Down to earth: Raw materials on show at London Design Festival

The exhibition, Elements of Craft, curated by Lina Kanafani, founder of design retail hub Mint, will host several of Alcarol’s latest pieces.

Andrea Forti and Eleonora Dal Farra, the duo behind the design studio, claim that their work ‘employs processes to preserve natural materials exactly as they appear in their original habitat’. 

To this end, the pieces that they will be exhibiting include Dolomyth, a stool and table made of Dolomite rock, taken from a local abandoned quarry; Undergrowth, a bookshelf made from oak retrieved from the undergrowth of the Dolomite mountains complete with natural mossy edges; and Fisheye, a side table and stool made from Bricola solid oak wood that was once used as a timber pole in Venetian canals and as a result, is scarred with the markings of water, salt and shipworms.

Alcarol’s pieces will be displayed with selected works from more than 30 artists, chosen to highlight the influence of craft in design. 

For more examples of how designers are repurposing materials and using them in original fashions, read our Anti-materials design direction. 

Look out for LS:N Global’s on-the-ground coverage of London Design Festival, which takes place on 13–21 September, in our Seed and Shows sections.