding organic soil matter and sequestering carbon in soil, wetlands and trees, retaining water and reducing the use of artificial pesticides and fertilisers.”
Lifestyle brand Norlha creates apparel and homewares from yak khullu wool, which is handcrafted by nomad families on the Tibetan Plateau
Preserving Heritage
“Many indigenous practices are regenerative by nature, working with the land and local communities.”
“By acknowledging and celebrating the value of cultural heritage and craftsmanship and learning from its ecological wisdom, we can protect valuable skills and knowledge from being lost to technology and globalisation.”
British textile brand Climafibre produces fabrics from sunflowers, a species that can be grown with minimal intervention, fertilisers or watering
Restoring Biodiversity
“Regenerative practices must take a multispecies approach to encouraging biodiversity.”
“Acknowledging the threat of extinction, addressing the causes of loss, and reviving habitats for diverse plants and wildlife aids ecological restoration.”
Designer Charlotte Werth has developed a fabric printing process that uses bacteria to create pigments
Biological Fabrication
“The convergence of science and design offers huge potential for new materials, from living microbial systems to synthesising nature’s regenerative powers.”
“Growing and extracting next-generation materials using innovative, highly productive processes can create plentiful resources from minimal input.”
US-based Keel Labs produces Kelsun, a seaweed-based yarn, using an abundant polymer found in kelp
Naturally Abundant
“Highly productive, resilient raw materials that grow with little human intervention offer naturally high yields, strengthen soils and capture carbon.”
“These abundant, versatile crops could help move the focus away from traditional natural material fibres that require high levels of water, pesticides or fertilisers.”
Circularity is built into all of the design and manufacturing processes for Tarkett’s Desso carpet tiles
Reclaiming Material
“Extracting raw materials, making products, then discarding them and their byproducts is contributing to the global waste problem.”
“By putting useful waste streams back into production, we can better utilise existing resources and avoid waste altogether.”
Haelixa is bringing transparency to material supply chains by applying distinct DNA codes to raw materials, using a customised spraying system
Radical Transparency
“By using science and technology to create tools and processes that capture and record data along supply chains, we can understand the social and environmental impact of the materials we consume.”
“Encrypting materials helps brands track their footprints and life cycles, and communicate this information to customers in a meaningful, trustworthy and accessible way.”
Dutch designer Sanne Visser uses traditional rope-making techniques to turn human hair into handspun yarns
Cultivating Localism
“By supporting the local sourcing, production and consumption of materials, we can avoid globalised transportation and reduce carbon footprints.”
“Focusing on availability, seasonality and resourcefulness means embracing non-standardisation, often improving local environments as well as extracting from them.”
Norwegian studio Snøhetta has teamed up with lighting brand Ateljé Lyktan to create Superdupertube, an office lamp made from extruded hemp and sugarcane bioplastic.
The design is a contemporary update of Ateljé Lyktan‘s Supertube – an office light from the 1970s made from extruded aluminium.
The Superdupertube is a modern take on the Supertube lamp
“[The Supertube] had finished production in 2010 or something like that, so it was iconic but sort of forgotten,” Snøhetta partner Jenny B Osuldsen told Dezeen. “And it’s a tube. It’s not rocket science but it is what you need for a smart lamp in an office.”
“We really loved it and think it has a lot of possibilities, so we wanted to upgrade it to a new level,” she added.
It is made from hemp and can be industrially composted. Photo by Ateljé Lyktan
The extrusion technique for the original lamp was developed in the 1960s, and Snøhetta and Ateljé Lyktan decided to create a lamp that would nod to the original design.
However, the aim was to lower the carbon footprint of the lamp by choosing the most sustainable material possible.
Snøhetta and Ateljé Lyktan chose to use hemp as the material is renewable and durable
The studios played around with multiple different materials before settling on the hemp bioplastic, which was used to form Snøhetta’s first office lighting design.
Snøhetta and Ateljé Lyktan first worked together on The 7th Room, a charred-timber cabin suspended among the treetops in northern Sweden, for which they also collaborated on the lighting design.
The lighting features twisted louvres. Photo by Ateljé Lyktan
“When we were doing The 7th Room project up in northern Sweden, everything was in pine and there were lots of pine cones,” Osuldsen said.
“We wanted to find a product or material that isn’t used for anything else, so we started testing the use of pine cones by grinding them, but it didn’t work.”
“The fibres in the cones are too short,” said Ateljé Lyktan product director Malin Gadd. “We also tried using coffee grounds but they are even shorter, so we realised quite quickly that we needed fibres that are long and strong.”
