Terrazzo lampshade casts a refreshing glow thanks to recycled plastic

We all look to lamps and other lighting fixtures not just to illuminate but also to set an atmosphere, but most of the time it isn’t the light itself that creates this effect. More often than not, it’s the lampshade, shield, or any other material that reflects, refracts, and diffuses the light in interesting and sometimes mesmerizing ways that can dazzle and even affect our moods. Most of the time, those lamp shields are made of glass, metal, or plastic, but there are other, more interesting alternatives available. This particular design, for example, not only uses a sustainable material, it also gives it a distinctive spin that makes not only the shade but also the light it throws a sight to behold.

Designer: Fuhua Wang, Weichih Chen

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It’s not uncommon these days to see recycled plastics being used for design, and a particularly big source is ocean-bound plastic, including PET bottles, bags, and more. Most of the time, the pellets produced from breaking down plastic material are colored to match the requirements of a specific design, but the Ondina sustainable pendant lighting preserves some of the properties of the properties of plastic materials to create a more interesting appearance.

The result is a material that looks similar to terrazzo that is often used in tiles for flooring and walls. The small bits and pieces of color give the translucent blue layer some vibrancy, though it could also be a representation of the pollution that litters the oceans. Coincidentally, or perhaps intentionally, the lamp shield actually has a wavy shape, not unlike the waves of bodies of water.

The pendant lamp itself is actually pretty simple, just an LED aluminum tube hanging from a ceiling by its two ends. The lamp shade is placed some distance above the tube, giving ample space for the light to diffuse and spread rather than being reflected directly by the material. This creates a bluish glow not only around the lamp but also on the ceiling as it passes through the translucent shield. The color is soft and calming, even with a pure white LED, but it also still reflects enough of that bright light so that the lamp functions as more than just a mood lamp, sufficiently illuminating the space around it.

Every part of Ondina is designed to be sustainable and extensible, applying the lamp shade to more than just a pendant lamp. It can be used for wall or floor lamps as well, just with some modification of the design. More importantly, the simple components make it trivial to replace parts that are broken, prolonging the life of the product and preventing it from adding to the waste already swimming in our waters.

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Terrazzo side table concept seems to tempt fate and defy the laws of physics

Tables come in all shapes and sizes, but regardless of the design, they all need to have a single critical trait: they have to be stable. No matter how breathtaking a table might be, it is nothing but a piece of art if it comes crashing down under the lightest of weights. Stability can be achieved through many means, but for something like a coffee table or even a side table, that mostly means having a flat surface that doesn’t wobble or, more importantly, doesn’t tip over. That’s the behavior that people have come to expect from even the most beautiful table, which is why this side table concept is striking both for its elegant looks as well as its rather worrying composition that precariously balances the tabletop on a curved surface, or at least it would seem like it.

Designer: Stuart Cole

Objects that boggle the mind and seem to defy the laws of physics have always been a fascination for us, which is probably why balancing toys or levitating speakers have always been popular products. That, however, doesn’t apply to furniture, especially ones that we expect to be stable or fixed. Seeing a table that’s about to topple over is enough to give some people a heart attack, but fortunately, that’s not the case for the aptly named “Balance” side table design concept.

The table’s form is actually pretty simple, utilizing basic geometrical shapes like a disc and cups. It’s the tension between these shapes, however, that gives Balance its dynamic and rather unstable appearance. It’s almost as if the circular tabletop would topple and fall off the upside-down bowl shape of its base, or that the cup would similarly fall over the edge and break. Of course, it’s all just an illusion because all three parts are joined using interlocking mechanisms that prevent them from falling apart, at least not without much effort.

Balance’s appeal doesn’t stop at its eye-catching shape. Its unique appearance is due not only to the use of terrazzo but also from employing recycled materials. This gives the side table not only a distinctive visual character but also a sustainable narrative that will surely be a topic of conversation for envious visitors. You might even be tempted to use it as a coffee or center table, rather than just leaving it off to the side, though that temptation might also be tempered by unfounded worries that the table will eventually become unbalanced and send your cups and books crashing down.

