Normann Copenhagen, which is exploring environmentally friendly materials, introduces the Mat chair collection made from hemp and eelgrass
Since its founding in 1999, Danish furniture brand Normann Copenhagen has worked to push the boundaries of traditional design. Its latest venture, the Mat collection (short for materials), successfully embodies this spirit, blending plant-based material innovation with a strong commitment to circular design principles.
This new line of contemporary office chairs, designed by Danish studio Foersom & Hiort- Lorenzen and developed with support from the Danish Technological Institute, employs hemp and eelgrass, a type of seaweed, instead of injection-moulded plastic to create the shells, which sit on powder-coated steel legs.
These biomaterials were chosen for their positive environmental impacts and aesthetic appeal. “What’s great about hemp is that it’s a rapidly growing crop that can be harvested once or twice a year. It requires minimal water, no inputs of pesticides or fertilisers, it has benefits for soil health and the entire plant can be used for different industries,” explains Søren Stryhn Petersen, Normann Copenhagen’s chief technology officer and the project’s lead on product development. The collection uses hemp stems rather than leaves, which are sourced from farms that would otherwise treat this part of the crop as agricultural waste.
The version with eelgrass uses a majority mix of milled hemp fibres combined with the dried seaweed, collected after it washes up on the Danish coast. The highly durable eelgrass is carbon negative and has historically been used as a roofing material. “We wanted to offer two different colour options, but without compromising on the whole purpose of the collection, which was to use natural, abundant, non-toxic and CO2-absorbing materials,” continues Petersen. The hemp chair has a warm, golden tone, while the eelgrass edition has a muted brown colour with a grainy expression.
The collection’s design has been decades in the making. In the late 1990s, Peter Hiort- Lorenzen embarked on a project to develop chairs made from cellulose material, aiming to create a viable substitute for plastic. He presented his first chair prototypes in 2005, but it wasn’t until 2008 that the studio started experimenting with hemp.
Years of rigorous research and development was undertaken to ensure that the shell would meet European testing standards for strength, stability and durability, and this timeline highlights the challenges of pioneering new production techniques, gaining specialised knowledge and building industry expertise in an area with little existing precedent. “The hemp material we have developed in collaboration with Normann Copenhagen is more responsible, a lot sturdier and with a higher aesthetic appeal than any of the previous prototypes,” says Hiort-Lorenzen.
Production involves shredding and sorting the milled hemp and eelgrass fibres and combining with a ‘bico’ binder to transform the mix into sheet materials. These are then compressed into the three-dimensional form of the shell and cut to size, before being hand-sanded and oiled with a VOC-free linseed oil. “Our original aim was to use a bio-based binder, and we worked hard getting this to work for years,” explains Petersen.
“However, the current knowledge within bio-based binders isn’t advanced enough to meet requirements.” In addition, circularity was an important consideration throughout the process, and using a bio-based binder meant that the chair wouldn’t be able to be recycled. “So, we ultimately chose to use a fully recyclable bico [synthetic] binder instead, ensuring a durable design with the potential for a circular lifecycle.”
Normann Copenhagen is taking its end-of-life responsibilities seriously and Petersen highlights the company’s new take-back scheme, launched alongside the Mat collection. “We’ve introduced a system that allows us to disassemble and recycle the chairs – both the shell and the steel legs – at the end of their life. Production waste is also shredded and recycled into new chairs, reinforcing our zero-waste philosophy.”
The Mat chair comes in various forms including a dining chair with two shell types, with or without upholstery, bar stools in different heights, and bar chairs with optional armrests. Customers can choose between a hemp shell or one enhanced with eelgrass, with steel bases in classic black or cream finishes.
To ensure that their claims are transparent and supported by data, Normann Copenhagen commissioned lifecycle screening start-up Målbar to measure the impact of the new collection. Petersen shares: “The results show that the Mat dining chair emits approximately 24kg CO2e [carbon dioxide equivalent] from production to disposal, about half of what our equivalent polypropylene chairs emit. This achievement validates our approach and underlines that we’re onto something important. We strongly believe that this is the direction the furniture industry is headed towards.”
Images courtesy of Normann Copenhagen
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