Material Matters returns for a second year

After a hugely successful debut last year, Material Matters returns to the Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf, for London Design Festival between 20-23 September. 

The event features world-class brands, manufacturers, designers and makers, a talks programme and installations focused on celebrating the importance of materials in design.

Material Matters 2023 occupies all five floors of the iconic London venue within the Bankside design district. It investigates and spotlights leaders across design working to develop new and innovative ways of using materials and illustrating why material intelligence is so important to our future.

Visitors will experience a spectrum of expertise, innovation and products reflecting the future of design. At the entrance, Danish textile designer Tanja Kirst demonstrates the beauty of combining orange peel, seaweed and hemp into textiles without compromising aesthetics. Along with this year’s headline sponsor, Bert Frank, the Planted installation sets the tone.

Further into the building, visitors will experience displays by innovators and experimentalists whose practice is at the cutting edge of materials and products, some straight from research laboratories. The floor above includes a room dedicated to Hydro, the global aluminium manufacturer, including the London debut of the Bello! bench by Lars Beller Fjetland. Clean-tech start-up The Tyre Collective will demonstrate its process for capturing and re-constituting rubber particles.

The third floor is dedicated to market ready, cleverly designed products that have a material focus. It will play host to a wide range of companies, makers and manufacturers, including a significant area curated by the Milan platform Isola, with a selection of designers from across its international community.

The fourth and top floor is a spectacular 50-metre-long loft containing the event’s talk space and a roster of designers, makers and smaller manufacturers working in various materials. 

The line-up will include HagenHinderdael, Mixed Metals, BC Joshua, and Solidwool featured in 2022’s event. They will sit alongside brands new to the event such as Novavita Design; Ana Bridgewater; The Wicker Story; Goldfinger; Planq; Regular Concrete, and Yair Neuman. 

Meanwhile, the Wood Awards exhibition will showcase the buildings, furniture and products shortlisted for the Wood Awards 2023 at gallery@oxo, adjacent to Bargehouse. The shortlist will provide a window onto the way timber can transform and enrich our lives and contribute to positive change in the built environment, with exceptional wood-centric work from some of the UK’s most interesting contemporary architects, designers and makers.

Material-Matters

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