I Want Hemp Furniture!

Hemp Furniture That Will Change How You Think About Design

Modern conscientious consumers strive to make purchasing decisions that blend into a well-balanced, sustainable lifestyle that works in harmony with the environment. Hemp furniture is the latest development in eco-friendly, innovative product design that combines aesthetic while addressing very real, important issues like deforestation and climate change. 

Hemp fiber is the strongest natural fiber globally and, when pressed into non-woven fabric mats and combined with binding agents, can be used to produce extremely strong, durable 'shells' suitable for a range of industrial applications like furniture design. Products made from hemp will outlast their competition for many years. Not only is hemp strong, but it holds its shape, stretching less than any other natural fiber, also giving it the ability to hold nails better.

Some beautiful and aesthetically pleasing furniture pieces are designed exclusively with hemp; let's check them out.


Hemp Chair by Werner Aisslinger

'Hemp Chair' by Berlin-based designer/architect Werner Aisslinger was the first monochair designed with technology that molds natural fibers like hemp under heat with a special ecological glue, resulting in sustainable composite material. The chair was debuted at Milan Design Week 2011 and featured a very complex design with soft curves and a visually captivating horizontal and vertical wing structure.

 "Design history is driven by new technologies and material innovation," Aisslinger said in an interview about the chair. "For us designers, the advent of these technologies has always been the starting point for new objects and typologies in design."


Hourglass Lamp by Craig Bayens

Craig Bayens specializes in the custom making of contemporary and mid-century modern design furniture. His mid-century modern style Hourglass lamp is constructed from sustainable hemp that has been grown, harvested, and manufactured into HempWood in Kentucky. 

 "Working with HempWood is similar to real wood. It cuts, places, sands, glues and finishes well," says Bayens on his website. "Carbide tooling is a must because it dulls steel tools quickly. The limited sizes available and high cost prohibit it from being a plywood substitute [for now]. These limitations beget creativity and needless to say I'm excited to use it in different elements of my furniture design."


Nerthus Sofa by Atra x MoonCloth

Furniture design studio ATRA collaborated with San Francisco company MoonCloth to create a beautiful Nerthus modular sofa system upholstered with a hemp-based fabric. According to the company's website, designer Alexander Diaz Andersson was "inspired by the natural world and the responsibility to protect it," leading him to choose hemp as the upholstery fabric because of the material's natural qualities and production methods. Additionally, each piece is framed with FSC reclaimed wood that has been locally sourced and produced using certified sustainable practices.


The Hemp Collection by VepaDrentea

Three Dutch companies, VepaDrentea, Plantics, and HempFlax, joined forces to develop a range of plant-based and fully biodegradable and recyclable 'hemp' chairs. HempFlax's high-quality industrial hemp fibers were organically glued together by Plantics using a natural resin from plant-based materials, including sugar-beet residues, which acts as a binding agent.

According to its website, VepaDrentea collaborated intensively with Plantics for two years to turn innovative biomaterial into a high-quality seat shell suitable for mass-market use. The VepaDrentea' Hemp' collection includes chairs and bar stools with various frames made of PEFC certified2 wood or recyclable steel. Also, the chairs are designed so that the various parts are easy to separate, and materials can be reused endlessly, creating a truly circular bioeconomy.