During Miami Art Week in December, a curated jumble of stools greeted visitors at the entrance of the event’s emerging designer showcase. One could imagine the colorful, playful, and stackable seating decorating a poolside cabana; at the event, they soaked up the Florida sun and changed color with the UV radiation level, thanks to a reactive “skin.” They looked like they were made of plastic, and they are—just not the petroleum-based kind. Instead, Slovakia studio Crafting Plastics used Nuatan, a proprietary biomaterial the firm says is entirely renewable and compostable.

Nuatan is made of polyhydroxy alkaloids, which microorganisms produce naturally in sugars and starches via fermentation. Crafting Plastics founders Miroslav Král and Vlasta Kubušová grow it in a lab (though it can be made in your kitchen), and use it just like traditional plastic; they create injection molds, 3D print, and make pliable sheets. The studio emphasizes that it’s non-toxic, and can biodegrade or be reused when a product reaches the end of its life, should that time ever come.

“We are expecting our products and furniture pieces to endure generations,” explains Kubušová. If a consumer were to tire of one of the studio’s stools before it wore out, she says, the piece could be hammered or shred into smaller parts and deposited at a facility that offers industrial composting. It could also be heat-pressed into a sheet and used to make a new piece, completing the loop of circular design. Some onus would still fall on the consumer, then, to act responsibly, as with disposing of batteries, for example.

Crafting Plastics is one of several companies innovating with biomaterials in an effort to make furniture that doesn’t have to end up in a landfill. Others are trying out seating, lighting, and entire living spaces that similarly stress a non-toxic, circular existence. At 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen last June, local firm Natural Material Studio decorated a space in dreamy, semi-translucent textiles and foam furniture composed of protein-based polymers, natural softeners, and chalk. The installation’s malleable and compostable nature was a response to rampant consumerism within the interior design world.

Those exploring biomaterials in place of ones that are carbon hungry, toxic, or just poorly manufactured, are often reacting to the furniture industry’s negative impacts on the planet. According to the latest data from the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans discarded 12.1 million tons of furniture in 2018, a figure that represents more than four percent of all durable goods waste. Of that load, 80 percent went directly into a landfill, where they may continue to leech forever chemicals into the soil. The fast furniture market is largely to blame; badly built sofas from DTC brands like Wayfair aren’t helping.

Shu Bertrand, chair of the industrial design and furniture programs at San Francisco’s California College of the Arts (CCA), says designers must take the lead. “If we’re producers of products, then we have to be responsible. There’s just no other way,” she declares. “The first thing I banned for student use in our studios is anything that is petroleum-based.”

Agoprene, from Barkåker, Norway, has created seaweed-based foam that provides an alternative to polyurethane cushions, a furniture-industry favorite made from crude oil and chemicals. Prowl Studio, from San Francisco, is similarly exploring non-petroleum options with its Peel chair, exhibited in Milan in 2023. Developed by M4 Factory from Woodstock, Illinois, the seat’s frame is made of biopolymers mixed with hemp bast and hurd—byproducts of industrial hemp processing—while its foam cushion and “leather” upholstery are hemp products made by Brooklyn studio Veratate.

When designing sustainably, method can be as important as material. Japan design collective Honoka Lab combines igusa grass from recycled tatami mats and bioplastic resin to 3D-print objects, a process touted for minimizing waste. The studio has printed everything from lamps, to tables, to cabinets. Crafting Plastics, too, prints some of its furnishings; Bertrand is a fan. “3D printing is clearly the winner for a future where our products are less wasteful and recyclable,” she says.

While bioplastics have the appearance of traditional plastics, they’re more similar to materials like wood in that they patina, have texture, and often have an odor that corresponds to their bio-origins, whether seaweed, starch, or something else. “People expect wood to smell, but no one expects plastics to,” says Kubušová. With scent in play, she and Král thought, why not make it an element of the design? In the outdoor courtyard at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami in December, they offered guests a seat on floral-scented bioplastic benches, created as part of a collaboration with Lexus to explore the material as a customization option for a concept car.

Since Crafting Plastics first launched its biomaterial products in 2017, Kubušová feels it’s only now becoming more accepted, both as means of producing furnishings that are being taken seriously and for the industry waste problems it could help solve. At design fairs across Europe and the United States, “we are having more conversations about plastic’s consequences” and how bioplastic can replace fossil fuel-based materials, she says.

Even if these new furnishings promise to last a lifetime, or several, there’s little designers can do when a person’s tastes change and they choose to trade out or discard a piece. This poses a unique challenge to those using biomaterials, since they must also try to solve for consumerist culture. Katherine Lam, an assistant professor and furniture program lead at CCA, sees this as the bigger question. “How can we also shift culture so people can buy fewer and longer-lasting things? This is a seemingly impossible change,” she admits. However, “I think it is a compelling reason for designers and creatives to be closely involved in production—the ‘how’ is as important as the ‘what.’”

When it comes to bioplastics, “scaling these materials is crucial,” adds Kubušová. But for the planet, “we don't have time not to take the chance.”

Top image by Piergiorgio Sorgetti

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