Design duo Foersom & Hiort-Lorenzen has worked with furniture brand Norman Copenhagen on a collection of plant-based chairs, unveiled today as part of Stockholm Design Week.
The Mat collection features two chairs; one is made from hemp ? a type of cannabis plant, and the other combines this material with eelgrass, a marine plant similar to seaweed.
These biomaterials were used instead of injection-moulded plastic to create a shell chair, which sits on powder-coated steel legs.
The hemp chairs have a golden tone, while the eelgrass chairs are brown
On show at Norman Copenhagen's showroom throughout Stockholm Design Week, the Mat chairs mark the brand's first foray into the world of bio-based plastics.
Jan Andersen, co-founder and CEO, said it forms part of "a commitment to explore new, innovative production methods". "When Foersom & Hiort-Lorenzen approached us with their hemp chair project, we were immediately curious," he said.
Foersom & Hiort-Lorenzen has been developing the project for over 20 years
The design has been decades in the making.
Peter Hiort-Lorenzen, co-founder of Copenhagen-based Foersom & Hiort-Lorenzen, first became interested in using plant fibres as a substitute for plastic in furniture in the late 1990s.
The studio presented its first chair prototypes in 2005, but it wasn't until 2008 that it started trialling the use of hemp.
"Now, some 20 years later, the hemp material we have developed in collaboration with ...