Material Matters with Grant Gibson

What if the materials a building needs are already sitting in a skip down the road?
Joel de Mowbray, founding director of Yes Make, joins Grant Gibson to explain how a regenerative design and build practice rescues high-quality construction materials from landfill — and builds a viable business around them. Earlier this year, Yes Make joined forces with interdisciplinary design collective Resolve Collective and architecture practice Material Cultures to launch Tipping Point East, a circular construction hub in east London that aims to divert tonnes of material from waste.
In this episode, we dive into the practical realities of reuse in construction. We discuss:
Tipping Point East: Founding a circular construction hub and what it takes to make reuse work at scale.
Cooking with what's in the fridge: How Yes Make designs around the materials it already has, rather than specifying from scratch.
Elton John's purple kitchen: The strange, brilliant afterlives of salvaged fixtures and fittings.
The 'wild west' of industrial sites: Working on the edges of the construction industry, and building a studio from materials already to hand.
The challenges of reuse: Why the industry still finds it easier to demolish than to recover.
Public engagement: Why bringing people into the process is central to the practice.
Joel also reflects on living on a former Dunkirk 'little ship', moving from Lambeth Council to start Yes Make, being a 'lost boy' growing up, why bike mechanics saved him, and how learning from — and working with — his father shapes the projects he takes on.
And remember, Material Matters London runs from 15-17 September at UNLOCKED Shoreditch. It's free for trade but you must register in advance. You can find more information here: materialmatters.design/The-Fair
New to the podcast? Head to materialmatters.design/podcast for our playlists — including 'Start Here', 'Design Icons' and our Material Focus collections on clay, timber, fibre and biomaterials.
Explore more: Visit materialmatters.design for more on our fairs and conferences.
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Welcome to another summer bonus episode of Material Matters with Grant Gibson, this time in association with Hyosung TNC.
In this special episode, Grant talks to the South Korean company’s marketing and sustainability director, Simon Whitmarsh-Knight, about an intriguing new material the company is spending nearly $1bn to develop – a bio-based elastane (or spandex) that has the potential to revolutionise the clothing market. 
In this episode they discuss: the history of elastane and its ubiquity in the fashion industry; issues around the material and carbon emissions; how Hyosung TNC is looking to different solutions to reduce carbon; why the company is spending $1bn on an elastane made from sugar cane; building a new fully integrated production system in Vietnam; the importance of infrastructure and collaboration within the fashion world; traceability; how the new product performs and what other environments it could be used in; and the future of bio-based products. 
This episode has been sponsored by Hyosung TNC. For more information go to: https://www.hyosungtextile.com/en
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Can algae reshape a global beauty brand's material future? In this special summer bonus episode — recorded live at Aesop's Copenhagen store during 3daysofdesign — Grant Gibson is joined by Rebecca Lawson, Aesop's head of sustainability, and multi-award-winning artist and designer Jessie French, founder of Melbourne-based studio Other Matter.
In this episode, we dive into the collaboration between a heritage skincare brand and a pioneer of algae-derived polymers. We discuss:
The Philosophy of Aesop: The history and ethos behind one of design's most-loved brands.
Products with Purpose: Where sustainability sits inside the brand's DNA.
Working with Algae: How Other Matter is turning a marine resource into a revolutionary material.
Systems Design: Why the smartest sustainability is structural, not superficial.
A Revolutionary Signage Film: The Aesop–French collaboration bringing algae into the built environment.
Waste as Luxury: How Jessie is transforming her studio waste into a leather alternative.
Rebecca and Jessie also reflect on why the two forces joined up in the first place, and where their partnership could go next.
Explore more: Visit materialmatters.design for more on our fairs and conferences.
This episode has been sponsored by Aesop.
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Can a $21 window help a nation survive a war? Harry Blakiston Houston, founder of Insulate Ukraine, joins Grant Gibson for this landmark 150th episode to discuss how a simple double-layer window — made from PET and manufactured entirely in Ukraine — is helping families stay warm, creating local employment, and offering a sense of normality in a country shattered by Russia's invasion. In this episode, we dive into what 'material intelligence' looks like when designing under the most extreme constraints.
We discuss:
Cardboard to PET: How early cardboard prototypes evolved into a $21, locally-manufactured double-layer window.
Trust, Innovation and Empathy: The values driving Insulate Ukraine's work, and why they matter in a crisis.
Ukraine's Civic Heroes: Celebrating the people keeping the country running.
An Unlikely Origin: How the death of the Queen helped lead to the founding of Insulate Ukraine.
Designing Under Fire: The particular difficulty of R&D in the humanitarian aid sector, and building an installation system from scratch.
Harry also reflects on day-to-day life in a war-torn country, working with whatever materials people had to hand, growing up in Northern Ireland, how Catholicism and boarding school shaped his thinking, and why he wants to rethink the development sector altogether.
Find out more and donate at insulate-ukraine.org.
Explore more: Visit materialmatters.design for more on our fairs and conferences.
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Can imperfection reshape modern industry? Hella Jongerius — one of the most influential designers of her generation, and one of the field's sharpest critical voices — joins Grant Gibson to discuss craft, colour, and her enduring fascination with the messy edges of mass production.
In this episode, we dive into the politics of materials and the discipline of long-term collaboration. We discuss:
From Droog to Vitra: Emerging in 1993 alongside Jurgen Bey and Marcel Wanders, and what those early years taught her.
Tough and Sweet: Developing her critical voice and taking aim at the design industry's obsession with newness and marketing.
Materials Are Political: Why every choice of clay, textile or yarn carries weight.
Avoiding the Path of Nostalgia: How to honour craft without retreating into it.
Changing Industry from Within: Three decades of collaboration with Vitra, KLM, IKEA, Camper and Maharam.
Colour as Communication: Why colour is a tool, not a decoration.
Hella also reflects on her major retrospective at the Vitra Design Museum, running studios across the Netherlands and Germany, her fascination with animals, and exploring her spiritual side.
Explore more: Visit materialmatters.design for more on our fairs and conferences.
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