Material Matters with Grant Gibson

Corin Mellor is the creative director of David Mellor Design – a brand that is synonymous with his father, David, but also the design and manufacture of beautiful cutlery, primarily made of stainless steel.  According to Sir Terence Conran, David was ‘Britain’s most serious, modest and greatest post-war product designer’, who created everything from bins to bus stops before concentrating on cutler...

Nicola Turner is a UK-based artist who is best known for her use of horsehair and wool in her extraordinary, and often quite dark, sculptures. She originally trained as a theatre designer – working for the likes of the National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, and the Sydney Opera House – before doing a Fine Art MA in her fifties.  Since then, her work has featured in a string of locations – mo...

Dublin-based architect John Tuomey first appeared on Material Matters in 2024 to talk about his brilliant memoir, First Quarter. Now he’s written the follow-up, unsurprisingly entitled, Middle Quarter.  John is the co-founder of O’Donnell + Tuomey. He was the inaugural professor of Architectural Design at University College Dublin and visiting professor at Princeton, Harvard and Yale. Over the yea...

What if the materials a building needs are already sitting in a skip down the road? Joel de Mowbray, founding director of Yes Make, joins Grant Gibson to explain how a regenerative design and build practice rescues high-quality construction materials from landfill — and builds a viable business around them. Earlier this year, Yes Make joined forces with interdisciplinary design collective Resolve...

Welcome to another summer bonus episode of Material Matters with Grant Gibson, this time in association with Hyosung TNC. In this special episode, Grant talks to the South Korean company’s marketing and sustainability director, Simon Whitmarsh-Knight, about an intriguing new material the company is spending nearly $1bn to develop – a bio-based elastane (or spandex) that has the potential to revolu...

Can algae reshape a global beauty brand's material future? In this special summer bonus episode — recorded live at Aesop's Copenhagen store during 3daysofdesign — Grant Gibson is joined by Rebecca Lawson, Aesop's head of sustainability, and multi-award-winning artist and designer Jessie French, founder of Melbourne-based studio Other Matter. In this episode, we dive into the collabo...

Can a $21 window help a nation survive a war? Harry Blakiston Houston, founder of Insulate Ukraine , joins Grant Gibson for this landmark 150th episode to discuss how a simple double-layer window — made from PET and manufactured entirely in Ukraine — is helping families stay warm, creating local employment, and offering a sense of normality in a country shattered by Russia's invasion. In this...

Can imperfection reshape modern industry? Hella Jongerius — one of the most influential designers of her generation, and one of the field's sharpest critical voices — joins Grant Gibson to discuss craft, colour, and her enduring fascination with the messy edges of mass production. In this episode, we dive into the politics of materials and the discipline of long-term collaboration. We discuss...

Can a needle and thread mend more than fabric? Ceramic artist Leah Jensen joins Grant Gibson to discuss the radical pivot in her practice after a brain cancer diagnosis — and how stitching became a daily act of survival, documentation and repair. In this episode, we explore making as medicine and the quiet power of slow, analogue craft. We discuss: Renaissance Patterns : The unexpected art-histori...

Can we actually recycle cigarette butts, dirty nappies, and coffee pods? Tom Szaky, founder of TerraCycle and the reuse platform Loop, joins Grant Gibson to reveal how 'Material Intelligence' can turn global rubbish into a viable business. In this episode, we dive into the economics of waste and the design of a circular future. We discuss: The ‘Milkman’ Model : How Loop is bringing back...

Can a communication designer change the global conversation on rubbish? Sophie Thomas OBE—a rare blend of campaigner, chartered waste manager, and practicing designer—joins Grant Gibson to discuss her extraordinary, three-decade journey at the vanguard of sustainable design. In this episode, we explore how ‘material intelligence’ and circular design thinking can inform activism. We discuss: Graphi...

Can a discarded pair of jeans become a luxury item? Anna Foster, founder of the sustainable fashion brand ELV Denim, has saved thousands of garments from landfill by proving that they can. She joins Grant Gibson to discuss how ‘material intelligence’ is redefined in the world of high fashion. In this episode, we dive into the complex water footprint of denim and the design of a regenerative fashio...

