The 3 Days of Design fair has transformed Copenhagen into the international epicenter of design in recent days, where architecture, interior design, and innovative materials have taken center stage, filling the city with creativity and new ways of imagining the spaces of the future.
Within this context, the Spanish company BIRDMIND has presented Rice Tab, its eco-friendly boards made from rice husks and distinguished by their high technical performance. The company has also brought to the fair a very special collaboration with industrial designer Ignacio Ciocchini, who has developed an exclusive piece using this material and showcased it to the public during the event.
We spoke with Ciocchini about his creative process, his vision of biomaterials, and his experience working with Rice Tab. The result of this collaboration is PAELLA, a stool that demonstrates how agricultural waste can be transformed into a contemporary design object without sacrificing beauty, durability, or functionality.
Your work has always been closely connected to public space, urban design and innovation. When did your interest in biomaterials begin?
Material innovation has always been part of my work and ongoing research as a designer. For much of my career, I worked in public space, streetscape design, and urban infrastructure, where the material palette is surprisingly limited. We rely heavily on steel, stainless steel, aluminum, concrete, and a handful of proven materials that can withstand decades of use and abuse.
I was always a little jealous of industrial designers working in furniture and consumer products, where material experimentation seemed much more common. A few years ago, I decided to stop waiting for material companies to find me and instead actively seek out innovators working at the forefront of material development. One of my goals has been to collaborate with companies developing the next generation of materials and help translate those innovations into meaningful products, spaces, and experiences. BIRDMIND and RiceTab are a great example of that approach.
For me, biomaterials are not simply a sustainability story. They represent an opportunity to expand the designer’s toolkit and rethink how materials can contribute not only to performance, but also to meaning, identity, and culture.
In recent years, we’ve seen a growing conversation around circularity and sustainability in design. How has this concern evolved within your own work?
Maintainability and durability have always been fundamental to the way I design. Even in the earliest sketches, I am already thinking about assembly, disassembly, replacement parts, manufacturing processes, and how a product will age over time. That mindset comes directly from working in public space, where products are expected to perform for years, sometimes decades.
To me, circularity and sustainability are closely connected to those ideas. A product that lasts longer, can be repaired, and can be reused is often inherently more sustainable. In industries such as street furniture and architectural fabrication, the conversation has traditionally focused on using materials in their purest possible form and avoiding unnecessary processes that reduce recyclability or make future reuse difficult.
The challenge has always been balancing durability, cost, performance, and environmental impact. There are no easy answers. What excites me today is that sustainability is no longer being treated as an afterthought. It is increasingly becoming part of the design brief itself, forcing us to think about a product’s entire lifecycle from the very beginning.
From your international experience, do you think materials are beginning to play a more relevant role within the design process itself?
Absolutely. Materials are increasingly becoming the starting point for innovation rather than simply the means of executing a design.
Having lived and worked in Argentina and New York City, while now working in Denmark and growing up within both Argentine and Italian cultures, I have been exposed to very different approaches to design, manufacturing, and sustainability. What is consistent across all of them is that materials are gaining a more central role in the design conversation. Designers are no longer asking only what they want to create, but also what materials can enable, communicate, and contribute to a project.
I also believe innovation cannot be left solely to material companies or manufacturers.
Designers have a responsibility to push themselves and their clients to explore better solutions. There are remarkable new materials being developed around the world that have not yet found their natural application or market. Designers can help bridge that gap. We can identify opportunities, create new use cases, and accelerate adoption. In many ways, we act as translators between material innovation and real-world application.
What was the first thing that caught your attention about RiceTab when you discovered the material?
The first thing that struck me was how approachable it felt. Some new materials require a significant learning curve before you can begin to understand their possibilities. RiceTab was different. I could immediately imagine designing with it.
At the same time, it clearly felt like something new. It has a warmth, texture, and tactile richness that immediately sets it apart. RiceTab does not try to imitate another material. It has its own character and identity, yet it feels surprisingly familiar. As a designer, that combination immediately caught my attention.
What has it been like working with RiceTab from both a creative and technical perspective?
One of the things I enjoyed most was how naturally the material entered the design process. It felt a bit like meeting a new friend who somehow already feels familiar. I was able to start sketching and visualizing ideas almost immediately.
From a technical perspective, I was impressed by how well it could be machined and fabricated while maintaining a refined surface quality. Many emerging materials have compelling stories but struggle when it comes to manufacturing and scalability. RiceTab offers both a strong narrative and genuine design flexibility, which is essential if a material is going to move beyond experimentation and into broader adoption.
For this collaboration at 3 Days of Design, you developed a stool using RiceTab. What was the creative process behind the piece?
The project began with a simple question: if RiceTab is made from rice husks, what kind of object should it become?
From the beginning, I wanted the design to reflect both the origins of the material and the culture from which it emerged. RiceTab is developed and manufactured in Spain, and rice and paella have become powerful symbols of Spanish culture around the world. It felt natural to explore that connection through design.