“That’s where the hemp fibres come into the picture,” she added.
Snøhetta and Ateljé Lyktan sourced the hemp used for the lights from the Netherlands, as the quality of the hemp from Swedish farmers “wasn’t quite there yet”, according to Gadd.
Its shape is both extruded and injection-moulded
The hemp is mixed with a polylactic acid (PLA) bioplastic derived from sugarcane, alongside wood cellulose and different minerals to create a fossil- and gas-free composite.
The material is then extruded to create the main body of the lamp, which also comprises injection-moulded louvres and side covers. To add to the organic feel of the light, its electric cables are covered with linen fabric.
“Hemp is an old cultural plant and it’s very easy to renew [by growing more],” Osuldsen said. “And it’s very durable.”
Linen fabric covers the electric cable. Photo by Ateljé Lyktan
The Superdupertube can be composted in an industrial composter or recycled and ground down into pellets to create more lamps.
However, this currently requires owners to send the lamps back to the producer, as the material cannot be processed in regular recycling centres.
Using the hemp bioplastic reduces the lamp’s carbon footprint by over 50 per cent compared to traditional aluminium variants, according to Snøhetta and Ateljé Lyktan.
The Superdupertube comes in a natural colour. Photo by Ateljé Lyktan
The dimmable Superdupertube features twisted louvres – an architectural detail that helps the light feel softer by angling the glare away.
“That’s why it’s a perfect workspace luminaire, it’s adapted to be better for the person sitting working and it’s also totally unique – it doesn’t exist on the market,” Gadd said.
The Superdupertube, which comes in four different lengths, has an organic beige colour with a natural pattern from the hemp and other ingredients.
It is the first time Snøhetta has designed an office lamp
“We didn’t really know how it would look,” Osuldsen said. “The material is the colour of the hemp. And, of course, there’s probably something from the sugarcane because it’s heated up. It’s burnt sugar in a way.”
“So we get this specific colour and that also means that all of them will be a little bit different,” she added. “It’s all about the crops; if it’s a wet year or a dry year, the humidity in the material will be a little bit different. That’s why it’s sort of alive.”
Other recent Snøhetta projects include a glass-lined library in China designed to look like a forest and a hexagonal paving system for urban landscapes.
The photography is by Jonas Lindstrom unless otherwise stated.
Swiss furniture brand Vitra will prioritise reducing the environmental impact of its existing lines through material innovation, CEO Nora Fehlbaum tells Dezeen in this interview.
One of the industry’s best known and most influential manufacturers, Vitra‘s collections include iconic pieces such as Eames plastic shell chairs and Panton chairs.
Like its peers, the brand is under increasing pressure to reduce the ecological footprint of its operations in the face of worsening climate change.
Nora Fehlbaum spoke to Dezeen at the Vitra Campus in Weil Am Rhein
Speaking to Dezeen at the Vitra Campus in Weil Am Rhein, Germany, Fehlbaum suggested that the company’s heritage as a high-end, design-focused furniture brand is inherently aligned with sustainability.
“Vitra’s greatest contribution to sustainability is its products with an above-average service life, which omit everything superfluous,” she told Dezeen.
“Our roots in modern design would allow nothing else.”
However, she claimed Vitra is “doing everything we can with all the means we have” to become more sustainable.
The Álvaro Siza-designed Factory at the Vitra Campus has been partially converted to accommodate a new Vitra Circle store (also top)
“Everybody at Vitra has understood our environmental mission,” she said. “We don’t have a sustainability officer – everybody has taken it as their own.”
Vitra’s stated goal is to be “a net-positive company based on all the indicators of its ecological footprint by 2030”.
It has a long way to go, with the company’s most recent sustainability report published in 2022 stating that its total emissions for the year were equivalent to nearly 141,000 tonnes of CO2.
Eames shell chairs now made from recycled plastic
The brand’s sustainability strategy is chiefly focused on its popular existing products, Fehlbaum said.
“We have the biggest impact if we change the products that we sell the most of already, rather than inventing one single sustainable product,” she argued.
“At Vitra, a product is never final, but continues to evolve.”
The Vitra Circle store refurbishes and sells second hand Vitra products
As of January this year, the shells of the Eames plastic chairs manufactured by Vitra are now made exclusively from recycled post-consumer plastic.
“[The Eames shell chair] is probably the most iconic, most copied chair out there – and it won’t be available in virgin material,” said Fehlbaum.
