GROUND is a furniture collection that explores how material design can create calmer, safer and more sensory experiences within the home. The project began from my personal experience with family members’ vision loss, which led me to question why furniture is often designed to be understood mainly through sight.

While initially informed by visual impairment, GROUND aims to support a wider range of users by creating objects that can be recognised through touch, scent, softness and bodily interaction. The collection includes home objects made from granulated and expanded cork bound with natural latex, forming a flexible cork-latex composite with an irregular tactile surface and near-body-temperature feel.

The consistent texture gives the furniture a more predictable and recognisable presence in the domestic environment, while the material's bounciness helps soften impact and reduce noise. Rather than using upholstery to hide structure, the material itself forms the surface, support, softness and identity of each piece. This creates a transparent material logic in which the object is honest from the inside out.

Through its tactile surface and subtle woody scent, GROUND brings sensory qualities of natural environments into interior places. The collection presents furniture not only as a functional object, but as a quiet material presence that can build emotional resonance through everyday use.