The inspiration came from traditional Spanish trébedes and the metal tripods used to support paella pans during outdoor cooking. Combined with the circular geometry of the paella pan itself, these references became the conceptual foundation for PAELLA.
What surprised me was how quickly the idea emerged. Sometimes projects take months to find their identity. In this case, the first sketches appeared very early in the process. The concept simply felt right from the beginning.
As someone with Argentine and Italian roots, I have always been aware of the strong cultural ties between Argentina and Spain. That made the project especially meaningful. I wanted the design to acknowledge that heritage in a subtle way, through form, material, and construction rather than through literal symbolism.
Which characteristics of the material influenced or inspired the design of the project?
Its texture, honesty, and distinct identity.
What interested me most was the opportunity to allow the material to look like itself. For decades, many sustainable materials have been asked to imitate wood, stone, plastic, or other familiar finishes. RiceTab does not need to pretend to be something else. Its texture, warmth, and visual richness are already compelling.
That idea became central to the design of PAELLA. Rather than hiding the material, I wanted to bring it to the foreground. The seat was designed to reveal the texture of the rice husks while also demonstrating how precisely RiceTab can be machined without sacrificing surface quality.
I believe we are entering a moment where new materials can begin to create new aesthetic languages of their own. PAELLA is a small exploration of that possibility.
Do you believe the future of architecture and design necessarily involves circular materials and solutions such as RiceTab?
I do, but only if those materials can compete on performance, aesthetics, manufacturability, and cost.
Designers, architects, and clients should not have to choose between sustainability and quality. The most successful materials will be the ones that deliver both. In my view, RiceTab is one of those materials. It offers a compelling sustainability story, but more importantly, it is a genuinely useful and attractive design material.
Ultimately, I do not think circular materials will succeed because they are sustainable. They will succeed because they are excellent materials that also happen to be sustainable.
At BIRDMIND, we’ve observed that Nordic countries seem to have a much stronger integration of sustainable and circular materials within architecture and design. From your experience, would you agree with that perception?
Yes, I think there is truth to that observation. Having worked extensively in New York City and now working in Denmark, one of the things I admire most about the Nordic approach is its commitment to long-term thinking. These countries invest significant effort in creating frameworks, testing ideas, building consensus, and establishing processes that allow innovation to be implemented thoughtfully.
Sometimes that process can feel slow, and there are moments when greater urgency would be beneficial. No system is perfect. However, when Nordic countries decide to move forward, they tend to do so with a high degree of rigor and quality.
What has impressed me most is the depth of the conversation. Right now, discussions around biomaterials, biodiversity, circularity, and regenerative design are taking place in Scandinavia at a level I have not encountered elsewhere. I have little doubt that the region will continue to play a leading role in shaping the future of sustainable design.
What do you think is needed for other markets to adopt these types of materials more naturally?
Adoption requires visibility, confidence, and supportive frameworks. Designers, architects, manufacturers, and clients need opportunities to see, touch, and experience these materials firsthand. They need confidence that the material will perform as advertised, that it can be specified today, and that it can compete with conventional alternatives.
Governments can help by creating regulatory environments that encourage innovation rather than making experimentation unnecessarily difficult.
At the same time, our industry needs to become better at distinguishing between materials that are genuinely circular and those that simply market themselves that way. As the market matures, transparency, traceability, and performance will become increasingly important.
Is the main challenge technical, cultural, economic, or related to mindset within the industry?
All of those factors matter, but if I had to choose one, I would say mindset.
Many of the technologies already exist. We know how to develop innovative materials. We know how to manufacture them. We know how to test them.
What is often missing is the willingness to move beyond familiar specifications and established habits. Every major material innovation throughout history required people to take a chance on something new. Today’s biomaterials are no different.
The challenge is not simply proving that these materials work. The challenge is helping people become comfortable enough to imagine using them.
Do you think design also has the responsibility to help introduce new materials and change the way we understand spaces?
Absolutely. Most people do not encounter material innovation through laboratories, technical papers, or manufacturing facilities. They encounter it through a chair, a building, a public bench, or an object they use every day.
Designers are uniquely positioned to translate innovation into everyday experience. We help people understand unfamiliar materials by transforming them into products, objects, and spaces that feel useful, desirable, and meaningful.
That gives design an important responsibility. We are often the bridge between technological innovation and public acceptance.
We are seeing agricultural, textile, and even marine waste becoming part of new materials. How do you imagine the evolution of materials in the coming years?
I think we are entering a fascinating period where the definition of a material resource is expanding dramatically. Agricultural waste, textile waste, marine waste, and many other overlooked streams are beginning to be viewed as opportunities rather than problems.
At the same time, I think the conversation will evolve beyond simply asking where a material comes from. We will increasingly evaluate materials based on their complete lifecycle, traceability, performance, durability, repairability, and long-term value.
The materials that ultimately succeed will not be the ones with the best sustainability marketing. They will be the ones that solve real problems, perform exceptionally well, and happen to deliver significant environmental benefits at the same time.
The most successful materials will not be adopted because they are sustainable. They will be adopted because they are excellent materials that also happen to be sustainable.
