Fallen Leaves Are Not "Waste"—A New Wave of Regenerative Design Starting with Plants

In autumn, fallen leaves pile up in gardens and on roads. For many urban dwellers, they are something to be swept up, bagged, and disposed of.

However, in nature, there is no concept of "waste" for fallen leaves.

Leaves that fall to the ground become habitats for insects, are decomposed by fungi and microorganisms, and eventually return to the soil. The organic matter created there conditions the soil and becomes nutrients for the next generation of plants.

What has completed one role becomes material to support another life.

A movement is spreading to reclaim this perfectly natural mechanism in modern design and manufacturing.

Designers around the world are re-evaluating what has been discarded, such as palm leaves, plant prunings, Banksia seed pods, and agricultural processing residues, not as mere "waste" but as materials for creating furniture, architecture, and clothing.

An exhibition symbolizing this trend is "Plant Life: The Nature of Design," held at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne, Australia, starting August 28, 2026.

The theme is the relationship between plants and humans.

When Did Humans Start Viewing Plants as "Resources"?

The relationship between humans and plants, of course, did not begin in modern times.

Food, shelter, clothing, medicine, dyes, fuel. Human life could not have existed for a long time without plants.

On the other hand, as modernization and mass production progressed, plants gradually came to be treated as standardized "raw materials."

Wood is converted to timber, cotton to fiber, and rubber trees to industrial materials.

Of course, using plants as resources is not inherently problematic. What is important is that humans have become biased towards a one-directional relationship of "how much can be taken" and "how cheaply can it be mass-produced."

In the 20th-century industrial structure, which was based on mass production, mass consumption, and mass disposal, there were few cases where the end of a product's life was considered.

Especially plastics, petrochemical adhesives, and composite materials, while very convenient and durable, can be difficult to separate into individual materials, making recycling or natural decomposition challenging.

Now, designers are beginning to change their questions.

Instead of "What can we take from plants,"

it's "How can we utilize what plants repeatedly produce?"

Furthermore,

"How can we return products that have completed their roles to nature?"

The starting point of design is shifting from manufacturing to circulation.

The Concept of "Plywood That Returns to the Soil"

One symbolic example is the "Ply Loop" series by Dutch designer Joris Laarman.

Plywood is a familiar material widely used from furniture to architecture, but the problem lies in the adhesive used to bond the thin wood layers.

Even if the wood itself is naturally derived, if combined with petrochemical adhesives, the product as a whole cannot easily return to nature.

Laarman is working on making even the adhesive part plant-based.

The bio-based resin used is derived from by-products of industries like sugar beet.

This resin is used to bond the wood, forming it into furniture with complex curves.

The finished chair doesn't look like mere "eco-furniture." It has a flowing, three-dimensional shape, closer to a sculpture.

Here lies an important point.

Products that reduce environmental impact don't necessarily have to be plain or sacrifice design.

It's not chosen because it's sustainable, but desired because it's beautiful.

And the beautiful product is made from recyclable materials as a result.

If this order can be realized, the potential for environmentally conscious design to spread from a special market to general consumption increases significantly.

Making Chairs from What Trees "Drop" Without Cutting Them

Experiments using uniquely Australian materials are also intriguing.

Furniture designer Mark Liley from Western Australia focused on Banksia, a plant native to Australia.

He didn't use the trunk.

He used the large seed pods.

Although Banksia's distinctive seed pods have been processed into decorative items, using them as the main material for large furniture was not common.

Liley processed and combined these seed pods to create a chair.

The interesting aspect of this idea is that it doesn't involve "replacing wood with another environmentally friendly wood."

It finds value in other parts produced by the tree without cutting the tree itself.

When looking at plants, if we remove the fixed notion that "the trunk is the product, and everything else is a by-product," the candidates for materials increase dramatically.

Seeds, shells, fruits, leaves, bark, fibers, pruned branches.

There may be untapped material resources in parts previously considered of low value.

Turning Palm "Pruning Waste" into Large Architectural Structures

The potential of plant-derived materials extends beyond furniture.

EAST Architecture Studio, based in Beirut, is designing a prayer space using leaves and fibers from date palm pruning.

Since palms grow continuously, regular pruning is necessary for management.

This means pruning materials are not a one-time resource but something that repeatedly occurs while keeping the plant alive.

By collecting plant residues that would normally be treated as waste and using the fibers as building materials, they transform them into large spaces.

Here too, there is a shift from "materials that can only be used if cut down" to "materials that arise during the growth process."

If in the future, pruning materials that regularly occur from urban street trees, parks, and farmlands can be processed locally, it could develop into a system that simultaneously re-evaluates waste disposal and material procurement.

Because what was previously "paid to be disposed of" becomes "raw material for creating local products."

The Era of Fungi Making "Leather"

Not only plants themselves but also organisms that coexist with plants are becoming key players in new material development.

