05 Tamara Orjola Designer

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PHOTOGRAPHS PELLE CREPIN

For London-based designer and researcher Tamara Orjola, finding solutions to the growing global need for sustainable products and materials is an integral part of her practice. ‘I find it very hard to label myself,’ she says. ‘So far I’ve been working with very different subjects – social and environmental issues – therefore the material itself is a very important part of my work.’

For a recent project, Forest Wool, she decided to tackle the waste left behind by the timber industry, having first became aware of the problem while researching natural resources that could be used for new materials. ‘We forgot what kind of materials we have all around us. A hundred years ago we would be much more resourceful,’ Orjola says. Growing up in Latvia, she would walk through lush forests of pine, a tree that is native to large parts of Europe and Eurasia. Today it is mostly grown for mass production – and when the trees are cut down tons of pine needles are left behind.

‘I discovered there is a pine fibre that, at the time, no one was using – so I actually had to create techniques to extract it myself,’ she explains. Using methods she adapted from extracting other fibres, Orjola ended up creating a highly versatile material out of pine needles; though Forest Wool can be used in soft forms, such as yarn or felt, it can also be pressed or infused with bio resin to create very durable, hard materials. As Orjola remarks, ‘it has huge possibilities’ – and she envisions it being used in anything from construction, to interiors and the automobile industry.

Though she hopes her project will be taken up by larger industries, its organic roots are important to Orjola. Nature is an integral part of her sustainable thinking. ‘I think that the four elements don’t exist individually – they exist together,’ she says. ‘If you think about my project, the pine tree wouldn’t exist if the seed hadn’t been distributed by fire or wind, planted into soil, fed by sun or rain. It is actually a circle –a whole environmental circle.’ tamaraorjola.com

Tamara Orjola’s Forest Wool project uses upcycled pine needles to produce a versatile raw material, employing extraction processes she developed and adapted herself

The Merchant of Venice’s Rosa Moceniga Eau de Parfum includes notes of Sicilian lemon, blackcurrant, magnolia and lotus

PHOTOGRAPH JURGA RAMONAITE

CRAFT COLLABORATION

Elements of rose

In a unique collaboration between The Merchant of Venice and writer Andrea di Robilant, the essence of the rare Moceniga Rose has been captured in a fragrance…

The story of the Moceniga Rose is a long and fascinating one. Native to the plains of Central China, its name derives from its adopted Venetian family: the distinguished Mocenigos, who still own a historic residence in Alvisopoli, on the mainland of Venice. For more than 200 years, the residence has boasted a unique rose garden, with flowers originally imported from France by Lucia Mocenigo (thanks to her close friendship with Joséphine Bonaparte, the wife of Napoleon, who cultivated the famous rose garden at Malmaison).

One of the stars of that garden, today the flower grows wild in the Venetian countryside, its silverypink petals (with a colour that varies according to the plant’s blooming phases) and fruit-scented aroma adding an exotic element amid the local flora.

Discovering the rose growing wild near Villa Mocenigo on the old farming estate of Alvisopoli, Andrea di Robilant, a writer and the great-greatgreat-great grandson of Lucia Mocenigo, became intrigued by the flower’s history, detailing its origins in his book Chasing the Rose (Sulle Tracce della Rosa Perduta). Now, in a collaboration between Andrea di Robilant and The Merchant of Venice, the fragrance brand has created a scent that captures the essence of this mysterious bloom.

Specifically formulated by a master perfumer using natural, raw ingredients, the Rosa Moceniga Eau de Parfum combines a head note of fresh Sicilian lemon, essence of Moceniga Rose and blackcurrant highlights; a floral heart note of rose absolute, magnolia and lotus flower; and a soft base note of musk, white cedarwood, vanilla absolute, and a sprinkling of amber crystals.

The project also includes an exclusive film specially commissioned to celebrate the elements of sensual, fresh beauty that make up this unique flower…

Rosa Moceniga, 50ml (€90), 100ml (€132); themerchantofvenice.com

INTERVIEW

Designing the future: naturally

A self-styled designer and change-maker, Natsai Audrey Chieza works at the intersection of design, biology and technology. Here, she spells out her vision for a future led by sustainability and the questions it throws up…

PORTRAIT TOBY COULSON

Natsai Audrey Chiesa creates dyes from micro-organisms, in an attempt to find an answer to sustainability.

On ‘biofabrication’

I’m not a biologist – for me it is about understanding what it is to make with living matter. That is, to cross-translate something that’s happening on a Petri dish with the expectations that, as a designer, you might have around the materiality of something – and what it becomes.

I’ve been working at these different intervals of scale – from the molecular to the human – so that these learnings can be consolidated into a design-centred approach: how do we integrate all that knowledge to be able to make sure that whatever biology is being designed is actually good design? We have the tools to make anything – but what are we going to make?

On the difficulties of designing with living organisms

I approached the making side working with one organism – Streptomyces coelicolor, which produces pigment. It was very difficult to work with a living organism. There are so many decisions to make, so many variables that are invisible – because you are dealing with something that is microscopic, but also invisible to us in the sense that you don’t have the language system to be able to understand what might be happening (because you aren’t a trained biologist).

So how as a designer do you gain insight as to what is going on? How do you start to create a framework in order to be able to actually make something? So that’s what I spent a long time getting really good at: practising and creating the vocabulary to describe what is craft in this context.

On the new value systems of bio design

If it takes seven days to grow a dye onto a textile – would we want to then just throw that away? Do we want any off-cuts of that fabric? How do we design a garment so there are no off-cuts? Every single milligram of this dyestuff is precious and should not be wasted. So that ethos means looking at a whole new system of production. How do we start to pave a path towards some kind of sustainable approach towards design? And is biology the way to do that?

On not replacing like with like

The industry is scaling towards finding an organism that can produce something in huge vats, akin to growing beer – it could be a biostuff or a protein fibre. But then you just become the supplier for that compound. If all we are doing is producing the chemical, you’re just providing a drop-in replacement. Which is fine, it means you have a dyestuff that is non-toxic as opposed to toxic. And that’s a huge win. But is it enough just to change an ingredient? Can the system be changed? We’re trying to replace a man-made system with natural ingredients; what if we create a natural system? How then do we design, disrupt and transition into more sustainable ways of co-creation with life?