替代牛皮的棕榈地毯
Palm leather rugs are vegan alternative to cow hide

由专筑网王帅，李韧编译

荷兰设计师Tjeerd Veenhoven将棕榈叶材料制成地毯，并将其命名为“棕榈皮”，这是一种可持续且纯素的产品，可以取代来源于动物皮的传统皮革制。

对于这种地毯，设计师将薄条的材料通过手工罗列，并放在机织的底座上，然后再切成需要的尺寸。地毯上的肌理或褶皱都得以保留，使其表面形成图案。

Dutch designer Tjeerd Veenhoven's rugs made from a palm leaf material, called palm leather, are a sustainable and vegan alternative to traditional leather made from animal skin.
For the range of rugs, thin strips of the material are laid end to end by hand and attached to a woven base, before being cut to size. Any inconsistencies or folds in the strips are left to give a patterned appearance to the finished rug.



荷兰设计师Veenhoven在八年前对棕榈树叶的天然纤维就十分感兴趣，并开始试验用棕榈叶制成皮革。他委托远在印度的朋友邮寄棕榈树叶，并开始研究。

Veenhoven解释说：“当开始研究棕榈树叶时，我发现这种材料非常脆，也不太有用。但是如果使用一种特殊的甘油和水来软化它，就会发现它变得又软又耐用。”

Dutch designer Veenhoven first started experimenting with leather made from palm leaves eight years ago after he became interested in the natural fibres of the tree's leaves, and asked someone he knew in India to send him some so that he could research them.
"In my material research I found out that the material was super brittle and not very useful, but if you soften it with a special material of glycerin and water, and some other materials you can make it nice and soft," explained Veenhoven.



然后这位设计师通过与不同的公司合作生产产品，进一步发展和完善了这种“皮革”，起初，他在荷兰试验制作地毯，然后在印度的一家工厂试验生产。

现在，这些地毯由多米尼加共和国的一家工厂负责生产，然后货运至消费地，这家工厂在绿色制品方面经验丰富，因此他们有必要的质量控制措施。

除了地毯，工作室也希望把棕榈皮材料作为一种产品来销售。最近，一些“要求极高”的汽车公司也开始对这种可以代替皮革汽车内饰的材料越来越感兴趣。

Veenhoven解释说，多年来人们对棕榈皮革的感知方式发生了变化，一开始人们只对它作为人造皮革替代品的潜在用途感兴趣，而目前人们也发现了它的素食材质特质。

The designer and his studio then developed and refined the "leather" further, testing it out by making products with various companies. Initially he experimented with making the rugs in Holland, before testing out production at a factory in India.
The rugs are now made at a factory in the Dominican Republic where "they're experienced with green initiatives, so they have the necessary quality controls in place," and shipped directly to consumers.
As well as the rugs, the studio is hoping to sell the palm leather material as a product in its own right. There has been a lot of recent interest from the "extremely demanding" automotive companies who have recently become increasingly interested in vegan alternatives to leather car interiors.
Veenhoven explained that how palm leather has been perceived has changed over the years, from an initial interest in its potential use as an alternative to man-made leather substitutes, to the current spike in interest as a vegan material.



他告诉Dezeen的记者：“它首先是皮革类材料、新化合物或塑料的潜在替代品，这是人们最先感兴趣的地方。”

他说：“然后，它与手工艺也有一定的联系,如何让手工艺与时俱进？这也是人们讨论的话题，有趣的是，在过去的两年里，人们极为关注素食主义。”

"It first was seen much more as a potential replacement of leather-like materials, or neoprenes or plastics – that was the first hook for people," he told Dezeen.
"Then it was a little bit connected to re-inventing craft, which has also been a topic of discussion, how can we make craftsmen more contemporary, and interestingly in the last two years it's been about it being vegan," he explained.



Veenhoven建议他们的产品应该向素食主义者与购买纯素产品的家庭发展，当下，人们面临着很多实际问题，包括减少人们的食肉数量。

Veenhoven在荷兰北部格罗宁根的工作室里进行了多种替代材料和系统的实验，他说：“我们必须更多地关注以工厂为基础的系统，我们必须鼓励这种生产体系，因为这对我们的生计至关重要。”

这种观点与Nicolas Roope的观点相一致，Nicolas Roope告诉Dezeen的记者，避免全球灾难将是历史上最大的设计挑战，这呼应了联合国气候变化报告。

早在2016年，Campana兄弟 Fernando与Humberto使用棕榈纤维装饰了圣保罗的一所住宅，使其有了毛茸茸的质地。去年，毕业生Billie van Katwijk使用牛胃来替代皮革，而不是牛皮。

The move towards eating vegan and buying vegan products for the home, Veenhoven suggests, has been pushed by real problems that the world faces including the need to reduce the amount of meat that we eat.
"We have to focus more on plant-based systems and we have to encourage them more because they are essential to our livelihoods," said Veenhoven, who experiments with many alternative materials and systems at his studio in Groningen, northern Holland.
These views echo Nicolas Roope who told Dezeen that avoiding global disaster will be the greatest design challenge in history, in response to the recent UN report on climate change.
Back in 2016, the Campana brothers Fernando and Humberto, covered a house in Sao Paolo with palm fibre that gave it a hairy texture. Last year, graduate Billie van Katwijk made an alternative leather from cows' stomachs, rather than their hides.