The switch means the shells have a speckled finish that differs from the originals, but Fehlbaum is satisfied with this “recycled aesthetic”.
“It’s a different aesthetic, and of course we hope the consumer gets used to – and maybe even comes to love – this new aesthetic,” she said.
“That’s a risk that we’re taking and that we’re willing to take.”
The RE plastic shells are noticeably more speckled (on the right) than the original plastic shell (on the left)
It follows earlier switches of products and parts from virgin to recycled plastic, starting with Barber Osgerby’s Tip Ton chair in 2020.
A number of accessories like Arik Levy’s Toolbox and Konstantin Grcic’s Locker Box have since followed. The entire HAL chair family, designed by Jasper Morrison, now also have their shells manufactured using recycled plastic.
The recycled plastic is taken from household recycling obtained through the German garbage collection programme Gelber Sack (Yellow Bag).
“Utilising this raw material instead of petroleum-based primary plastics generates fewer climate-damaging emissions and less primary energy consumption,” Fehlbaum claimed.
The role of recycling in solving the world’s plastic pollution crisis is contested among designers.
Some, including designer Richard Hutten and Belgian curator Jan Boelen, argue that big brands are using recycling to create an illusion of change while continuing to use virgin plastics.
Others, among them the CEO of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Andrew Morlet, argue that durable, recyclable plastics can form part of a circular economy.
Many recycled plastic products involve the use of some virgin plastic or additive substances that then complicate or inhibit their own recyclability.
Vitra said its RE product, used for the Eames shells, does not contain any virgin plastic and can be fully recycled at the end of the product’s life thanks to the use of technical fillers, like glass fibres, rather than any additives that prevent onwards recycling.
Vitra products are available to purchase at discounted rates at the new Circle Store
Another sustainability initiative is Vitra’s Circle Stores, which sell used furniture and accessories by Vitra and Artek, such as sample products and exhibition pieces, with prices depending on the condition of the products.
All products are tested for functionality and repaired if necessary so that a renewed product warranty can be granted.
The first Circle Store opened in Amsterdam in 2017 in response to questions from customers about second-hand Vitra products, with a second in Brussels.
A third recently “moved” from Frankfurt and opened in an adapted space at the Álvaro Siza-designed Vitra Campus factory building, with a service and repair area where customers can bring their products to receive a new lease of life.
“With the Circle Store, we can offer our environmentally conscious clients an even more environmentally conscious choice: namely that of a second-hand product,” said Fehlbaum.
Absence in Milan “really wasn’t such a huge deal”
The brand has also taken steps to rewild parts of the Vitra Campus. The Piet Oudolf garden was completed in 2020 and Vitra is working with Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets on a masterplan plan for fewer roads and more native trees on the site.
Fehlbaum acknowledges that some may be sceptical about the sustainability work it is doing within the context of widespread greenwashing.
“It’s impossible to get through this jungle of messaging,” she said.
“How do we talk about it to make sure that it is clear how thoroughly and authentically we’re really tackling this?”
Some other furniture brands have also reduced their presence at design fairs amid concerns about the significant emissions associated with shipping products around the world for temporary showstands.
Vitra has historically had a significant presence in Milan during the Italian city’s annual design week in April, but was noticeably absent in 2023.
However, Fehlbaum said that although she was asked about this a lot “it really wasn’t such a huge deal”.
“For us, it makes a lot of sense to use what we already have,” she said.
“We have the Vitra Campus and it’s not so far from Milan. We prefer to use and invest in something that can be around for five or 10 years rather than spending a lot of energy and resources on something that after five days we’re going to have to break down.”
It is yet to be seen if the brand will return to Milan design week this year.
“The way we think about it [showing at design fairs like Milan] is never black or white,” Fehlbaum explained.
“There might be a moment where we say Milan is exactly the right place at the right moment to talk about something, and then maybe we’ll be there.”
The Eames Plastic Chair RE was photographed at the Eames house, Pacific Palisades, California. Photo by the Eames Foundation
Vitra was founded in 1950 by Nora Fehlbaum’s grandparents Willi and Erika Fehlbaum and has since grown to become one of the industry’s leading names.
Nora Fehlbaum succeeded her uncle, Rolf Fehlbaum, as CEO in 2016 and identifies improving the brand’s sustainability as her key mission.
“There is still a long way to go before reaching our environmental goals,” she acknowledged. “Things need to be tested, mistakes must be made, and in the process the company might sometimes overlook an important aspect or underestimate the impact of an activity.”
