Cork is the kale of building materials: an old familiar that has far more to offer than most of us realize. Many of cork’s applications, including as flooring, shoe soles, and cork boards, are tried and true.
Furniture and Accessories
Furniture and Accessories
London designer Matilda Goad has just introduced a cork collection that includes this Ball Lamp, $360. For harvesting to be sustainable, the tree has to be at least 25 years old.
A Cork Bowl with Handles, $63, by Melanie Abrantes Design of Oakland, CA.
Jasper Morrison designed his influential five-piece Cork Family in 2004.
The Isla Cork Planter and Desk Tidy is $36.25 from Mind The Cork on Etsy.
The Clover Side Table, shown here in natural, $3,075, is part of a new cork collection made by Grain, Chelsea and James Minola’s Bainbridge Island studio dedicated to environmental and socially responsible design.
The Slice Cork Ceiling Lamp by Portuguese produce designer Miguel Soeiro is €140 from his online store, OWN.
Muratto Cork Natural Wallpaper is $350 for a 90-tile (20.4 square feet) set at West-Elm.
42 Birds makes yoga mats and accessories of 100-percent recycled cork. Cork Massage Therapy Balls are $36, but currently sold out.
Studio Corkinho’s Daybed, €4,500, is “a metaphor for a nap under a tree.” The Antwerp atelier specializes in working in patinated burned cork and has a limited-editions collection that ranges from small plates and diffuser sets to tatami mats and tea tables.
Architecture
Architecture
The Cork House is Nimtim Architects’ Victorian terrace house extension clad externally and internally with naturally stained cork. Go to Playfulness and Plywood to see a kitchen by the emerging firm run by Nimi Attanayake and Tim O’Callaghan.
Photograph by Michael Frank courtesy of @nimtimarchitects.
The Cork House in Eton, England, designed by Matthew Barnett Howland with Dido Milne and Oliver Wilton, is composed almost entirely from load-bearing cork—”a radically simple form of plant-based construction,” say the architects.
Photography by Shantanu Starick.
Tigin, a DIY tiny house with exposed cork insulation, is the creation of Common Knowledge, an Irish social enterprise devoted to teaching environmentally friendly building skills. Read about it in A Community Built Mobile Home.
In Devon, England, architect Thomas Randall-Page converted a 250-square-meter barn into a combination work space and archive for his father, sculptor Peter Randall-Page. Read about natural building materials on the rise in our new book, Remodelista: The Low-Impact Home.
Photograph by Jim Stephenson via Dezeen.