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Odd planter concept lets you enjoy observing your plants grow in a fun way

Different people tried to cope with the pandemic quarantine in different and sometimes creative ways. While some were content to catch up with their TV shows and games, others took up new hobbies to while away the time. One of the more popular ones seems to have been growing plants indoors, which is not totally new but also not something adopted by the masses. Even here, there’s a variety of goals and purposes to indoor gardening, though a majority seems to have been focused on the more aesthetic benefits of having lush, green living things inside the home. Ironically, these people seldom go out of their way to grow those plants in equally aesthetic pots, something that this design concept tries to solve right from the start.

Designer: Adrian Min

You can’t just use any container to serve as a plant pot, of course, regardless of how pretty that container might be. There are a few factors to consider to allow a plant to thrive and survive, which is often what informs the design of a planter. These more functional planters, however, aren’t what you’d always call presentable, definitely nothing you’d proudly display on your table or shelf. That doesn’t have to be that way, though, and this “Odd Pot” concept marries form and function in a way that looks not only appealing but also playful.

It’s definitely an odd one for a pot, though mostly because of its unconventional shape. It comes as a tall bowl that stands on three short tapered legs. Instead of a typical brown clay, the pot seems to be made from some terrazzo material, probably ceramic. A removable disc knob juts out from the pot’s back and is the primary mechanism for its highlight feature.

This feature comes in the form of a half capsule that adds something interesting to the presentation while also giving the viewer a different way to look at the plant in the pot. This “cover” is made from glass but has different textures as well as transparencies. One is completely smooth and transparent, while another is smooth yet frosted. Perhaps the curious one is the ribbed clear glass that adds an interesting play of light with its reflections and refraction.

While the Odd Pot retains pretty much the exact same function of a regular planter, its form takes the presentation to the next level. With its stumps for legs and an “arm” that extends from its body, it almost looks like an anthropomorphic version of a planter. It might even remind some of the “sus” characters from a popular game from the past year or two. Granted, the pot’s design isn’t going to be conducive to all kinds of plants, particularly the ones that grow tall or wide. But for most succulents, it will do just fine and will even add a bit of character to your plant decoration.

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Flek Pure is a translucent terrazzo-like panel made from 100% recycled materials

Although many people know about the benefits of using products made from recycled materials, few actively seek them out. The only times they do buy something that uses recycled materials is when it’s actually part of a bigger whole, and they have no choice on the matter. There are many presumptions and misconceptions about the quality of recycled products, which may have been true decades ago. Fortunately, designers, science, and technologies have moved forward since then, breaking the mold of what you can expect from recycled materials. This translucent resin-like material, for example, is so eye-catching and beautiful that you might not believe that it’s 100% made from bits and pieces that would have otherwise been thrown away.

Designer: 3form

Back in the day, you could easily tell recycled paper from virgin paper with a single look. Recycled paper is often rough and brown or gray, properties that are unappealing and sometimes even unusable in some applications. That’s no longer true today, of course, but there are still some things that are difficult to pull off when using recycled materials. Most products using recycled materials, for example, are often opaque, which is what makes this striking material even more impressive.

Flek Pure is a resin-like material for use as panels in doors, partitions, decorations, and anywhere else you would need a durable and sustainable slab that would be a stand-in for glass or fiberglass. The “Pure” variant, specifically, looks like frosted glass with a few random specs of colors that give it a terrazzo-like character. Like frosted glass, it is translucent, and you can make out shapes and shadows behind the panel, creating an interesting visual that still maintains your privacy.

That translucency is a rare trait among materials made from recycled bits, especially one that’s 100% recycled, like Flek Pure. The company uses a unique and meticulous process that creates pellets from internally sourced waste or upcycled materials and then sorts these pellets according to their clarity and cleanliness. This is how the translucent appearance is achieved, and the bits that aren’t so clear are still used to create the “imperfections” that give Flek its terrazzo aesthetic. Nothing is wasted, which makes Flek Pure an excellent solution for environment-conscious designers.

Of course, not everyone will find Flex Pure’s clear whiteness always appealing. There are other colorways available as well, which all maintain that translucent quality. The addition of color, however, does pull the sustainability a bit down to using only 92% recycled material, but it’s still a significant win, especially compared to opaque or muddy panels that use even less recycled parts.

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Made from eggshell fragments, these bioceramic tiles are designed to mitigate the effects of biowaste

CArrelé is a collection of high-performance bioceramic tiles made from a mixture of eggshell fragments and binding agents.

