Design matters: How a single idea can help heal the planet

Design matters. It is a phrase often quoted but one that took shape and meaning in May at a gathering of creatives in Istanbul, Turkey organised by LDF, which made history by taking its discussion-leadership event, the Global Design Forum, outside of the UK for the first time. The event not only ignited the city through a series of installations, which were juxtaposed against Istanbul’s breathtaking landmarks and historic neighbourhoods but, from the outset, it brought together designers and architects whose work is making a difference globally on a social and economic scale. Here are two of those stories:

Fernando Laposse

Fernando Laposse, a Central Saint Martins-trained Mexican designer, is known for transforming agricultural byproducts into new sustainable materials. His first forays were with heirloom corn husks, which are made into Totomoxtle, a sustainable, decorative veneer and marquetry material used to produce a collection of desirable, design-led furniture and decors. But this is only one aspect of his work, which has had a significant impact in the corner of the world where he sources his raw materials.

“I collaborate with farmers in Mexico, with my story centering around a little town called Tehuacán. There are only 187 people but it is a very special place because it's at the epicentre of where all the corn in the world originates – they are derived from an ancient variety called Teosinte, developed more than 9,000 years ago,” he says. “It's a desertic area and mindblowing to think that the ancient Mexicans managed to produce so many things in its poor soil, not only corn but tomatoes and avocados."

Laposse first visited the area as a child having been invited to the hometown of Delfino, one of the people who worked in his father’s bakery. It became a summer camp for him and his sister. “I had never seen corn like that in Mexico City - which came in all these incredible colours,” he says of being mesmerised by the area's produce and culture.

His memories are in stark contrast to how corn is used and produced today. “The majority of it isn't really consumed by humans - it is used for artificial flavourings and sweeteners, to feed cattle, and more recently, to make starches for compostable bioplastics, which I think is ridiculous: why plant food to turn it into disposable plastics?” The North American Free Trade Agreement has also had a huge impact, virtually devaluing the price of corn. “I would argue that one of the main factors driving immigration in Southern Mexico is not violence or the search for the 'American dream', it is because the traditional lifestyle is now incompatible with the globalised world,” Laposse says.

This led the designer to seek a new approach: to collaborate with the farmers and a seed bank to reintroduce corn varieties that were lost in the 1990s. “The way to get the community engaged in planting was to create a parallel economy for these varieties,” Laposse explains. “I started to make marquetry - all the colours are directly from the soil and we created continuous surfaces by joining the leaves together like a puzzle, which is then used for furniture and other designs."

Creating a new market for the husks has incentivised farmers to plant ancient varieties of corn and given women – the people who are often left behind without work due to immigration – much needed employment. “These are the people who are going to continue this message to the next generation,” Laposse adds.

The new craft is simple to master. "It was important not to use an existing craft but to create one with a new material and a new generation of craftspeople. We teach them very easy techniques that can be replicated, because they are farmers who have become craftsmen,” says Laposse. “It is interesting to see how design can create value. Farmers are making more money from a single square metre of this material made from only a few husks of corn than a whole ton of grain, the price of which is now criminally low.”

The farmers themselves have become creative by cross-pollinating corn to produce new colour palettes. “It’s a 50-50 partnership. I'm bringing the design innovation but they are bringing the knowledge of cultivation,” Laposse says.

This collaboration, however, has done more than stimulate the market for new design materials. It is impacting the area on an ecological scale. “For the last 10 years we’ve been creating trenches that we dig in lines across the mountain, and in them we plant agave," Laposse explains. "They’re amazing, they basically grow out of rocks with no water. The leaves can be scraped and from that you get these fibres - these are washed and sun-dried and I then make design pieces with them." This approach has sparked regeneration. “Now, there are trees growing with the agave – none of which have been planted," he continues. "Agaves are co-pioneering plants, which create the right conditions for growth." 

In just 10 years there has been a drastic change in the mountains. “They are still in recovery, we are nowhere near done, but this is a design project that shows we should be thinking decades into the future. The agave has started to flower, and they are attracting their main pollinator, the bat. Bats are omnivorous, which means at night they fly down into the corn fields and they eat the insects. So now you have farmers working on two projects but everything is in one ecosystem – one project helps the other.”

The lesson, says Laposse, is that you can’t have environmental sustainability without economic sustainability. “Most reforestation projects stop because they run out of money. It has to be fuelled," he says. This goes hand-in-hand with what he calls social sustainability. “It’s a commitment to the community that spans decades. For my own part, I am still working with Delfino, 30 years after my first trip to his special town.”