This is now a central part of the brand’s function as an industry leader, Fehlbaum suggests.
“The designer landscape has changed. In the past, it was a lot about iconic design and breaking the mould, building your own brand and your studio – new things – and now, the students that are graduating come with their own environmental mission,” she said.
“I see our role, together with these people and with the right suppliers and innovative companies, to find solutions that are, for lack of a better term, sustainable in the longer term.”
Other interviews recently published on Dezeen include the Kvadrat CEO saying sustainability is “not making our lives easier” and Iittala creative director Janni Vepsäläinen sharing her goal to help the brand “remain culturally relevant for another 100 years”.
The photography is courtesy of Vitra unless otherwise stated.
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Scientists from South Korea’s Yonsei University have invented what they believe to be a sustainable, high-protein food in the form of “beef rice”, made by growing cow cells in grains of rice.
Tinged a pale pink from the cell culturing process, the hybrid food contains more protein and fat than standard rice while having a low carbon footprint, leading its creators to see it as a potential future meat alternative.
The beef rice was made by inserting muscle and fat stem cells from cows into grains of rice and leaving them to grow in a Petri dish.
The hybrid “beef rice” is made by growing cow muscle and fat cells within rice grains
Because the rice grains are porous and have a rich internal structure, the cells can grow there in a similar way to how they would within an animal. A coating of gelatine – in this case, fish-derived – further helps the cells to attach to the rice.
Although beef rice might sound like a form of genetically modified food, there is no altering of DNA in the plants or animals. Instead, this process constitutes a type of cell-cultured or lab-grown meat but with the beef grown inside rice.
Soy and nuts are the first foods that have been used for animal cell culturing, they say, but their usefulness is limited because they are common allergens and do not have as much cell-holding potential as rice.
It contains more fat and protein than standard rice
The nutritional gains for their beef rice are also currently small, but the researchers from Yonsei University’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering say that with further optimisation, more cells and therefore more protein could be packed in.
The hybrid rice contains 3890 milligrams of protein and 150 milligrams of fat per 100 grams – just 310 milligrams more protein and 10 milligrams more fat than standard rice.
“Although hybrid rice grains still have a lower protein content than beef, advances in technology that can improve the cell capacity of rice grains will undoubtedly improve the nutritional content of hybrid rice,” the researchers said in their paper.
The scientists also believe the product could be inexpensively commercialised and tout the short time frame required to boost nutrition through culturing.
Whereas beef production usually takes one to three years and rice 95 to 250 days, they say their cell culturing process took less than 10 days.
“Imagine obtaining all the nutrients we need from cell-cultured protein rice,” said researcher Sohyeon Park. “I see a world of possibilities for this grain-based hybrid food. It could one day serve as food relief for famine, military ration or even space food.”
If commercialised, the hybrid grain is expected to have a low carbon footprint, similar to growing standard rice, because there would be no need to farm lots of animals. While the stem cells used for the process are extracted from live animals, they can proliferate indefinitely and don’t require animal slaughter.
An obstacle for some may be the taste; the cell culturing process slightly changes the texture and smell of the rice, making it more firm and brittle and introducing odour compounds related to beef, almonds, cream, butter and coconut oil.
The meat alternative was grown in a Petri dish
However, lead researcher Jinkee Hong told the Guardian that the foodstuff tastes “pleasant and novel”.
The team is now planning to continue their research and work to boost the nutritional value of the hybrid rice by stimulating more cell growth.
However, scaling up production, clearing regulatory hurdles and creating an appealing taste and texture have proven a challenge, and there are few examples on sale anywhere in the world.
In the meantime, speculative designers have explored the issue. Leyu Li recently created three conceptual products that, similar to beef rice, combine lab-grown meat with vegetables, calling them Broccopork, Mushchicken and Peaf.
Is it possible to stage a trade fair without producing excessive waste? Dezeen editor-at-large Amy Frearson explores eight approaches that were all on show at this year’s Stockholm Furniture Fair.
The trade show format is increasingly under scrutiny, with environmental concerns prompting many to reconsider the material cost of building large exhibition stands that are only used for a few days.
Stockholm Furniture Fair has pointed a way towards how trade fairs might become more eco-friendly. The majority of exhibitions and stands at this year’s edition of the fair were designed to reduce waste and promote circularity.
“A new layout to promote less construction”
Hanna Nova Beatrice, director of Stockholm Furniture Fair, said that numerous strategies were set out to reduce the carbon footprint of the fair.
