Mycelium packaging

Designer Nina Bruun shapes biotech firm Grown’s mushroom-based material for the safe carriage of Astep lighting

- ROSA BERTOLI

One of the key aims of Wallpaper* Re-Made is to re-think the way we consume, and packaging is a crucial link in this story. Last year, a chat with Alessandro Sarfatti led to a discussion about what he perceived to be an important problem. Coming from a family of lighting experts (he is the grandson of design legend Gino Sarfatti, of Arteluce, see W*218, and son of Luceplan founder Riccardo Sarfatti), and founder of a lighting brand himself, he is well aware of the amount of plastic needed to transport lighting pieces.

Sarfatti, who used to be CEO of Luceplan, founded Astep in 2014, intent on creating lighting products with contemporary designs and innovative technologies to improve our domestic experience and quality of life. This included a sophisticated approach to sustainability, both with new products and, in partnership with Flos, reissues of his grandfather’s work. ‘While giving Astep a sustainable focus, I had identified packaging as one of the main problems,’ says Sarfatti.

He had already started changing things – using jute instead of plastic bags to protect some glass elements, for example – but to ensure safe delivery of fragile pieces, the bulk of the packaging is still made up of plastics, including polystyrene foam.