sustainable interior material - maize veneer
Turning heirloom maize into a sustainable interiors material - TOTOMOXTLE
What makes a sustainable fabric or material?
Specifying healthy materials in an interiors fit-out is an essential component of creation of green buildings, with special focus on flooring, wall coverings and furniture.
For us, a sustainable materials or ‘green’ procurement strategy incorporates thinking from the fields of sustainability, biophilic design and healthy interiors to ensure that the materials going into a space are non-toxic, do not off-gas over time and will therefore not have a negative impact on Indoor Air Quality (a human angle) whilst also minimizing damage to the planet in the process.
Considerations include ‘circularity’ (where does it come from and where does it go at the end of its life), ‘upcycling’ (for example yarn made of ocean plastics), and ‘bio-based’ options such as ‘marine-based’ or ‘plant-based’ materials. There are then sustainably sourced classics such as bamboo, wood, cork and rubber that remain central components of this philosophy.
Inevitably, there are often some hard choices to be made in any discussion around sustainable fabrics and materials. Humans always have a tangible impact on our environment with buildings, there is no way around that, we can however aim to do less harm in the process, at the very least!
In this regard, we council factoring in extraction, production and transportation in any true analysis of a healthy building material to get to a true Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).
A sustainable interiors material made of Mexican corn
Totomoxtle is a project by London-based Mexican designer Fernando Laposse using the husks of heirloom Mexican corn.
Laposse is known for experimenting with the loofah fruit and cochineal insects so is clearly pushing the boundaries of what is possible in sustainable interiors materials!
His maize husk project caught our eye with its purples, reds and cream colour palette, a far cry from the now dominant beige corn used in industrial tortillas, this is all about heirloom corn at the base of Mexico’s gastronomic heritage.
In this sense, industrial corn production, especially that destined for corn syrup, has a lot to answer for. Heirloom maize is in fact a heterogeneous product!
How sustainable is this innovative material?
Laposse goes deep into the sustainability theme here as there is a regenerative agriculture angle at play restoring traditional farming practices as a way to drive revenues to struggling farming communities.
The merciless pressures of big agriculture have driven standardized uniformity via pesticide use and imported GMO corn seeds that have left artisanal maize varieties neglected. Profits for local indigenous farmers growing heritage crops has dropped at the same time.
Since 2016, Tototmoxtle has operated in partnership with the community of Tonahuixtla, a small village of Mixtec farmers and herders in the state of Puebla, reintroducing native seeds as a first step towards restoring some semblance of traditional agriculture crops.
The veneer remains a niche product that has not yet found large-scale distribution so is more of a statement of intent showing what is possible.
Having a social mission behind a material that is inherently sustainable looks to be the Holy Grail for the coming years, we hope to see many more such products coming to market that help support communities while giving back to the land, not just taking from it.