‘Why is it that everyone walks straight to you guys?’, our neighbour at Europe’s biggest design fair asks. Winking, because he knows the answer: the Nature Building Kit stands out. Whereas at most stands people are only allowed to look, they can touch the Nature Building Kit; they are allowed to take the walls, floors and roofs off the modular house, change them and feel and smell the bio-based materials.
The Nature Building Kit is clearly the odd one out here, in the chic Palazzo dei Giureconsulti, better known as “the palazzo with the tower”, just around the corner from the Duomo. All the better that initiator Nicole Uniquole asked us, under the banner of Masterly – The Dutch in Milano, to show what is already possible in terms of modular building with biobased materials.
From architects, interior stylists and designers to builders, students and random design enthusiasts: the audience is curious and the reactions very positive. The terms ‘hopeful’, ‘inspiring’ and ‘beautiful’ are often mentioned. And that is exactly what we want: to show how many beautiful, purely natural materials there already are. And at the same time also what the challenges still are, for instance in scaling up some materials.
Do we sell the materials? No. In that too, we are slightly different from most other exhibitors. We tell the story of biobased building. And we connect the designers of the materials with the builders, so that it doesn’t end with just a nice story but to make this futureproof way of building reality. So hopefully biobased materials will soon be the rule rather than the exception in our homes!
Credits
Concept & Design: Lucas De Man and Pascal Leboucq
The Nature Building Project is a concept by Company New Heroes
The Nature Building Kit is developed in collaboration with NEMO Science Museum, thanks to Bruns
The Nature Building Kit exhibit in Masterly is made possible by:
Dutch Design Foundation, Bruns, HuisVeendam, Pro Suber® and Company New Heroes