“First and foremost, we updated the halls with a new layout to promote less construction,” she said.
Nova Beatrice and her team also drew up “very strict guidelines” that were applied to all of the in-house exhibitions, and worked closely with exhibiting brands to help them find more sustainable solutions.
“We had many discussions about how fairs can be more sustainable, promoting less construction and less waste, both within the organisation and with our exhibitors,” she explained.
Here’s a look at eight approaches that featured:
Photo is by Erik Lefvander
Create island stands without walls
The new fair layout made it possible for some brands to create “island stands” formed simply of a floor surface that could be easily repurposed or recycled.
Brands adopting this approach included Hem, whose stand was defined by bold chequerboard flooring. The result was a space that became a de facto public plaza.
Photo is by Sanna Lindberg
Use products to frame space
Swedish outdoor furniture brand Nola put its own spin on the island stand by making clever use of one of its new products, the Moiré pavilion by designer Mattias Rubin de Lima.
By installing two of these pergola structures, Nola was able to create a simple frame for its stand. This was accompanied by a floor formed of recycled bricks, making the space feel like a garden patio.
Build an installation rather than a stand
The fair organisers encouraged some brands to find ways to exhibit using no construction at all. “Think Lars Von Trier’s Dogville, which used only tape to divide the different areas,” Nova Beatrice explained.
One of the most successful examples came from Pholc. The Swedish lighting brand worked with design agency Nineties to create a multilayered scenography out of stacked packing crates.
Photo is by Erik Lefvander
Creatively repurpose an old stand
Many Stockholm exhibitors chose to reuse a stand they had already used before, either for a previous edition of this fair or for one of the many others on the furniture design calendar.
One of the most simple and effective approaches came from Swedish furniture brand Lammhults, which reuses the same stand every year but simply paints it in a different colour. For this year, the cobalt blue of 2023 was replaced with a bold shade of red.
Other noteworthy examples included fellow Swedish brand Mitab, which opted for transparency. Its stand featured a counter that made clear how it had used the same stand for the last five years. “This is the same bar we used last year. And we will use next year,” read text printed on the front.
Photo is by Felix Odell
Work with waste materials
Minus Furniture made its fair debut with a stand built entirely from recycled materials, in line with the Norwegian brand’s ambitiously eco-friendly business model.
Interiors studio Omhu went to great lengths to source everything. Together with a rented scaffolding system, the design included items sourced from construction sites, second-hand stores and municipal waste.
“Not every company wants to put in the work to think in this manner. It takes time and research to demonstrate and source supplies of a circular nature,” said Poppy Lawman, designer at Omhu.
Photo is by Andy Liffner
Find a new home for everything
All of the fair’s own exhibitions were designed for circularity, which meant rehoming every component once the fair was over. The Reading Room installation by guest of honour Formafantasma was one of the best examples.
Both the fabric curtain that framed the space and the books displayed inside have been donated to design schools, while the Flos lighting has been gifted to a bookshop. The Artek furniture is meanwhile being sold by retailer Nordiska Galleriet as signed limited editions.
Photo is by Andy Liffner
Adapt an old design for a new purpose
The bar and stage installation by Stockholm-based Färg and Blanche was first created for Sweden’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which took place in the first six months of 2023.
The design duo adapted the components into a new configuration so that they could be reused here, along with flooring that manufacturer Tarkett plans to repurpose at its factory in Ronneby.
Photo is by Andy Liffner
Keep things simple
Young brands exhibiting for the first time were invited to make use of ready-made booths designed by designer Nick Ross, rather than building their own.
This “nude edition” was built from recycled materials – an aluminium truss system created freestanding wall modules in untreated MDF – that are now being recycled again.
“The entire area can be disassembled and reused for other events,” explained Ross.
Biomaterials have the potential to significantly cut carbon emissions but designers should approach them with caution to avoid creating a whole new set of problems, warns Sioban Imms.
The vision of a civilisation based on biomaterials is compelling: products, clothes and buildings made from materials that have been “grown”, rather than derived from polluting, extractive fossil industries. The promise is not only lower emissions, but products that are more in tune with the environment – manufactured objects that are part of the natural cycle of life. And consumers are willing to pay a premium for such ostensibly “sustainable” products – 12 per cent more, according to a recent study by Bain.
However, in a bid to gain competitive advantage, marketing narratives surrounding biomaterials are regularly inflated or gloss over important details. Prefixing “bio” to a material name conjures a sense of being natural, compostable, and better all round for personal and environmental health.
