Material Matters with Grant Gibson
In Material Matters, host Grant Gibson talks to a designer, maker, artist, architect, engineer, or scientist about a material or technique with which they’re intrinsically linked and discovers how it changed their lives and careers.
Follow us on Instagram @materialmatters.design and our website www.materialmatters.design
Material Matters is produced and published by Delizia Media Ltd.
Episodes
147 episodes
Recycling the Unrecyclable with Tom Szaky of TerraCycle
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.<...
Revolutionising waste with Sophie Thomas OBE
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 ...
Upcycling discarded denim with Anna Foster of ELV Denim
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 intelli...
Ending single-use plastic with Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez of Notpla
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 e...
Tackling waste colonialism with Shubhi Sachan of MLI
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 ...
Carole Collet on the magic of mycelium and regenerative design.
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...
Cubitts founder Tom Broughton on acetate and the history of spectacles.
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...
Brodie Neill on ocean plastic (and reclaimed wood).
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 ...
James Fox on his extraordinary journey through Britain's crafts.
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 ...
Bonnie Hvillum on biomaterials and 'redefining wood'.
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 scien...
Anglepoise's Simon Terry on durability, repair and creating an icon.
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...
Lulu Harrison on making glass from the River Thames.
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 collab...
Robin Givhan on her new book, Make it Ours, and how Virgil Abloh changed fashion.
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 Stu...
Sabine Marcelis on recycled aluminium and resin.
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...
AHEC's David Venables on US hardwood forests and using what nature provides.
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, W...
Rosa Whiteley on shells and creating a new building material.
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 desi...
Claudy Jongstra on working with wool and creating her own biodynamic farm.
Claudy Jongstra is a Dutch artist and designer who has become globally renowned for her, often monumental, textile installations and tapestries made from wool. After establishing her studio in Friesland in the Dutch countryside duri...
Tim Minshall on manufacturing, tariffs, silicon, and green hushing.
Tim Minshall is an expert in manufacturing and innovation. He is the inaugural Dr John C Taylor professor of innovation at the University of Cambridge, the head of the Engineering Department’s Institute for Manufacturing and a fellow of Churchi...
Seetal Solanki on olive tree roots, cooking, and why materials matter.
Seetal Solanki describes herself as a materials translator and has been in the vanguard of material thinking since she launched her practice, Ma-tt-er, in 2015. Three years later she produced the hugely influential book, Why Mat...
Callum Robinson on wood and his new book Ingrained.
Callum Robinson makes all sorts of things out of wood, as well as being the creative director of Method Studio, the company he established with his wife, Marisa Giannasi, 15 years ago. In 2024, he published a fascinating, lyrical me...
Neil Brownsword on clay and safeguarding skill.
Neil Brownsword is one of the most intriguing – and uncompromising – ceramic artists currently practicing in the UK. His work is inspired by the de-industrialisation of his home city, Stoke-on-Trent, and, appropriately enough, his career in cer...
Zandra Rhodes on pattern, colour, and textiles.
Zandra Rhodes is one of the most recognisable and influential figures in fashion, as well as the founder of the Fashion and Textile Museum in London. Describing herself as both ‘chaotic’ and ‘fastidious’, she possesses a unique sens...
Aaron Betsky on why architects should stop building (and reuse instead).
Aaron Betsky is a US-based writer, educator and critic, who has served as director of the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Netherlands Architecture Institute, as well as a curator of architecture and design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Ar...
Nicole Rycroft on viscose and her mission to save the world's endangered forests.
Nicole Rycroft is the founder and executive director of the award-winning environmental not-for-profit, Canopy. Since it launched in 1999, the Vancouver-based organisation has worked with more than 950 companies – including Marks & Spencer,...
Mark Hearld on collage.
Mark Hearld is an artist and designer who has a fascination with flora and fauna and has worked in a range of different media – including lithographic and linocut prints, painting, ceramics, textiles and tapestry. However, he is best known for ...