As more designers and furniture manufacturers turn to sustainable furniture design, the use of unconventional materials becomes more prevalent. In this changing landscape, the growing popularity of cork furniture comes as no surprise. Cork is one of the most eco-friendly and sustainable materials for furniture, as it doesn’t require the cutting of the tree. Instead, factories harvest parts of the bark, which then grows back without causing harm to the tree. Cork forests grow across the Mediterranean, in coastal areas in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Morocco, and Tunisia.

On this page, you can discover the ingenuity of talented designers who use this miracle material to create contemporary cork furniture. Sculptural and ergonomic, cork chairs provide maximum comfort while creating a focal point in a living space. Likewise, tables boast sinuous silhouettes or clean lines that remind of architectural elements. Whether ultra-minimalist or designed with curving forms and several components, cork furniture displays the textures of organic patterns of the natural material in all its glory.

When it comes to sustainable design, this ‘green’ material often complements responsible manufacturing methods. This also applies to these cork furniture projects. For example, here you can read more about Jasper Morrison’s Corks line that uses the leftover material from the production of cork wine stoppers. The waste material thus gains a new life as furniture instead of becoming a source of fuel. This is also the case with French designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance’s Burnt Cork series, that uses discarded cork from a small, family-run factory to create elegant pieces of furniture. Naturally, all of these products are easy to recycle at the end of their life, making them some of the most environmentally conscious pieces of furniture currently available.