CarbonShack Design, a sustainably-focused residential design firm, has introduced Kelp Forest, a new textile featuring vibrant biophilic designs that unearth and celebrate the beauty of nature’s building blocks, inside and outside of us.
The Kelp Forest fabric – recently debuted as part of CarbonShack’s window design installation at the highly regarded La Cienega Design Quarter LEGENDS event in Los Angeles – depicts a part of nature that is much larger than the company’s other inspirations, but is still a building block of the ocean. Kelp forests are often referred to as “the rainforests of the sea.” As described by CarbonShack founder and ecopreneur Steve Pallrand, the new textile design “celebrates glorious, seductively flowing strands of California sea kelp, rendered in the rich, deep tones of the sea. With an ombré background of teal that lightens as it rises to the surface, long strands of kelp dance and sway across the fabric.” This hemp-fiber textile is available in full panels of 54-in. width by 10-ft.-10-in. height. CarbonShack is looking to expand the kelp design into wallpaper and tiles.
CarbonShack enthusiastically embraces hemp-fiber fabrics, since, among its many beneficial attributes, hemp requires less water in its farming, harvesting and production than any other natural fiber textiles. While the fabric is imported, the resulting textiles are dyed and printed in the Los Angeles area at local workshops with water-based dyes and inks in a low-waste process.
Pallrand, who has long specialized in green architecture, building and renovating homes to exceed sustainable building requirements, opened the CarbonShack showroom in Los Angeles last year to showcase the firm’s handcrafted home furnishings products. Products are made locally or within an environmentally-conscious distance (300-400 miles, unless otherwise noted); they are made by local workers, including individual artisans; and employ manufacturing processes that minimize environmental impacts. While understanding the idea behind embodied carbon through a home’s frame or concrete foundation can sometimes feel abstract, CarbonShack hopes that exposing clients to home design products will encourage an easier, more tangible path to environmental understanding, while achieving their interior design goals.
Photo Credit: Peter Christiansen Valli provided courtesy of La Cienega Design Quarter.
