Matthew Barnett Howland, Dido Milne and Oliver Wilton built a house from cork blocks supported by timber components, designed in a way that it can be easily dismantled, reused or recycled, while Nimtim Architects used the material for the walls of a London house extension. According to the designer, the cellulose's crystalline form refracts light and makes the sequins naturally shimmery.Ĭork was also a material on the rise this year, favoured by many designers and architects for its compostable and recyclable properties.
#Innovative interiors construction series#
Meydan Levy developed a series of edible artificial fruits made up of 3D-printed cellulose skins that are filled with various vitamins and minerals, while Elena Amato used the compound to create sustainable cosmetics packaging.Įlissa Brunato developed a way of making iridescent sequins from cellulose extracted from trees.
#Innovative interiors construction skin#
Shahar Livne also designed a pair of trainers with alternative leather inserts made of animal fat, bones and blood taken from waste streams of slaughterhouses, while Reykjavík studio At10 made a bioplastic meat packaging from the skin of the animal itself.Īnother organic material that designers looked to this year was cellulose – an organic compound that gives plants their structure.
Similarly, Layer developed a smart material for aircraft seating that detects passengers' needs, and researchers at the University of Maryland invented a responsive textile made from polymer fibres coated with carbon nanotubes that warms up the wearer when they're cold and cools them down when they're hot.ĭespite vegan design being on the rise this year, some designers took a different stance by putting animal byproducts that would otherwise go to waste to use in their creations.ĭanish designer Kathrine Barbro Bendixen used discarded cow intestines to make a series of sculptural lights, comprised of translucent tubes that twist around an LED fixture. Fashion designer Ying Gao created a pair of autonomous, robotic dresses that respond to particular colours in their immediate surroundings by moving as if alive. Smart, adaptive materials have also been popular among designers.
For example, biotech startup Spiber created the first commercially available jacket made from synthetic spider silk for The North Face.Īdidas and Stella McCartney also worked with Californian biotech startup Bolt Threads to recreate a version of the proteins found in spider silk in a laboratory, to form the "fully biodegradable" Biofabric Tennis Dress. On the same eco-friendly streak, garments from vegan spider silk came to the fore this year.