Sustainable DÉcor

Sustainable living has been on the uptick for several years, and it’s finally infiltrating home design. “Sustainability is finally starting to scale, and is not just for liberal do-gooders or eco-conscious warriors,” says trend forecaster Lisa White, director of lifestyle and interiors at WGSN as well as head curator at Biennale International in Saint-Etienne in France.

Consumer avoidance of single-use plastic, for instance, will make its way into interiors, according to White.  “We will increasingly see plastic being treated as a precious material, like Dirk Vander Kooij’s beautiful side table made out of recycled CDs, or ecoBirdy’s recycled plastic children’s chairs. [Berlin-based start-up] Pentatonic’s contemporary designs are super sophisticated, and entirely recycled. In 2019, sustainable designs will be aesthetically desirable, not just sustainable,” she says.

White also says that natural materials such as wood will become more present, “warming up homes and counteracting pervasive technology with influences that range from Scandinavian to Japanese, or ‘Scandinese’, as we call it.” It has to be sustainably sourced timber, of course, and the materials must be biodegradable.

Sustainable fabrics, like animal-free leather and worm-free silk are also gaining popularity in 2019. Even without these examples, people are becoming increasingly concerned with how and where and by whom interior products are made so sustainability and ethical product are topping the list for many in the interior design world. “Making a shift towards products that are either recycled, or able to be recycled is a responsibility as much as it is a preference.”

—
Photo Credit: Rawpixel.com / Shutterstock.com