By Marianna Cerini, CNN

Milan (CNN) — From chairs built with mushroom mycelium and vegan leather sofas to fabrics originating from seaweed, unexpected materials have been slowly making inroads into our homes.

With the industry under pressure to become more sustainable, designers and manufacturers have turned to out-of-the-box alternatives to make products that have a circular lifespan (ie. furniture or other household items that can be re-used, composted and ultimately do not become garbage).

The market for circular home and living will reach up to €45 billion in 2030 (around $51 billion), driven by sustainably produced furniture and home goods containing sustainable materials, according to McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm.

Made from scraps

Earlier in the year, at Milan Design Week — a global event where new products are unveiled and trends are established — circularity and material innovation emerged as central themes.

Design firm Particle, which has studios in New York and Los Angeles, debuted “Parts of a Whole,” a collection of sculptural, Bauhaus-inspired dining room furniture made from repurposed textiles and denim, as well as a tablescape featuring 3D-printed candle holders and rubber accessories crafted from repurposed sneaker soles.

Founded in 2020 by architects Krissy Harbert and Amanda Rawlings, the idea for Particle emerged while both were working on internal design projects at Nike, where they frequently experimented with industrial waste. “We were using leftover materials — Nike has this Nike Grind rubber they use — and we started thinking about where and how else it could be applied,” Rawlings told CNN. Their work with upcycled furniture – particularly using sneaker waste – gained wider attention in 2023 with their “I Got Your Back” chair and stools, made entirely from recycled footwear.

“Rubbers, plastics, footwear waste and recycled textiles hold vastly untapped potential. They are extremely versatile materials, which leaves space for a lot of different creative possibilities,” Rawlings said. “Krissy and I are exploring how to extend their lifecycle — and doing it through homeware people genuinely want to live with.”

Davide Balda, a multidisciplinary designer based in Milan shares a similar sentiment. During the festival, he presented “Telare la Materia,” a project in collaboration with the Benetton Group that transformed unsold garments from the United Colors of Benetton’s Green B line (designed to minimize chemical use in its fabrics) into new raw materials for architecture and design. One proposal in the project turns clay and textile waste into natural tiles and plaster. In another, traditional felt-making techniques are used to create a durable, flexible textile made from synthetic, animal, and plant-based fibers, for home furnishings.

“Telare la Materia is an exploration into more sustainable ways to reduce the textile industry’s environmental footprint and handle production waste locally,” Balda told CNN. “Instead of exporting textile surplus to countries in Africa or South America — as is often the case — we can repurpose it into something meaningful and lasting.”

For Balda, who identifies as an “archeodesigner” — someone whose work centers on finding and creating new sustainable materials, and giving discarded ones new purpose — this approach isn’t just a creative choice, but a moral imperative. “I’m not interested in designing just another pretty lamp,” he said. “Designers today need to challenge systems, rethink materials, and offer scalable, real-world solutions to issues like waste.”

Meanwhile, The New Raw, a Rotterdam-based practice, unveiled a striking collection of outdoor furniture made entirely from recycled plastic sourced from local Dutch waste streams. The pieces are 3D-printed on demand.

“We’re constantly asking ourselves: What does it mean to make something truly lasting in a throwaway world? And how can we design objects that don’t become waste themselves?” one of the firm’s co-founders Foteini Setaki said. “Materials like the ones we use — but also biomaterials and other emerging alternatives — give us the tools to start answering those questions. They’re not just about making things differently, but about reshaping the entire lifecycle of design.”

This new approach must look good, too. “Sustainable storytelling has to go hand-in-hand with beauty,” she said. “It’s important that people are (also) drawn to our products visually, not just because they’re comfortable or align with their values.”

Humble materials, elevated

Some design companies have explored the potential of plant-based materials. Chosen for their renewable nature, durability and biodegradability, they can be attractive alternatives to traditional materials such as wood or plastic.

Polish studio Husarska unveiled their own dining set made from a new natural material, created in collaboration with “The True Green,” which combines hemp and plant-based adhesives. Touted as a sustainable alternative to wood, hemp can sequester 15 to 25 tons of CO2 per hectare annually — significantly more than temperate forests do in a year (they average 2 to 5 tons).

Rockwell Group, a cross-disciplinary architecture and design practice founded by David Rockwell, made the humble cork the star of its exhibition “Casa Cork” — a space crafted almost entirely out of the material, from the interiors to the furniture and lighting fixtures.

The installation featured works by a wide-ranging group of designers, students, and hospitality professionals, each exploring a different creative use for cork. At its core was the mission of Cork Collective, a nonprofit initiative co-founded by the Rockwell Group that collects, recycles, and repurposes cork stoppers from restaurants and hotels across New York City.

“It’s not a flashy material that turns heads… but cork is ripe for reinvention,” Rockwell explained over email. “With Casa Cork, we wanted to create surprise and delight — turning something taken for granted into beautiful, functional objects.”

Cork absorbs CO2 and regenerates every nine years, making it inherently low-impact. And with an estimated 13 billion cork stoppers discarded each year, the material offers a vast — and largely untapped — opportunity for circular transformation.

Other modest materials are also getting a second look. “Enhance” — an exhibition curated by Italian design platform DesignWanted — challenged conventional ideas about what constitutes “worthy” design matter by spotlighting material innovations aligned with seven key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) identified by the World Design Organization. The show featured a striking array of objects made from overlooked or discarded resources — think seashells, storm-felled wood, and un-recycled glass — each reimagined by designers into pieces that were as visually compelling as they were environmentally conscious.

“New materials are opening up different ways of what it means to design today,” said the curator Juan Torres. “They reflect a mindset that sees design as a tool for responsibility — especially for the next generation.”

None of this signals a total industry overhaul, Torres noted, at least not yet. Many of these solutions remain local, small-scale, and in the early stages of adoption. “Big brands are paying attention, but they’re still slow to act,” he said. “The real change is coming from the ground up.”

But while it might take a few more years to see them go fully mainstream, “the shift is underway,” Torres said. “And it’s gaining speed.”

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