Add “Furniture” to All the Things You Can Make With Seaweed

Here is a brief list of some of the wonderful things you can make with seaweed:

1. Sushi

2. Kosher gelatin

3. Fertilizer

4. A decent water filter

Seaweed: already so useful! Now one Danish designer pair is harnessing the power of the oceanic plant to make sustainable home furnishings. The Terroir Project is a collection of chairs and lamps by Jonas Edvard and Nikolaj Steenfatt that is not only produced by seaweed but inspired by the sea as well. Edvard and Steenfatt say they’ve engineered a “tough and durable material” developed from a combination of seaweed and recycled paper waste.

“It is best described as a warm and tactile surface with the softness of cork and the lightness of paper which can be used for products and furniture,” they write on their site. “The colour of the material is determined by the different species of seaweed – ranging from dark brown to light green.”

Edvard and Steenfatt collect the seaweed from Denmark’s extensive seaside and then hang it out to dry. They then pound it into powder and cook it into a thick, pulpy glue—this is where the paper waste is added and the resulting substance is molded into future.

"The first thing people do is to smell the object," Edvard told Dezeen. "They just stick their nose into the material, like having a breath of fresh air. After realising it is made from seaweed people are very excited that something considered useless and smelly can be used to create sustainable furniture."