Swedish designers create acoustic panels from renewable peat fibres

First out in a line-up of top Swedish designers, Carina Seth Andersson has designed an acoustic panel made from renewable peat fiber, slowly formed over thousands of years. There is a strong symbolism to the fact that a natural material, formed over a long period of time and under very specific conditions, has the perfect properties to absorb the grinding noise of today.

          Acoustic Art by Nature is a collection of sound absorbers made in peat fiber moss, hemp, wool and recycled paper. Designed by Nordic luminaries such as Monica Förster, Matti Klenell and Carina Seth Andersson for Okko Design, the collection was originally intended to launch at an exhibition initiated by Lidewij Edelkoort in Milan.

“I came across peat fiber moss in Finland a few years ago,” says Okko Design founder Marja-Liisa Okko. “When I was asked to participate in the exhibition at the Salone del Mobile I felt that I wanted to create something completely new.” Peat is made of partially decomposed vegetation, formed in waterlogged, acidic conditions like bogs and mires, where the organic remains slowly accumulate. The finished peat fiber moss has a soft and inviting natural feel, with none of the brittle abrasiveness of many synthetic acoustic boards. It is renewable, can be used outdoors as well as indoors, and has superb sound-absorbing capacity. It was the natural origin and characteristics of the material that attracted Swedish designer Carina Seth Andersson to the project. Her module Rima, inspired by the undulations of corrugated iron, was the first to be launched this autumn. “It was important that the form would work in a single panel at home as well as in rows in a long corridor or on a large wall in an auditorium,” she says. Stay tuned for other panels in hemp, wool and recycled paper, designed by Monica Förster, Matti Klenell, Marie-Louise Hellgren, Amsell Berlin, Johanna Örn and Annemette Beck, to be launched in the coming months. 

Carina Seth Anderssons acoustic panel for Okko design is made from renewable peat fiber.

Designer Carina Seth Anderson with Okko Design founder Marja-Liisa Okko. Her sound absorber is part of the collection Acoustic Art by Nature.