Marketing narratives surrounding biomaterials are regularly inflated
But these claims can unravel, or at least become complicated, when researching a little deeper than the material classification, product name and strapline. A report from RepRisk found a 70 per cent increase in incidents of greenwashing between 2022 and 2023. Incoming legislation in the EU is specifically targeting this issue.
The definition and terminology around biomaterials is still evolving. For clarity, we’re not talking here about biomaterial designed for implanting into the body, but biologically derived materials used in product, fashion and architecture.
Often grown using living micro-organisms like yeast, bacteria, cellulose and mycelium, they can be finely tuned at the nanoscale by engineering DNA sequences to produce specific properties. For example, UK company Colorfix tweaks the DNA of bacteria so that they excrete coloured pigments for dyeing textiles. Microbial manufacturing organisms like these tend to be fed, fermented and modified in controlled environments.
The substitution of fossil-derived, high-carbon materials for biomaterials is urgently important. A recently published study by Radboud Universiteit in the Netherlands concluded that biomaterials reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by an average of 45 per cent compared to fossil-based materials.
But biomaterials are not a magic bullet to the multi-faceted nature crisis industrial civilisation is causing. Especially important is avoiding what are sometimes called “regrettable substitutions” – whereby one material is replaced with another that merely introduces a new set of problems.
For example, BioCane disposable food packaging is an alternative to plastic food packaging made from bagasse – pulped sugarcane-fibre, a waste product from the sugar industry. The design is geared to express its natural origins and circularity, from the subtly flecked, neutral colour and matte finish to the embossed logomark featuring a plant within a gradated circle.
Biomaterials are not a magic bullet to the multi-faceted nature crisis
However, for BioCane to be grease repellant (so it doesn’t fall apart before you’ve consumed the contents) it needs an oleophobic coating, unlike plastic packaging. BioCane uses a polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) for this coating. PFAS are termed “forever chemicals” due to their damaging long-term persistence and accumulation in the environment – not to mention our own bodies.
BioPak, which produces BioCane, transparently publishes information about this on its website, highlighting it as an industry-wide problem. The company also includes a timely pledge to phase out PFAS-containing packaging by June 2024, which happens to coincide with a move to phase out PFAS by the Environmental Protection Agency in the US.
Not all manufacturers are as responsible; it’s common to find unlisted additives – or perhaps a fossil-based lamination to improve a material’s durability – under a headline claim of biological origins.
Bioplastic is another material experiencing significant growth, partly driven by high oil prices making fossil-fuel-derived plastic less competitive. Most bioplastic is made from ethanol, commonly sourced from corn, wheat or sugarcane. Sugarcane, for example, is planted in monocultures in tropical and sub-tropical countries like Brazil. The sugar is extracted, fermented and distilled to produce precursor chemicals for bioplastics.
But to assess the environmental value of using this bioplastic, we need to know about how the crops are managed – for example, the pesticides and synthetic fertilisers used to increase crop yield, the land-clearance practices, and the effect on food prices if the bioplastic became widely adopted. At the end of the product’s life, specialised infrastructure for disposal will need to be in place, further complicating the picture.
Biodegradable bioplastic would seem to offer a solution to the worst ravages of plastic – the alarming buildup of microplastic pollution across the world. How much better if the material could be absorbed back into the environment?
Biodegradable doesn’t mean a material will break down in the environment over useful timescales
The market opportunity for biodegradable plastics is alluring, and forecasts predict that they will account for the majority of the bioplastics market – 62 per cent, by 2028. This opportunity is attracting investment and also the potential for greenwashing as companies vie for a competitive advantage over others.
But biodegradable doesn’t mean a material will break down in the environment over useful timescales. A 2022 UCL study of supposedly “home compostable” bioplastics revealed that 60 per cent did not fully degrade within the tested timespans – a finding that unravels the whole purpose for investing in compostable packaging.
Claims relating to bioplastics were at the crux of a recent legal case brought against US biotech firm Danimer Scientific Inc. The manufacturer of biodegradable products had claimed that its proprietary plastic material Nodax PHA is able to biodegrade not only in industrial composting facilities but in landfill and in the ocean.
Danimer’s share prices rocketed, sparking an investigative report in the Wall Street Journal, which stated that “many claims about Nodax are exaggerated and misleading, according to several experts on biodegradable plastics”. Danimer refutes this statement, but what came out in court was that the company performed biodegradability tests on Nodax in a powdered form, which doesn’t relate to real-world product formats like bottles that have variable thickness.
