Tom Dixon Round table Brown Wood. Dimensions: Ø 100 x H 75 cm. British
designer Tom Dixon is launching a series of cork furniture that’s been burnt
to give it a rich dark brown colour reminiscent of rosewood. The solid, round
silhouettes really highlight the material. Tom Dixon explains: “When I was
little, we had cork floors and they had this incredible warmth and tactility.
Cork is also sound-absorbing, fire-retardant, water-resistant, and lighter than
water, which is why it floats, so it’s easy to carry. In terms of dream
materials, you really can't beat it! We’ve taken full advantage of the
elasticity, sound absorption and waterproof nature of cork, which, combined with
its natural beauty, makes for a unique set of highly sculptural furniture with
expressive, minimalist attributes and superior functionality.'' Ecological, the
Cork collection is made from recycled cork from pre-consumer waste (industrial
waste). The collected cork offcuts are reduced to granules which are
agglomerated and compressed into composite blocks. The material is mixed with a
small amount of polyurethane resin to bind it at a ratio of 93% cork to 7%
resin. The cork is then burned: it turns brown and expands. This makes the cork
less sensitive to dirt, while avoiding an overly Scandinavian aesthetic. The
cork thus obtained can then be recycled continuously, even with the resin.
Combined with used tyres, it can be used to make flooring. The soft, rounded
edges of the furniture are created by CNC milling machines, and the offcuts are
reused to form new composite blocks. There is hardly any waste in the
process – even the dust from production is used to feed the ovens in the
factories. Rarely used in furniture making, cork is a natural, waterproof,
flame-retardant material that has always been used in the production of
footwear, floor and wall coverings. Today, it’s seeing a resurgence in the
world of design and architecture due to the fact it’s also recyclable and,
according to Dixon, carbon-negative because it can be harvested without harming
the tree it grows on. „You don’t cut down a tree like you would for a wooden
table or chair – all you do is take off its bark, which then regrows ", he
explains. "You plant trees for the long term and harvest every nine years. All
the while, the material effectively captures carbon as it grows. The tree
continues to make more bark, that bark captures more carbon, and you plant more
trees to make more cork. " The cork used to make the Cork collection comes from
Portugal. To reduce transport as much as possible, the cork furniture is also
made in Portugal. Tom Dixon on the round shapes of the Cork table: "I was very
‚angular‘ before I became a dad! But once your child bangs into the corner
of a sharp-edged table, you suddenly start to round everything off! It kind of
happened without me realising it. But on a practical level, corners and sharp
angles will deteriorate very quickly in a soft material like cork, so this was
also done to make them less destructible.“
