During a panel discussion on Sustainability in Architecture at the Pitzhanger, I got to meet Paola from Blast Studios. She presented their work, which involves making furniture and building material, all with discarded coffee cups from London. It was this idea of circularity she spoke about, how they are inspired by nature, where the waste produced by one organism is a resource for another one.

Photos of their furniture, in their projects in London and Belgium, were really fascinating. Their 3D printing technology really made the coffee cups into well designed lampshades and reception desks. They had this design attribute to them, which it wouldn’t have if it was made by some other material. Sort of like how fingerprints are unique to a person, the variation in properties of materials would foster a different design almost.

What they have made is a creative material. I don’t know if this term really exists but what I mean when I say ‘creative materials’ is materials originally designed or evolved for one purpose, but creatively repurposed into new uses, particularly in design, while retaining or enhancing their inherent properties. In the case of coffee cups, they were made to have coffee in and be thrown away. Blast Studios have then devised a way of creatively reusing the waste generated and turning them into building material.

The umbrella of ‘Creative Materials’ encompasses two sets of products. One being man-made and the other natural. Discarded coffee-cups fall into the man-made category where it’s a man-made product, used for another purpose, now being repurposed into building material. This set mostly involves reusing waste generated in our day-to-day lives or in other industries. The other set is natural.

Natural creative materials are materials like Cork, a renewable material harvested from the bark of Cork Trees. The primary function this serves is to protect the tree. It offers fire resistance, water retention and physical protection to the tree. What makes it sustainable is its healing ability, the tree is able to regenerate cork once harvested without harming itself and each tree is able to do this multiple times during its lifetime. Cork has been used as wine stoppers in the wine industry for centuries now. The waste generated in this industry, and Cork in general can be used as a very sustainable building material.

Having studied the possibilities of Cork Construction for my BareBuild Studios project during stage 3 of my architectural studies, it was exciting to walk down Amorim’s Cork stairs at this years Retrofit 24 exhibition at the Building Center.

What makes Cork a good building material is its properties. Namely— elasticity (the ability to compress and expand), water resistance (It has a natural suberin coating that makes it moisture resistant), lightweight (90% of its volume is air) and thermal and acoustic insulation (Barrier to heat, sound and vibration). Cork has that same above-mentioned design attribute, where anything designed with it has a variation, a difference in texture, in its size, in its look and feel, in its design.

The use of all creative materials, be it repurposed coffee cups or cork, man-made or natural have that attribute to them, they dictate some elements in the design of the objects they’re used to make. They have inherent qualities that drive how they are used, from texture to flexibility to variability. Such materials almost lend itself to human-centered or organic design, where the materials give each object a sense of individuality and texture that is different from mass-produced objects. The material's imperfections, variability, and textures make them unique.

This concept of creative materials also sits squarely within discussions on circularity and the circular economy. Blast Studios’ repurposing of coffee cups perfectly exemplifies this, turning waste into a resource, mimicking nature’s closed-loop system, where nothing is truly wasted. Building on this, the idea of using creative materials could be a key component of regenerative architecture, where the materials not only have a low carbon footprint but also contribute positively to the environment through their reuse.

I think all of this makes creative materials really compelling. We can really work with these quirks and co-design with the material. It’s like designing with constraints but these natural or physical limits set by the material can be used creatively. Our designs will all be unique. Our designs will all be humane.

I got to visit Heatherwick Studio’s ‘Making House’ on King Cross during which I bought Thomas Heatherwick’s latest book ‘Humanise’. ‘The Humanise Rule’ proposed in the book by Heatherwick states that “*A building should be able to hold your attention for the time it takes to pass by it.*”

He devises three main mantras for this:

To accept how people feel about a building as a critical part of its function.
Design buildings with the hope and expectation that they will last 1,000 years.
Concentrate a building’s interesting qualities at the two-meter door distance.

While I regard the three mantras very highly, I’m going to focus on the third one for now.

The two-meter distance represents the point where people experience a building directly, engaging with its details, textures, and materials. At a close range, people are no longer perceiving the overall form or grand gestures of a building, but instead, they encounter its tactile qualities, the way light interacts with surfaces, the texture of materials, and the intricacies of craftsmanship. This is when architecture becomes intimate and personal.

Creative materials, when used in a building, offer a rich, tactile, and visual experience that can captivate at that two-meter distance.

Texture and variability: When someone touches or sees these materials up close, their irregularities, imperfections, and organic qualities create a more authentic and personal connection than synthetic, uniform materials would. At the two-meter scale, these imperfections become a source of fascination.
Tactility and Material Experience: Creative materials often carry a sense of tactility that enhances the sensory experience. These materials make a building feel more approachable, engaging and more human especially at that intimate two-meter threshold.
Visual Uniqueness and Identity: Each piece of furniture, surface, or structural element made from creative materials is slightly different, often due to the recycling or natural growth process. They can never be exactly the same.
Imperfections: In mass-produced, industrial materials, uniformity is often the goal, which can make things feel impersonal and sterile. Creative materials, by contrast, embrace their imperfections, making their use in objects less imposing and more organic.

As I reflect on this and start to think of all the possibilities this opens up, I'm filled with hope. This feels like the right direction for the built environment and the world we live in now. But even as I write, I’m reminded that I’ve yet to step into the practice myself. I’m still on the sidelines.

In a way, though, my simple act of stuffing a leftover pancake with chicken—reinventing it as a makeshift bao bun (I called it a pao-bun) for lunch, mirrors the very creativity and resourcefulness I’m talking about. It's a small, personal gesture of reuse, but it speaks to the larger mindset we need. Just like my playful reimagining of breakfast, we can find joy and purpose in rethinking what’s possible, whether in the kitchen or in the structures we build. This journey of reimagining and repurposing is worth pursuing. Cheers to a world that thrives on possibility and reinvention.

Designing with creative materials

Architecture for the people