I’d arranged to meet a friend at Surface Design who was a little delayed so mooched around the new materials stand, always worth stopping at. Here are a few of the products on show which all have an environmental slant to them.
Poppy Pippin has designed these terracotta wall tiles which encourage carbon-absorbing moss to grow on them.
This “timber terrazzo” by Foresso uses wood offcuts in the same way that traditional terrazzo uses stone waste. The colourway below, Charcoal Mono, is made of walnut with black binder.
Olasol is the brand making these tactile and friendly-looking Fur wall tiles from concrete, available in the bespoke colourway of your choice.
We all know that paper can be recycled but, after about 7 times, it too becomes waste. This is where Tim Teven Studio comes in. They have created a solid stone-like material from the waste that is quite lightweight yet very sturdy.
The last in this post is Made of Air board made, as it says in the name, of air, or to be more precise, CO2. Alison Dring has invented this material to replace HPL & corrugated aluminium for facades, interior panelling, acoustic panelling etc.
If taken up commercially there is hope that we can counter the negative effects that construction has on the environment. We have the ideas, let’s make them happen.