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Sources estimate that 45% of flowers handled by the floral industry die before being sold. In her essay Workers Get the Thorns, Rebecca Solnit describes the industrial realities behind rose production in Colombia, revealing the disconnect between what a flower represents and the systems that produce it. In local neighborhoods, shopkeepers discard thousands of flowers once their sell-by date expires.
Despite being biodegradable, this biomass represents an underutilised material with architectural potential.
Developed on the SuperMatter platform at the Royal College of Art, Made with Love uses floriculture by-products to develop building materials and architectural systems. Olivia Webb is a designer and researcher who has devoted the last year collecting industry waste and exploring how it can be treated with the same care we attach to the flowers themselves
The project has developed a bio-resin 3D-printed node system that uses the thorns from each rose stem to secure joints and build structures. This universal joinery system enables a range of interior applications, from partitions and shelving to corridors and pavilions.
Her rose-petal tiles were exhibited at the Surface Design Show, demonstrating an industry-facing application of the same research. By combining discarded rose petals with Jesmonite, each tile develops a unique surface pattern, allowing the material's natural variation to remain visible rather than hidden.
The resulting material family includes bundled stem furniture with rose-petal tabletops, fibre panels for shelving and privacy screens, brick infill systems, thorn panelling, and structural stem assemblies.