Sea Glass
Category: Furniture
Competitions: Home Competition 2026
Sea Glass is a sculptural lamp made from glass produced with silica cultivated by microalgae instead of extracted sand. Rather than relying on mining, the project explores how biological processes can generate the primary material for glass, proposing a regenerative alternative to one of the world's most extracted resources. Each piece is shaped through traditional glassmaking techniques while preserving the unique traces of its living origin. Variations in colour, texture and transparency are not controlled imperfections but the natural expression of a cultivated material. When illuminated, these subtle irregularities reveal the character of the glass, turning the lamp into both a functional object and a reflection on the hidden origins of the materials that surround us. Sea Glass invites us to imagine a future in which materials are no longer extracted from finite resources but grown through collaboration with living systems. It proposes a different relationship between design, nature and production—one where ecological processes become part of how everyday objects are made.
