On the 23rd of July, the SBTD’s Sustainable Design Working Group will be hosting the launch party of ‘A Guide to Sustainable Materials for Theatre Design’. This is a new guidebook researched and made by SBTD volunteers. It presents bite-size information about a range of materials from OSB and bamboo to natural dyes and seaweed.Volunteers have researched and shared information about materials they use in their practice or they have tested material products in the lab, in the workshop or in the studio and have written up their findings. Some have even grown their own materials and presented interesting recipes to make clay from used cardboard or bioplastics from agar agar.
No material is completely sustainable and so the guide reviews the advantages and disadvantages of various subjects, including materials that are already used ubiquitously in the industry and some that are in the early development phase of being turned into stage design resources. How materials are used in theatre is just as important as what the materials are made out of.
The guide is visually driven to show some of the potential applications of the materials to stage design. It is a guide made by designers and for designers. It aims to open up some possibilities to try different materials on stage in a creative and sustainable way. The guide touches on subjects including how we stage materials, the history and meaning of materials in relation to their sustainability, procurement, safety, and what happens to materials after their use in theatre. Each page is filled with artistic, practical and critical information that hopes to reframe sustainability as a creative ambition rather than a restriction upon design.
The launch will be hosted on zoom and the eventbrite link is here:
Or you can sign up to the mailing list where we will share details about the event, where to sign up and where to access the finished guide: https://www.theatredesign.org.uk/working-groups/sustainable-design-group/
