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Matt Grigsby of Ecolect

As I scrutinized and stroked the swatches of Ekobe, Green Cell Foam, and Kirei wood on the wall, I knew I was living out the designer's dream -- to indulge in an entire gallery of materials at my fingertips' disposal. Seen at the Better x Design conference in Providence, Rhode Island, this innovative gallery comes in the form of a Materials Petting Zoo, a brainchild of Ecolect, the world's largest database of sustainable materials.

  • Published on: 10/19/2009
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Ecolect was born in 2005 when RISD industrial design graduates Matt Grigsby and Joe Gebbia wanted to address the difficulty of sourcing and obtaining sustainable materials. To help architects and designers solve this problem, they are connecting designers to material suppliers, as well as providing consulting on the triple-bottom-line implications of 'the most visceral aspect of design.'  While I was in Providence, I had the opportunity to speak with Matt Grigsby, CEO and co-founder (and who also authors the Materials Monday blog on Treehugger!):

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So where does the name 'Ecolect' originate?

Ecolect is a combination of the words 'ecology' and 'intellect,' but it also sounds like 'collection.' We spent months upon months thinking of the perfect name. Being a sustainable materials database, all three words come together rather fruitfully.

When did your personal passion for materials begin?

I was studying car design at Strate Collège Designers in Paris during my undergrad years, and throughout my time there, I became disillusioned with the lack of sustainability that was factored into the design process. While we were creating these beautiful forms that really pushed the edge of design, but there was a complete lack of attention being paid to the research of sustainable materials.

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In addition to the Materials Petting Zoo crowd-magnet, what other projects are you embarking on? Where do you see Ecolect in the future?

We're really looking to education -- we've started GreenBox, a quarterly subscription that goes out to designers, companies, universities that provides hands on access to material alternatives; we've also produced the Ecolect Nutrition Label that evaluates 'material nutrition' to inform consumers' decisions. Last year, we partnered with Joep Meijer, a chemist from The Rightenvironment, to perform life cycle analyses for our clients. We want Ecolect and materials to become a new intelligent way of speaking -- a different, ecological vernacular for designers around the world.

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