Sustainability and Designjunction
This September (19-22), the first ever King’s Cross Design District will see creative thinkers, innovators and designers showcase their sustainable products at designjunction.
Through skilful and sensitive design, designjunction’s exhibitors have created innovative installations, collections and products that respond to this year’s theme (Re)act, and will all be available to see for the first time in London’s newest creative quarter. Ranging from furniture, lighting, jewellery, accessories and ceramics, sustainability will be at the forefront of this year’s show.
As part of designjunction, leading glassware brand LSA International will present The Greenhouse, an immersive shop concept celebrating sustainable living. Set within a 260sqm retail unit in the spectacular Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross, an empty industrial space will be transformed by LSA International into a green urban oasis. The Greenhouse will showcase LSA International’s CANOPY collection alongside a range of other products and concepts from like-minded brands with a shared commitment to sustainable living. CANOPY is a mixed materials collection of cork and handmade, 100% recycled glassware, vases and planters designed by LSA International and launched in collaboration with the Eden Project.
The Greenhouse will showcase LSA International’s collection alongside a selection of interior products from celebrated partner brands including Vitra and String as well as other best-selling designs including the mixed material PLANT collection. This immersive installation will bring the CANOPY collection to life, while enabling visitors to gain insight into the design and craft required to create it. Each item within the CANOPY collection is sustainably manufactured from 100% recycled glass, using only discarded material. A pop-up Greenhouse Café will offer plant-based food and cold brew coffee, surrounded by live demonstrations and workshop activities.
Solidwood will debut at designjunction with its Hembury Chair, showcasing for the first time the collection and Solidwool as a surface material. Husband and wife duo Justin and Hannah Floyd were inspired by their hometown Buckfastleigh, Devon – a once thriving woollen industry, now an old industry in decline.
Solidwool is a new and unique way of working with wool and is a material with a story; the coarse wool from hill-farmed, upland sheep has dramatically lost its value in recent years, rendered almost worthless, yet Solidwool has found a new use for this low value wool. In using locally sourced wool from the Herdwick breed of sheep that is produced yearly, Solidwool reinvents working with this wool with the incentive of returning a declining industry to its prime. The result is Solidwool, a strong, beautiful and composite material. When used in Solidwool, Herdwick wool is beautiful, producing a dark grey composite with the lighter guard hairs standing out.
In a throwaway culture, Solidwood designs with longevity in mind, manufacturing to produce the best quality products with as little carbon footprint as possible. With the aim of manufacturing the most natural, lowest impact and highest quality wool composite material, Solidwool wants its material to be considered as a sustainable alternative to today’s petrochemical based structural reinforced plastics. The resins currently used by Solidwool can be classed as bio-resins.
They have a 20/30% biobased renewable content andd sourced from waste streams of other industrial processes, such as wood pulp and bio-fuels production. Solidwool’s environmentally conscientious resin manufacturer claims a 33% reduction in Carbon Footprint and Greenhouse Gas Emissions during manufacture over traditional resins.
London based studio, Zuzunaga will return to designjunction this year to launch the Inca andIndividuate collections. The Individuate collection – a new collection of one-of-akind books – has been conceived in order to utilise all waste material produced since Zuzunaga was founded in 2010. In a 360-degree creative approach, Zuzunaga collects all discarded textile materials produced from the production of the brand’s core collection of pixelated blankets and transforms the fabric remnants into books.
This collection has been designed with the philosophy of creating a new purpose from mess, to generate work at the same time and ultimately, create a product that can then be recycled. The new Inca collection sees a series of hand made prints – developed using a 1950’s FAG proofing press machine- turned into a range of furniture products which will be unveiled for the first time at this year’s show.
A newcomer for this year’s show, Pad Home is the home of contemporary design, they are exclusive distributors of leading design brands from around the world and specialise in lighting, wall-coverings and giftware. Amongst other new launches on their stand at this year’s show, Pad Home will showcase the Scraplights range by Graypants lighting. Handcrafted from recycled cardboard, Graypants’ ‘Scraplights’ collection provides warm, intimate, and functional lighting for any occasion or space, designing with the environment in mind. Tough and elegant, each is precision cut with a laser and assembled by hand using nontoxic adhesive.
For the first time, designjunction will welcome exhibitor Kinshipped to showcase its sustainable stationery collections. Launched in January 2019, Kindshipped was born out of a stationery lover’s need for something fresh, different, modern, and most importantly, sustainable. With a strong focus on preserving the environment, Kindshipped offers consumers guilt free paper, chemical free wrap and plastic free packaging. Notably, 5% of Kindshipped profits will be going to selected environmental charities.
Visit www.thedesignjunction.co.uk for more details.