The legal case was eventually dismissed, but nonetheless the alleged greenwashing spiked Danimer’s share price, shaking investors’ trust in the company and having knock-on effects for the wider industry.
Going forward, manufacturers will need to be transparent about what goes into their products. In the EU, legislation tackling greenwashing in product labelling will come into effect in 2026. The new law is a direct response to the rise in misleading claims that companies use.
When specifying a biomaterial, it’s important to dig into its provenance
It comes after a study commissioned by the bloc found that 53 per cent of green claims on products and services are vague, misleading or unfounded, and 40 per cent have no supporting evidence. In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority has published the Green Claims Code – a six-point guide to help businesses ensure they are not unwittingly misleading customers.
These two initiatives highlight the importance of using the right language when promoting products and materials, and as the impact of the EU’s legislation ripples through the industry, there will be a natural calibration to more transparency.
The takeaway for designers is that, as ever, the picture is complex. When specifying a biomaterial, it’s important to dig into its provenance, as well as to look at the material use and disposal. The allure of the “bio” prefix from an ethical – and marketing – perspective may be strong, but must be taken along with some healthy scrutiny.
Sioban Imms is a colour, material and finish (CMF) and sustainability strategist with a background in design and manufacturing. She is co-founder of consulting agency Substance and a contributing editor at trend forecasters Stylus and WGSN.
The photo, of MarinaTex designed by Lucy Hughes, is courtesy of the University of Sussex.
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Two British materials companies, Sages and Osmose, have collaborated to dye sheets of mycelium with natural food waste, mimicking the appearance of tanned leather and suggesting a colourful future for the biomaterial.
Osmose is a company making a leather alternative from mycelium – the fibrous underground root network of mushrooms – while Sages makes natural dyes from food waste such as avocado pits, blueberries, red cabbages and onion skins, which are normally applied to textiles.
The two believe they’ve achieved a world first with their collaboration, combining two emerging areas of sustainable material development to colour mycelium without resorting to petroleum-based synthetic dyes, thereby keeping the product non-toxic and able to biodegrade safely in soil.
Sages and Osmose have developed a natural dying process for mycelium leather
“There are lots of different types of vegan leather alternatives to traditional leather but the majority of them use either synthetic colourations or they use plasticisers, so they’re non-biodegradable,” said Sages CEO Emily Taylor.
“We wanted to explore an option where we could have a fully biodegradable leather that has also been coloured in a biodegradable and sustainable manner,” she continued.
Companies that prioritise biodegradability have offered mycelium in its natural shades of white and brown or black, which Osmose CEO Aurelie Fontan says is much easier to achieve naturally.
“I think the challenge for mycelium leather was that the offering just wasn’t there in terms of aesthetic,” she said. “When you’re presenting for brands and you’re like ‘we can only do brown’, it’s a little bit boring for them.”
The companies experimented with different food wastes in the dyeing process
“The colour sector is somewhere where you can develop your USP, essentially, which is why working with Sages is so interesting,” Fontan added.
Osmose and Sages have created tan-coloured mycelium sheets using avocado waste, which Sages sources from an importer and guacamole factory in Milton Keynes, where tens of tonnes of leftover pits and skins are produced each week.
It was a new area for both companies, as the food waste dye takes differently to mycelium leather than it does to the usually cellulose-based textiles that Sages has worked with.
The duo collaborated with materials science researchers at the UK’s Cranfield University on the project, for which the researchers focused on how to transfer and fix the dye to the material using “green chemistry” – an area of chemistry that aims to cut out hazardous substances.
In this case, the researchers sought to replace the formic acid and fluorinated acids that are often used in tanning to dissolve the polymers of the leather so it can be infused with dye. Instead, the team developed a method, which they say is significantly less toxic.
After working with Cranfield University, Sages and Osmose expanded the experiment and trialled other waste streams such as blueberries and onion skins to see what colours they could get, producing mycelium swatches in shades of violet and bordeaux.
Taylor and Fontan say they are trying to develop a process for mycelium that is akin to leather tanning, where both colour and durability properties are added in one or two steps. Their equivalent, they say, would be to dye and waterproof the material at the same time.
The tan colour was created by using waste avocado pits and skins
Osmose’s focus now is on developing a waterproof coating for their mycelium that, like the dye, is bio-based, non-toxic and able to biodegrade safely in soil. This is notoriously a challenge for plant-based leather alternatives, which almost always rely on a protective synthetic coating.
