Material Innovation: CoolCork
Crafted from recycled wine corks, this spray upholstery by Dutch innovators Cooloo pushes the boundaries of circular furniture production.
This article first appeared in Mix Interiors #231
Following a hands-on career in furniture manufacturing, Cooloo CEO Leo Schraven founded his business in 2013 with the goal of disrupting and transforming the upholstery industry. Noticing how much of the production chain was becoming longer and more complex, yet with mounting losses and a decline in quality, Schraven’s radical idea began to take shape: coating could be the new upholstering.
Cooloo’s journey began with leather coatings made from waste streams in the Netherlands, where offcuts from the local tannery would previously end up in the incinerator. With the product of these waste streams, Schraven experimented with solvent-based flexible coatings, later developing ‘skins’ that could be applied as a complete coat over furniture frames. The resulting technology, christened ‘Endless Life’, is therefore able to turn local waste materials into bespoke, tactile surfaces of any shape or size, including furniture, walls, floors and ceilings.
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