Material Matters Highlights 2022

With installations, a marketplace and an extensive talks programme, Material Matters brings together brands, designers, makers and organisations to raise awareness of the design industry’s most pressing issue: of sustainability and the role our material choices play in the world’s race to net zero.

Climate change has reached an undeniable level of urgency. Effective, sustainable change must happen now, and the design industry must commit to being part of it. Alongside the team at Material Matters, we can’t wait to celebrate some of the most exciting designers creating beautiful and innovative solutions to reconfigure how we use our planet’s resources - and what we put back out there.

Here, we highlight a few of our favourite exhibitors that you’ll be able to look forward to seeing at the fair. Each with a unique approach to addressing a unifying challenge, these companies are helping to lead the way in innovation in the material world.

The myth-busters

Champions of circularity, Smile Plasticsare here to shake up the negative associations we automatically make with plastic and its environmental impact, as well as the assumptions often made about the aesthetics of materials made from waste products. Smile Plastics’ beautiful, bright and colourful surface panels are solidly built and made to last while also being fully recyclable through local and buy-back schemes. Off-cuts from production never go to waste and are either reused to make new panels or offered to Smile Plastics’ customers for reclaim.

Fair Location: Material Design. Room 13.17

Reviving a lost waste material

Solidwool’s story began with an ambition to revive the wool industry and find a new purpose for this natural by-product of sheep farming, which had seemingly lost its value. By totally reinventing its use, Solidwool has given completely new life to wool as the basis of a solid composite material - ‘think fiberglass, but with wool’. Visit Solidwool’s stand to discover the beauty and versatile design possibilities of this unique contribution to the material world, with a unique link to nature.

Fair Location: Furniture. Room 13.16

A holistic approach

Nature Squared stands for sustainability across the environmental, economic and social agenda. Combining traditional craftsmanship with innovative technology, the ethical design brand creates surfaces out of waste materials, sourcing predominantly from industries such as farming and fishing, and never using endangered, protected or threatened resources. Their diverse offering caters to projects across the spectrum, from residences to cars and yachts. What’s most striking about this brand is its committed and thoroughly sustainable ethos, which includes supporting the heritage of craftspeople in underdeveloped countries and using advanced engineering and chemical expertise to produce products.

Fair Location: Material Design. Room 2.3

Champions of circular thinking

A new kid on the block and another one to watch as the value of circularity becomes more and more widely appreciated, Dutch company Circuformmakes no-nonsense, long-lasting furniture from recycled materials produced in a socially-responsible way. We love their relaunch of the REX Chair by Ineke Hans - a stylish, fun and fully recyclable option for a wide range of interiors. The chair has been produced with the lowest possible ecological impact, manufactured from recycled PA6 from office chair components, fishing nets, carpets, and industrial waste.

Fair Location: Furniture. Room 13.13

The unexpected

Alkesh Parmar’s material innovation will doubtless be one of the most surprising and fascinating on display. Following an MA at the Royal College of Art’s School of Materials, the multidisciplinary designer has developed a groundbreaking process of turning waste citrus peel into a solid, cork-like material with numerous uses. The end product is entirely biodegradable, meaning products that are disposed of can be put back to use in feeding the planet. Parmar’s research into reducing reliance on harmful binding agents sets him apart.

Fair Location: Lighting, Product, Material. Room 13.2