Can seaweed eradicate single-use plastic? Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez, co-founder of the award-winning packaging company Notpla, joins Grant Gibson to discuss the rapid rise of one of the world’s most exciting alternative materials. In this episode, we dive into the history of seaweed as a resource and the technology of material replacement. We discuss: The Earthshot Prize : How a student project in a...

Can a multi-disciplinary designer turn agricultural and industrial waste into raw materials for creativity? Shubhi Sachan, founder of the Material Library of India, joins Grant Gibson to discuss unlocking the potential in India's complex waste landscape. In this episode, we dive into the global and local impact of waste. We discuss: The Material Library of India : Establishing a new center fo...

Carole Collet is professor in Design for Sustainable Futures at Central Saint Martins. She is also director of Maison/0, the CSM – LVMH creative platform for regenerative luxury and co-director of the Living Systems Lab, a research group at the same university.  During 2000, she founded the Textile Futures course at CSM, which went on to become Material Futures and has spawned a string of brillian...

This episode of Material Matters is as much about an object as it is a material. Tom Broughton is the founder of Cubitts, a modern spectacles company based in London’s Kings Cross. The company started in 2013 from his kitchen table and has grown to 20 stores across the UK and US, serving 250,000 customers across 100 countries. It offers frames in a number of materials – such as stainless steel and...

Brodie Neill is a Tasmanian-born but London-based furniture designer, who has made a name for himself by creating pieces from waste and reclaimed materials. In 2016, for example, he represented Australia at the inaugural London Design Biennale with his exhibition entitled, Plastic Effects. In it, he showcased the Gyro Table, with a top made of fragments of recycled ocean plastic that had been salv...

James Fox wears a couple of hats. He is director of studies in History of Art at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and creative director of the Hugo Burge Foundation.  As well as that he is a BAFTA-nominated broadcaster and an author with a brand new book out. Craftland: A Journey Through Britain's Lost Arts & Vanishing Trades is his journey through Britain to discover the craftspeople that lit...

Bonnie Hvillum is a Danish designer and founder of Natural Material Studio, which, as the names suggests, makes its own materials using natural resources and various waste streams.  Working at the meeting point between material science, art and design, the studio creates products, installations, exhibitions and research projects, working with clients such as adidas, Calvin Klein, Noma, Dinesen, Co...

Simon Terry is the brand and marketing director, as well as owner (or as he prefers to describe himself, custodian), of the lamp company, Anglepoise, a product that has genuine claims to iconic status. Initially designed by George Carwardine in the 1930s and manufactured by Herbert Terry & Sons, over the years, the product has been used by the likes of Queen Elizabeth II, David Lloyd George, P...

Lulu Harrison is a researcher and maker in sustainable material development. She creates glass pieces that have often been inspired by ancient making techniques, working with local and waste resources.  Over the years, she has collaborated with historians, material scientists, and artists to create ‘geo-specific’ glass. Lulu has recently won the Ralph Saltzman Prize for her project Thames Glass –...

Robin Givhan is the Washington Post ’s senior critic-at-large, writing about politics, race and the arts. She won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2006 and is the author of The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History .  Her latest book is entitled Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh , which charts the life of the la...

Sabine Marcelis is a Rotterdam-based designer and artist who, in her own words, is ‘forever in search of magical moments within materials’. She’s probably best known for her work in glass, resin and stone, which often plays with light and water.  However, most recently, she has been part of R100, a project with Hydro, which asks a group of internationally renowned designers to create pieces from 1...

David Venables is the European director for the American Hardwood Export Council. Over the last 20 years, the organisation has created an array of extraordinary installations, sculptures and products – working with the likes of Alison Brooks, Waugh Thistleton, Heatherwick Studio, Jaime Hayon, Benedetta Tagliabue, and Stefan Diez to name just a few – that extoll the virtues of wood in general and U...

Rosa Whiteley is a designer, writer and researcher, who trained as an architect at Manchester School of Architecture and the Royal College of Art.  Subsequently, she has worked within Cooking Sections, the Turner Prize nominated design and art collective, as a project manager and lead researcher and, since 2021, she has been the director of Material Research for CLIMAVORE CIC, which is a long-term...