When considering waste, eggshell usually isn’t the first thing to come to mind. On a yearly basis, 250,000 tons of eggshell biowaste are produced worldwide. However, the eggshell’s renewable and bioceramic properties are what set it apart from other ceramic materials for Elaine Yan Ling Ng, who took eggshell scraps and transformed them into bioceramic tiles.

Designer: Elaine Yan Ling Ng x Nature Squared

In contrast to traditional ceramic and porcelain tiles, eggshell naturally absorbs carbon dioxide and works as an organic, absorbent decarbonating filter that separates carbon dioxide from industrial gases. Elaine Yan Ling Ng, Chief Innovator of Nature Squared, introduced CArrelé, a collection of high-performance, eggshell-based tiles that take on different hues and gradients depending on the additives used.

Collected from local bakeries and kitchens in the Philippines, Nature Squared then crushes the eggshells into tiny fragments and forms them into cured tiles reminscienct of terrazzo. The fragments range in size, measuring anywhere between a grain of sand to three millimeters, creating an irregular, asymmetrical speckled look.

To make the finished tiles, the fragments are combined with a binding agent and shaped into tiles that take on a variety of different shapes. From there, the tiles are left to cure at room temperature.

Taking Easter egg dyeing to the next level, Nature Squared relies on an array of different dye methods. To achieve an earthy, rustic look, the eggshell fragments are “toasted,” to run the gradient of the color brown, moving from a rich cream to a dark burnt look. The eggshells also absorb natural dyes well, including indigo, chlorophyllin, and madder.

CArrelé was initially inspired by the use of eggshells in the medical industry, as Ng recognized their calcium-rich makeup that lends to their natural durability. While Ng’s eggshell-based tiles are ideal for kitchen backsplashes and bathroom walls for their cleanability and waterproof properties, the collection of bioceramics ultimately prevents biowaste from ending up in landfills.

Once the eggshell fragments are combined with a binding agent, they are shaped into tiles. 

Eggshells have a calcium-rich material that makes them a durable choice for building material. 

Their waterproof and easy-to-clean properties make eggshell-based tiles an ideal choice for bathroom walls and kitchen backsplashes. 

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Tiny ceramic planters that can be pinned create fun, customizable planters for WFH offices

Flora is a WFH wall accessory that combines an organizational cork pinboard with hanging planters molded from jesmonite.

With WFH orders sending us to the far reaches of our bedrooms-slash-offices, there’s never been a better excuse to accessorize. New designs for organizers, stationary, and desks have redefined what working from home could look like.

Designer: Préssec Design

Over recent years, designers have created multifunctional WFH appliances by integrating elements like hidden storage units and organizers into appliances like chairs and desks to make the workday at home feel just as efficient as it feels in the office. Today, designers from Sydney-based Préssec Design have developed Flora, a wall garden system that combines a cork pinboard with hanging planters.

Molded from jesmonite, Flora features specks of color for a modern take on terrazzo, a form of composite material originating in 16th-century Italy. Conceived as a passion project during the lockdown, the designers at Préssec Design first made Floria from concrete casting. Once they achieved their desired look for Flora, they turned it up a notch and gave jesmonite a try.

The team of designers chose to work with jesmonite to give the wall garden system a seamless look like each planter was bulging from the corkboard. Merging each planter with the wall behind it, Préssec designers looked to thumbtacks to latch the planters’ corners to the corkboard. These thumb tacks are made up of different colors for users to customize the look of Flora.

While jesmonite gave Préssec designers the chance to experiment with the overall look of Flora, maintaining the concrete casting’s crisp edges was a challenge. Following periods of research and prototyping, the team of designers settled on a silicone mold for the jesmonite casting.

Explaining their process, Préssec designers describe, “It took a lot of experimenting with the ratios of the different aggregates but we got it to a point where we maintained the structure and kept the crisp edges of the design.⁠”

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This sustainable material made from shell waste is cheaper & eco-friendly alternative to concrete!





Each year over 7 million tons of seashells are thrown away by the seafood industry into landfills. Shells are not biodegradable and have a very high disposal cost which harms the environment as well as the restaurant owners. So this innovative, women-run,  material lab called Newtab-22 created Sea Stone – a natural product made from seashell waste that was salvaged from the seafood and aquaculture industries. It is a sustainable alternative to using concrete – one of the biggest producers of carbon emissions – in the making of smaller products.