A representative example is mycelium, the so-called fungal network.

Research is being conducted on utilizing the property of fungal filaments to grow in a mesh pattern, allowing them to grow into specific shapes or sheets.

In Melbourne, designers and microbiologists are collaborating to explore the application of mycelium-based leather-like materials in protective clothing.

Here, the approach to manufacturing itself differs from conventional industrial products.

Instead of carving materials to create shapes, they "grow" them.

Instead of forcibly molding with immense pressure or heat, they utilize the growth power of organisms as part of the manufacturing process.

If factories are places where materials are produced, future factories might, in a sense, become closer to "farms."

"Harvesting" Colors from Plants

Natural dyeing is even more familiar.

The culture of using plants as dyes has existed worldwide since ancient times.

Techniques for obtaining blue from indigo leaves are a prime example.

Modern designers are not merely restoring this traditional technique but reinterpreting it as a new regional circulation system.

Mexican designer Fernando Laposse has been working on dyeing using avocado seeds, among other things.

Additionally, the Australian Tapestry Workshop is experimenting with dyeing yarn using familiar Australian plants.

What is noteworthy is the perspective of "what is growing around us," not just bringing in special dye plants from afar.

This is also about bringing regionality back into design.

Using the same chemical dyes everywhere in the world allows for the mass production of uniform colors.

On the other hand, using local plants results in colors that vary by region.

They may also change with the seasons.

From the perspective of industrial products, this is "variation."

But from a design perspective, it becomes a uniqueness that exists only in that land.

"Could This Really Be Made from Plants?"—A Trend Capturing Attention on Social Media

Such plant-based designs are also well-suited to social media.

One reason is the significant gap between the finished product and the raw materials.

The rugged seed pods of Banksia become beautiful furniture.

By-products of the sugar beet industry become adhesive materials for streamlined designer chairs.

Pruned palm leaves form towering architectural spaces.

Objects once thought of as "waste" transform into unexpected forms. This surprise is easily conveyed through a single photo or short video.

In fact, NGV is promoting the "Plant Life: The Nature of Design" exhibition on Instagram and Facebook, highlighting plant-based materials and design.

Notably, Mark Liley's Banksia Chair is consistently featured on social media, with posts showcasing the production process on Instagram receiving dozens of comments, and another post from April 2026 garnering over 200 comments, indicating high interest.

What stands out in related posts on social media is not just an introduction as "environmentally friendly furniture."

"Transforming discarded plants into functional materials,"
"Utilizing by-products produced by trees without cutting them down,"
"Balancing natural materials with cutting-edge design,"

are stories that are repeatedly shared.

Particularly in design-related posts introducing the Banksia Chair, the idea of "creating furniture from what trees leave behind" is presented as the value of the work, linked to discussions on forest resources and sustainability in Western Australia.

However, caution is also necessary here.

Not all comments on social media can be verified through public searches. Therefore, it cannot be concluded that "social media is unanimously praising it."

What can be confirmed is that these works are repeatedly shared within communities interested in design, architecture, and circular materials, with strong attention not only to the materials themselves but also to the stories behind them.

From "Sustainable" to "Regenerative"

In recent years, the word "sustainable" has rapidly become mainstream.

However, looking at the latest designs utilizing plants reveals a further concept.

That is the idea of "regenerative."

Traditional environmental considerations focused on how much negative impact on the environment could be reduced.

Reducing oil.

Reducing waste.

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

All are important, but fundamentally, it's about "minimizing the negative."

Regenerative design aims even further.

Creating products that contribute to regional resource circulation.

Creating new value from what was previously discarded.

Materials are reused after use, or ultimately return to natural cycles.

Designing the entire lifecycle of a product as a single cycle.

It is the idea of incorporating what is naturally done in nature into human industrial systems.

The Challenge: Moving from "Rare Works" to "Ordinary Products"

Of course, just because something is plant-based doesn't automatically make it environmentally friendly.

Transporting large quantities of plants over long distances incurs transport-related burdens.

If a lot of energy or chemicals are needed to commercialize natural materials, the overall environmental impact must be assessed.

The term biodegradable also requires confirmation of the environment and duration in which decomposition occurs.

Durability is also important.

Products that break after a few years and need replacement may result in lower environmental impact than products made from existing materials that last for decades.

Furthermore, there is a significant gap between experimental one-of-a-kind items and mass-produced goods.

Creating a single chair for an exhibition and manufacturing 100,000 chairs annually with stable quality, price, and safety are entirely different challenges.

Whether plant-based materials truly change society depends on whether these technologies can transition from "interesting experiments" to "materials that can be ordinarily chosen."

"Materials Not Yet Called Materials" Lying Dormant in Japan

This concept is not exclusive to Australia.

In Japan, too, there are plant-derived by-products that occur in large quantities every year.

Bamboo, rice husks, rice straw, pruned branches of fruit trees,