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At this year’s Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, Strumber Hemp was presented in an expanded form for the first time, as part of the CO2Balance furniture collection designed by Husarska Design Studio. This marks an important milestone for our material: moving beyond samples and individual applications, it has become part of finished products that visitors could see, touch and experience firsthand.
The collection was designed to create comfortable meeting spaces that are open to people with diverse needs. It includes a round table, armchairs and freestanding acoustic panels.
The exhibition at Klokgebouw, one of the best-known venues of Dutch Design Week, offered an opportunity to present Strumber not just as an innovative material, but above all as an element of functional, carefully designed furniture.
CO2Balance is more than just a furniture collection. Husarska Design Studio created it as a space intended to encourage conversation, collaboration and wellbeing. One of the key design principles was to take into account the needs of people with different abilities and ensure that they could use the space comfortably.
The collection was developed in collaboration with users, including wheelchair users and people who are blind or partially sighted. Their experiences helped translate the idea of accessibility into practical design solutions. The table’s construction takes into account the needs of wheelchair users, while a tactile notch in the tabletop helps blind and partially sighted people navigate its layout. The armchairs feature armrests that make sitting down and standing up easier, while the freestanding acoustic panels help create more intimate areas for conversation and focused work.
In this way, the collection responds to the diverse needs of its users without compromising on aesthetics or design consistency. It demonstrates that accessibility can be considered from the very beginning of the design process, making shared spaces more comfortable and welcoming to a wider range of people.
This approach is particularly interesting from Strumber’s perspective, too. The material serves not only a structural purpose, but also becomes part of a considered design in which both the properties of the raw material and the experiences of those using the finished furniture matter.
The CO2Balance collection demonstrates that modern furniture can be made from materials that combine high performance with a more responsible approach to resource use. The plant-based origin of Strumber Hemp is particularly important in this context. More than 85% of the material consists of plant-based raw materials, and its production makes use of fast-renewing crops such as hemp.
An important distinguishing feature of Strumber Hemp is its carbon footprint. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) data shows that, depending on the variant, it is:
◼️ Strumber Hemp 750: approx. –626 kg CO₂e/m³
◼️ Strumber Hemp 900: approx. –757 kg CO₂e/m³
The dry plant-based fraction of Strumber used to produce the CO2Balance furniture set presented at Dutch Design Week contains approximately 214 kg of biogenic CO₂. This is a separate figure, indicating the amount of biogenic carbon stored in the plant-based material, rather than the overall carbon footprint of the finished furniture.
Dutch Design Week is one of Europe’s leading events dedicated to contemporary design. Over the nine-day festival, approximately 350,000 people from around the world attended, and thousands of them saw Strumber in person. Our exhibition was also visited by Queen Máxima of the Netherlands.
The CO2Balance collection attracted interest from architects, designers, manufacturers and company representatives from many countries. Visitors were interested both in the furniture itself and in the possibilities of using Strumber in future projects. Particularly encouragingly, this interest translated into further orders for hemp timber.
This is an important sign for us that the potential of Strumber is being recognised not only by designers, but also by prospective customers and business partners. Dutch Design Week showed that the material has a place in contemporary design and can respond to real market needs.
The collection was developed by the interdisciplinary team at Husarska Design Studio, led by Jadwiga Husarska-Sobina, Creative Director.
The team also included:
◼️ Paulina Zdybał – UX & Inclusion Specialist, responsible for user research, accessibility and inclusive design.
◼️ Stefan Hamiga – Lead Designer & Technologist, overseeing construction, prototyping and technological development.
◼️ Joanna Rudzińska – Architect & Wellbeing Expert, focusing on spatial design, wellbeing and acoustic solutions.
Co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the funds of the Creative Industries Institute’s own program: Development of Creative Sectors.