“It’s really hard to design a solution that fits all materials, which is basically what everyone is struggling with,” said Fontan. “Someone might have pineapple leather and they have their own coating but it doesn’t mean it’s going to work on mushroom and so on.”
Unlike some companies, however, Osmose says it does not want to bring a product with a non-biodegradable coating to market.
“If you’re doing a composite, it will not biodegrade at the end of life, which is compromising all the good work that you’ve been doing before that step,” Fontan said.
Mycelium is one of the most popular emerging leather alternatives. It has already appeared in luxury goods such as a bag by Hermes, clothing by Stella McCartney and trainers by Adidas.
The world’s first full-scale timber wind turbine has started turning in Sweden, with a tower built by wood technology company Modvion.
The 105-metre-tall tower, located in the region of Skara, is Modvion‘s first commercial wind turbine tower, and follows on from a smaller 30-metre-high demonstration project the company completed in 2020.
While its rotor blades and generator hub are made of conventional materials, the tower is made of laminated veneer lumber (LVL), a type of engineered wood made of thin veneer strips glued together and often used for beams and load-bearing building structures.
The tower of a wind turbine in Skara is made of engineered wood
The company says that this type of wood is not only strong enough to withstand the forces of a turning turbine, it is much more environmentally sustainable to build with than the currently used steel.
While wind power plays an important role in providing the world with green renewable energy, there are still ample carbon emissions created during their construction — in part because of the steel towers.
Modvion describes its wood towers as reducing the carbon emissions from wind turbine construction by over 100 per cent, due to the combination of a less emissions-heavy production process and the carbon storage provided by trees.
“Our towers, just in the production of them, they emit 90 per cent less than a steel tower that will do carry the same work,” Modvion chief financial officer Maria-Lina Hedlund told Dezeen. “And then if you add the carbon sequestration, then you actually end up with a minus — so a carbon sink. This is great if we want to reach net zero energy production, and we need to.”
The type of wood used is laminated veneer lumber
Hedlund, who is also an engineer, describes LVL as having a construction “similar to carbon fibre”, with strips of veneer just three millimetres thick sandwiched and glued together, giving it a high strength-to-weight ratio.
This lightness is a benefit, reducing the amount of material needed overall. With a heavy material, there is a “bad design spiral”, says Hedlund, as the weight of the tower itself adds to the load that it needs to carry.
And while some LVL has all their veneer strips facing in the same direction, Modvion uses its “own recipe” specifying the directions of the fibres, improving the material’s performance even more.
The turbine tower is the tallest so far built by Swedish company Modvion. Photo by Paul Wennerholm
The production process involves timber boards being made to order in a standard LVL plant and then delivered to Modvion’s factory. There, they are glued together into larger modules and bent into a rounded form in a step called lamination, and then very precisely machined to fine-tune the shape.
“In the wood industry, you usually see centimetre tolerances, while we are in the sub-millimetre scale,” said Hedlund.
The modular nature of LVL construction addresses another problem Modvion has observed with steel: that with turbines getting ever bigger to give more power, it’s becoming impossible to transport steel towers to site.
They are built as essentially large cylinders and transported by truck, but the base diameter desired for the tallest towers is getting to be taller than some bridges and roads can allow.
The timber is laminated into modules at Modvion’s factory
“We’re now reaching a point where they will not get through anymore,” said Hedlund. “So we will see a transition in the wind power industry to modular construction, because this is the way to get them there. And one of the big advantages of building in the material we do is that it’s naturally built modular.”
While steel could also be built modular, it would require bolts rather than glue to join it together on site, which Hedlund says is a disadvantage.
“Bolts are not very nice when you have so much dynamic loading, because it will loosen over time,” she said. “So first of all, you have to have to put them in place which is a lot of work, and then you have to also service them over the lifetime.”
The modules were assembled and glued together on site
On the outside, the tower has a thick white coating that makes it look similar to steel, and it’s rotor blades and generator hub, which are not supplied by Modvion, are made of conventional materials like fibreglass. This may change in the future, however, with another company, Voodin Blades, working on the technology for wooden blades.
Modvion was founded in 2016 by university peers David Olivegren and Otto Lundman. While its current focus is wind turbines, it is dedicated to wooden technology more broadly, and Hedlund told Dezeen that the team believes it has “the world’s strongest joint for timber construction”, which could also be put to other uses.
Another recent milestone for wind power came in the form of a wind-powered cargo ship, which had been retrofitted with two 37.5-metre-tall sails.
