Designing for Disassembly: Isomi’s commitment to circular design

At Isomi, we believe that great design is not only about how something functions or looks but how it ends. Designing for disassembly is a guiding principle across our product collections, shaping everything from material selection to construction methods. It’s a quiet but powerful shift: by creating products that can be taken apart cleanly, we enable them to live longer, be reused, or responsibly returned to the material stream at the end of their life.

This ethos is central to the Tejo collection, where every element from the lounge and ottoman to the stool is designed with circularity in mind. There are no synthetic foams, no permanent adhesives, and no wood frames. Instead, we work with mono-material structures, renewable textiles, and natural components that allow for complete disassembly and material recovery.

The Tejo stool, for instance, is CNC-machined from a single block of recycled cork, a material reclaimed from discarded wine stoppers. Lightweight, durable and naturally regenerative, cork is not only low-impact in production but fully recyclable at the end of its use.

The same values are carried through to the Tejo Ottoman and Lounge. Upholstered in renewable fabrics and filled with natural latex, these elements are free from synthetic glues or complex layered composites. Fixings are mechanical and reversible, meaning each part can be updated, replaced or separated for recycling, ensuring the integrity of each material is preserved.

This approach extends beyond Tejo. With the launch of the Knit One chair, where we explore disassembly through a different lens, one that combines textile innovation with modular construction. The chair’s metal frame supports a tailored, stitch-on cover that can be easily removed without tools. No adhesives, no permanent seams, just thoughtful assembly that supports long-term use and renewal. Upholstery elements can be swapped, updated or recycled independently, reducing waste and increasing the chair’s adaptability over time.

Designing for disassembly allows us to address the environmental impact of furniture not just in how it’s made, but in how it’s unmade. By eliminating harmful bonding agents and reducing mixed-material complexity, we create products that retain value, long after their first use. This also lays the foundation for future take-back schemes, refurbishment services, and modular reuse, all central to a regenerative design economy.

At Isomi, disassembly is not a constraint, it’s a creative challenge. It invites us to consider the full lifecycle of every object we make. From a CNC-machined cork stool to a tailored lounge system or a precisely detailed chair, each product is designed to evolve, endure, and eventually return to the earth not to landfill.

In building for tomorrow, we’re designing for what comes next.