Designer Paul Crofts and furniture brand Isomi aimed to make sofas less wasteful with Tejo, a recyclable system created from natural cork and latex that is launching at Clerkenwell Design Week.
The Tejo system uses cork for the base and backrest of the sofa in place of a typical plywood or metal frame, and latex wrapped in wool wadding for the filling instead of polyurethane foam ? a hard-to-recycle type of plastic containing toxic chemicals.
Paul Crofts designed the Tejo sofa for Isomi
Finished with wool, flax or hemp upholstery, more than 99 per cent of the modular sofa is composed of natural, renewable materials, according to Crofts. The only exception is the thin baseboard on the seat pads, which is made of glue-containing plywood.
The designer also addressed other elements that make conventional sofas much more likely to end up in landfill than at a recycling facility. The design features a base and backrest made of cork
Chief among them is their complex structure, often held together with glue or staples that make it almost impossible to separate one material from another.
Tejo, by contrast, has a simple construction that is easy to disassemble, and all of its fixings are internally visible to aid that process so every element of the couch can ultimately be recycled.
Wool, flax or hemp can be used to upholster the couch
The project posed a significant design problem for the brand, which says that of all the furniture categories, the sofa is "probably the most cha...