Cork has a lot of things going for it:

• it’s insulative – both for sound and heat
• it’s renewable and managed
• it doesn’t rot
• it’s waterproof and naturally anti-microbial
• it repels bugs
• it’s lightweight
• it’s fire resistant

That’s quite a list of plusses. Most cork comes from cork oak trees found in Spain, Portugal, southern France and parts of Africa.  It is responsibly harvested, cultivated and managed to protect not only the life of the trees themselves, but animals who make them their habitat.

There are a lot more interesting tidbits about cork from the Canada based Jelinek Cork Group site, including the following:

The first stripping of the cork bark occurs approximately 20 years after a sapling is planted. After each stripping the cork tree fully regenerates its precious bark and is harvested over and over again every 9 to 10 years until the tree is approximately 200 years old. At that time the aged tree is removed and two new saplings are planted in its place, ensuring the cork forest continues to flourish and expand.

Want to know more? getwithgreen has an exhaustive list of resources to learn about cork, cork products & applications, & what you should know before you buy.

It’s the acoustics, not your eardrums

We have 14′ ceilings in our house, and all our surfaces are hard & sound reflecting: hardwoods, gyp board walls, windows, and countertops. The acoustics leave a lot to be desired, which is a nuisance, since our living room and kitchen are an open plan. So the place where we spend the most time is also the most difficult to have conversations.

Cork it!

Cork has so many great things going for it:

• it’s renewable
• it’s rot and mildew resistant
• it’s lightweight
• it absorbs sound
• it’s waterproof

I would love to have a couple of grids of these modular cork tiles on the ceiling designed by Daniel Michelik out of Brooklyn NY. They’d give it some interesting 3D relief, and they cut the noise reflection at the same time. We have no ceiling mounted fixtures, so it’s a playground of space waiting for something like these tiles. They’re also a neutral color, so paint colors on the wall could be as wild or tame as you like without overpowering the whole room.

Availability

I’ve contacted Daniel inquiring when these panels will be available to purchase and what options may apply. I’ll update when I hear from him.

Congratulations to Simple Forms Design in Portugal on their RedDot design Award for 2008 in product design! They have a line of cork products with beautiful form from sustainable material.

The soft shape and warm colors contrast nicely with the harder materials of the fixtures and countertops. Really elegant. I’m guessing these sinks would need to be sealed just as a regular wood or bamboo sink would – I’ll have to research that. In the meantime, I’ll just drool over the, well, simple form designs.