Material Matters 2023 took place from 18-21 September at Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf, as part of the London Design Festival. The four-day event, founded by William Knight and Grant Gibson, welcomed 6,000 registered visitors. Once there, they discovered a plethora of products, installations and ideas, as well as a rich programme of talks.
“It has been a special week,” says the fair’s co-founder Grant Gibson. “We were delighted with the response to the fair’s inaugural edition, but we took a significant step forward this year. When William and I created this event, we were determined it should have a clear purpose – highlighting the importance of material intelligence in design and architecture. It was wonderful to see all our exhibitors take our thinking and develop a range of brilliant ideas and presentations. It’s also important to point out that this wouldn’t have been possible without our headline sponsor, the brilliant lighting specialist Bert Frank. We owe the company a huge thank you for all its support.”
Installations included Planted from Danish textile designer Tanja Kirst, which asked the simple question: can oranges, seaweed and hemp be transformed into textiles without compromising aesthetics?
Meanwhile, the fair’s Designer of the Year was Pearson Lloyd. Its installation looked at its material choices in a fistful of recent projects and the increased importance of circularity in its work. Clients featured included Howe, Modus, City of Bath, Batch.Works, TAKT, Profim, and Senator.
Material Matters joined forces with Insight Publishing, one of the world’s leading brands for workplace news, commentary and features, to create The Works Place. This space showcased the latest and most innovative thinking in sustainable office design, circularity and innovation. Modern Synthesis launched Bou Bag, a new handbag made of bacterial nanocellulose with Danish fashion brand Ganni and crafting plastics! studio returned with an environmentally-active installation that detected potentially harmful UV rays created in collaboration with DumoLab Research.
On the third floor, Isola, the Milan-based design platform, hosted a new exhibition, Nothing Happens if Nothing Happens, which featured emerging designers using regenerative resources and repurposing waste materials. Elsewhere, there were launches from the likes of Gareth Neal, who showed new 3D printed pieces using a three-times recycled polymer; leather specialist Bill Amberg had a collection of furniture pieces created from a collaboration with the Knepp Estate, renowned for its ground-breaking rewilding project; Magnus Long Studio launched Ply Light, a wooden suspension light that brings a new material identity to linear lighting, using dimensionally stable spiral-wound wooden tubes.
Hydro returned to the fair with a delightful installation of benches designed by Lars Beller Fjetland from nearly 90 per cent recycled aluminium. Designers working with waste was a significant theme again this year. On the top floor, for example, BC Joshua showed a seat (created with designer Ella Doran) made from a newspaper pulp blend. HagenHinderdael and Novavita Design joined forces to develop a product collection made from coffee waste, milk packaging, and fermented sugar.
Planq launched Rezign® materials – a collection of materials made from textile waste, such as post-consumer denim, army clothing, suits and white denim. Yair Neuman had lighting pieces made from disused spectacle lenses. The Tyre Collection displayed how it has developed a system for collecting rubber particles from tyre wear and transforming them into products. Meanwhile, others worked with nature. BioMATTERS showed vessels 3D printed from mycelium; Silklab displayed the potential of silk fibroin; and Material Magic had furniture and lighting fashioned from hemp with magnesium and potato starch.
Across the courtyard in gallery@oxo, the Wood Awards unveiled its shortlist for this year’s prizes in a beautifully designed exhibition.
That potent brew of ideas, materials and products was topped off by a talks programme that took a deeper dive into our material culture. It included a lecture from materials expert and co-founder of research and design consultancy Franklin Till, Caroline Till. The programme also featured discussions on how the furniture industry can reach Net Zero, the relationship between new materials and AI, and wood’s role in retrofitting buildings. The event was closed with a typically robust discussion on the part that concrete, glass and steel might play in the future of architecture, curated by The Negroni Talks team at architecture practice fourth_space.
“It has been a wonderful week. Full of fascinating materials, inventive products and lively discussion. I also think there’s a real sense that a vibrant, knowledgeable, and engaged community is being built. We couldn’t be happier,” concluded William Knight.
