If you want to cover a wall in interesting plant material or get a chair moulded out of it or even a lampshade made from it, then look no further than this company based in Austria. ORGANOID® produces 100% biodegradable material from ‘renewable resources’ that designers can then fashion into new and exciting objects. A company video (see below) demonstrates how they get from raw materials to curved objects via a balloon, plastic sheeting and some squeezing. Unfortunately can’t understand much of the detail, as all in German, but rather informative all the same. The natural fibre used – eg rose, nettle, coconut, cattail – plus a natural binder, together will determine things such as strength or insulation properties of the resulting material. If we leave all that detail to one side and instead just look at the close-up images of the end result, what we find are ready-made artworks. Plants even when chopped up and compressed create textures, details and patterns to behold.