Sea Stone is made by grinding down shells that are destined for landfills before combining them with natural, non-toxic binders. This grants the material a terrazzo-like aesthetic. The aim is to make it a sustainable alternative to concrete in the design of small-scale products, as the two materials share similar properties. Seashells are rich in calcium carbonate aka limestone, which is used to make cement – a key ingredient of concrete.

The process involves grinding down the shells and mixing them with natural binders. They are then added to a mould and left to solidify into concrete-like tiles. This method is currently carried out manually to avoid the use of heat, electricity and chemical treatments and ensure the process is as sustainable and affordable as possible. It results in variations in the sizes, textures and colours of the shell fragments and means that each piece of Sea Stone is unique. You can get different textures by altering the number of shells, binders, or adding coloured dyes for aesthetics.

“Even though some of the seashells have been recycled and used as fertilisers, the majority of them are being thrown into landfills or by the seaside. The discarded seashells, which are uncleaned or rotten, have not been cleared away at all and they have been piling up near the beach for a long time, thus causing odour pollution and polluting the surrounding land in the long run. Sea Stone proposes the use of discarded seashells to create environmentally and economically sustainable material rather than contributing to the world’s rubbish problem,” explained Newtab-22.

Newtab-22 has experimented with an array of natural binders in the development of Sea Stone, including sugar and agar. It is now reliant on two undisclosed and patent-pending sources. The material is currently being developed for commercial purposes and has so far been used to make products such as decorative tiles, tabletops, plinths and vases.

While the properties of the concrete and Sea Stone are similar, to truly replicate the strength of traditional concrete required in large-scale projects like buildings, an energy-intensive heating process would be required. This would be comparable to the method used to make cement, which accounts for half of all the CO2 emissions that result from using concrete. “The power of the material is different, we do not want to harm the environment in the process or the outcome,” said Hyein Choi, co-founder of the studio.

Sea Stone is versatile, durable and a lightweight alternative to not only concrete but also plastic – it can be used to produce several objects while repurposing waste, reducing carbon emissions of the toxic counterpart materials and keeping the costs low. Time to find that girl who sells sea shells by the sea shore, eh?

Designer: Newtab-22

These Terrazzo Wireless Chargers look like artisanal decorative coasters that can charge your phone!

I guess these Terrazzo Wireless Chargers from Bentu Design put the tech in archi’tech’ture! Designed as a neat fusion of consumer tech and home-decor, Bentu Design’s W10 charger comes with an exterior made from Terrazzo, a unique composite of concrete with marble/ceramic/stone chips suspended within. The terrazzo exterior gives the W10 almost a coaster-like appearance, allowing it to wirelessly charge your phone while acting as a nifty little decorative element on your tabletop.

The W10 charger’s terrazzo exterior uses concrete mixed along with recycled ceramic particles, cement construction waste, quartz fragments, and other crushed stones, most of which are virtually useless. By binding these waste particles into concrete, China-based Bentu Design has perfected the art of repurposing trash and making well-designed products out of terrazzo. Bentu noticed that globalization, and an increased demand for ceramic pieces, had driven a wave of new factories in Chaozhou… creating jobs, but also dramatically increasing the amount of ceramic waste produced. The name ‘Bentu’ translates to ‘native’, as the studio focuses on understanding and using raw materials that are local.

The terrazzo W10 chargers come in 4 colors – white, green, blue, or orange, with ceramic and quartz particles randomly suspended in the concrete. The natural beauty of this randomness makes each X10 unique and one-of-a-kind. Under its bespoke speckled exterior, sits a Qi-compatible charging coil, available in 5, 7.5, and even 10W outputs, and the coil connects to a power source via a discreet USB-C plug located in the charger’s side. Each W10 measures 10mm in thickness, and weighs a mere 210 grams. It’s pretty enough to be mistaken for a coaster, although I’d probably ask you to caution your guests against placing any hot cups filled with coffee/tea on them. There’s no clarity on whether the X10 is waterproof, although I kind of hope it is!

Not only is the X10 made from recycled ceramic/stone scrap, it’s also designed to be repurposed/recycled too. After the wireless charger’s service life is over, the internal circuit board and electronic components can be extracted by gently breaking apart the terrazzo shell. The shell itself can be smashed into chunks and reused in another terrazzo piece, giving it a fresh life altogether. Moreover, to reinforce the X10’s sustainable approach, the wireless charger even comes in fully recycled all-paper packaging.

Designer: Bentu Design