Bas van Abel founded Fairphone in 2013. The company attempts to transform the way our smartphones are manufactured, by reducing e-waste, sourcing conflict-free minerals, and improving working conditions in its supply chain. It creates a product

John Tuomey on his childhood and becoming an architect.

Feb 12th, 2024 55m 47s

There have been over 100 episodes of Material Matters but, for listeners who might be new to all this, the idea is that I speak to a designer, maker, artist, or architect about a material or technique with which they’re intrinsically linked and

Sara Grady and Alice Robinson on British Pasture Leather.

Feb 5th, 2024 55m 47s

Sara Grady and Alice Robinson co-founded British Pasture Leather in 2020. The duo aim in their own words ‘to link leather with exemplary farming and, in doing so, to redefine leather as an agricultural product’. All of which means creating a ne

Florian Gadsby on clay and becoming a potter.

Jan 29th, 2024 58m 13s

Florian Gadsby is a bit of a phenomenon. The ceramicist currently has a new show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and has also published a memoir, By My Hands, that charts his formative years with clay, including apprenticeships in the UK and,

Christien Meindertsma on wool (and linoleum).

Jan 22nd, 2024 51m 23s

Christien Meindertsma is a Dutch designer who has a fascination with materials. She currently has an installation at the V&A, entitled Re-forming Waste, which shows new work based around her interest in linoleum, as well as technological advanc

Simone Brewster on 2023, her breakthrough year.

Dec 27th, 2023 59m 1s

This special festive episode is slightly different because, as we come to the end of 2023, we thought it would be interesting to talk to someone who has had a breakthrough year. And we couldn’t think of anyone that description fits better than

Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert on hot glass.

Dec 20th, 2023 53m 48s

Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert is a Paris-based designer, maker, and artist, obsessed with blown glass. In an eclectic career, that has seen him travelling through the USA and Europe, before settling in France in 2007, he has shown work at the V&A,

Neil Thomas on building with bamboo.

Nov 28th, 2023 56m 18s

Neil Thomas is the founder and director of Atelier One, one of the most creative engineering practices in the UK. The firm has worked on building projects such as Singapore Arts Centre, Federation Square in Australia, and Baltic in Gateshead, a

Caroline Till on material futures, regenerative design, and lots more.

Oct 24th, 2023 59m 3s

Caroline Till is a consultant, author, curator, and academic. She founded Franklin Till, along with Kate Franklin, in 2010 and, since then, the future research agency has worked with the likes of international textile exhibition Heimtextil, pap

Tom Lloyd and Luke Pearson on their material change.

Sep 18th, 2023 1h 5m

Tom Lloyd and Luke Pearson co-founded the hugely influential design studio, Pearson Lloyd, in 1997. Since then, it has gone on to work in areas such as the workplace, transport and health care, with organisations like Virgin, Lufthansa, the Dep

Goldfinger’s Marie Carlisle on wood and social good.

Sep 13th, 2023 48m 33s

Marie Carlisle is CEO and co-founder of social enterprise (and Material Matters exhibitor), Goldfinger. The organisation opened its doors at the foot of West London’s Trellick Tower in 2013 and makes high end furniture from wood – that has ofte

Michael Marriott on resourceful design and his fascination with materials.

Sep 5th, 2023 58m 54s

My guest for the 100th episode of Material Matters is a British designer who sits somewhere between industry and craft. Michael Marriott has a fascination with materials – so much so that his web shop is called Wood Metal Plastic – and a love o

Alice Kettle on embroidery.

Aug 29th, 2023 53m 55s

Alice Kettle is one of the country’s leading textile artists. She uses embroidery to tell stories and throw the spotlight on contemporary issues – most noticeably the refugee crisis in her series Thread Bearing Witness. Currently, she has a sol

Beatie Wolfe on making music material again and the power of art.

Jun 28th, 2023 1h 11m

Beatie Wolfe is a musician and artist, who has in her time been described as a ‘musical weirdo and visionary’ and one of the ‘22 people changing the world’. In a relatively short career she has: created a 3D interactive album app and a musical

Ndidi Ekubia on silver and her extraordinary, liquid-like vessels.

Jun 6th, 2023 50m 41s

Ndidi Ekubia creates extraordinary, almost liquid-looking, vessels from silver. She graduated from the University of Wolverhampton in 1995, before going on to the Royal College of Art. Since then, her work has been shown internationally at exhi

Ercol chairman, Henry Tadros, on elm, beech, ash and keeping his company relevant.

May 30th, 2023 47m

Henry Tadros is chairman of one of the country’s most renowned furniture companies, Ercol. The firm was founded by Italian immigrant, Lucian Ercolani, in 1920 but it really found its feet after the Second World War with the Windsor Range – an i

Donna Wilson on knitting, becoming a brand, and creating her extraordinary creatures.

May 22nd, 2023 51m 2s

Donna Wilson is a globally-feted designer. She initially made a name for herself in 2003 with a series of knitted toy creatures made of lambswools, which managed to be odd and endearing all at the same time. Since then, she has worked with the

Julian Stair on pots, death, and using cremated ashes in his work.

May 15th, 2023 54m 24s

Julian Stair is one of the UK’s leading ceramic artists. He has exhibited internationally since the 1980s and made his name making beautiful, pared-back everyday forms. Julian’s work is in 30 public collections, including the British Museum and

Paul Cocksedge on coal, metal, light, concrete and much more besides.

Mar 17th, 2023 53m 18s

Paul Cocksedge is a London-based designer who has built a reputation over the past twenty years for creating projects that push the limits of technology and materials. During that time, for example, he has melted polystyrene cups in an oven to

Ineke Hans on designing for the circular economy.

Mar 6th, 2023 49m 39s

Ineke Hans is a world-renowned product and furniture designer. She originally studied art at Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Arnhem before switching to design. In 1993, she moved to London’s Royal College of Art and, subsequently, worked for Habitat

Darren Appiagyei on turning Banksia nuts and waste wood.

Feb 21st, 2023 37m 2s

Darren Appiagyei is a wood turner and founder of inthegrain. The Camberwell College of Arts graduate made his name with vessels fashioned from the Banksia nut. Subsequently, he has gone on to create pieces from waste wood he finds on a local fa

Summer Islam on building with biomaterials.

Feb 14th, 2023 55m 7s

Summer Islam is a founding director of Material Cultures, a not-for-profit organisation that in its own words ‘challenges the systems, technologies, processes, supply chains, regulations and materials that make up the construction industry with

Keith Brymer Jones on his life in clay and TV stardom.

Feb 7th, 2023 48m 5s

Keith Brymer Jones is a potter, whose hand-made ceramics – which include the best selling Word Range – have been stocked in major stores, including Habitat, Laura Ashley and Heals. Over the years, he has been a ballet dancer, a front man in a n

Peter Apps on Aluminium Composite Material and the Grenfell Tower fire.

Dec 16th, 2022 55m 21s

Peter Apps is a journalist and author, as well as the deputy editor of Inside Housing. His extraordinary, devastating new book, Show Me The Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen, looks at the evidence of the public enquiry into the circumstances l

Smile Plastics’ Rosalie McMillan and Adam Fairweather on recycling plastic and reviving a company.

Dec 12th, 2022 57m 12s

Rosalie McMillan and Adam Fairweather are co-founders of the materials, design and manufacturing house, Smile Plastics. They have a factory in South Wales which takes plastics and other materials traditionally classed as waste and transforms th