Cover & Upholstery materials
Fabrics from Kvadrat
Kvadrat is a second-generation family business founded in Denmark in 1968. The core competence of the fabric manufacturer lies in the high-quality processing of textiles and textile-like products for professional applications by architects, furniture manufacturers and private customers. Kvadrat continuously explores the aesthetic, technological and artistic limits of textiles and is today a global market leader in this field. But not only the quality of the fabrics speaks for itself, the company is very innovative and always operates with the highest ecological standards for their products. Not least for this reason, they were awarded the EU Enviromental Flower.
Merino wool from Rohi
For more than 75 years, Rohi has been developing and manufacturing wool fabrics of the highest quality and strictly ensures that the sheep from which the wool comes are kept in a speciesappropriate manner (e.g. no “mulesing”, no chemical tapes, etc.). The design studio, administration and production are located only 15 kilometres away from ZEITRAUM in Geretsried near Munich. The pure virgin wool used has remarkable natural properties that are indispensable for a hard-wearing upholstery fabric: It regenerates itself, does not crease and maintains its outer appearance for years.
The company is fundamentally committed to the idea of sustainability and, similar to Kvadrat, processes the “fabric waste” into new products – the subsidiary, “13Rugs” has been manufacturing high-quality rugs from the production-related leftovers since 2015.
Leder from Reinhardt
The natural leather from Reinhardt that ZEITRAUM uses for chairs, armchairs and upholstery elements has visible signs of life. The grain pattern of the hides is completely and clearly visible even after treatment with water-soluble dyes. As there are no colour pigments on the leather, all natural variations in structure and colour are visible. Like all products from “Leder Reinhardt”, the aniline leather is produced without the use of AZO dyes in accordance with the prohibition regulations.
For some time now, the company has also been working with a natural tanning process. Here, only tanning agents extracted from olive leaves are used. With the help of these extracts, sustainable, ecological leathers can be produced on an industrial scale that are in no way inferior to chemically tanned leathers in terms of their properties.
Leather from Elmo
The Swedish company Elmo pays attention to ecological principles in all stages of production. From animal husbandry, transport, reduced water and energy consumption to chrome-free tanning, numerous production steps are optimised with this in mind. Production residues are made available to nearby farmers as fertiliser or supplied to energy producers. Hides with visible insect bites and/or small scarred wounds emphasise the natural, wild character of the leather and are not disposed of, as is the case with many other manufacturers. ZEITRAUM uses Elmo leather for chairs, armchairs and upholstery elements. As a non-animal alternative, we offer our customers synthetic leather or a wide selection of non-animal cover fabrics.
Down
Down is used as a filling material in duvets, sleeping bags and clothing and is also very popular in the outdoor and bedding industry because of its light weight and excellent insulating properties. However, the extraction of the soft feathers is often accompanied by terrible animal cruelty. In so-called “live plucking”, the down is torn out of the living animals. This torturous procedure is repeated several times during an animal’s life and thus increases the breeders’ profits. Despite the fact that “live plucking” is banned in the EU, cases have been uncovered repeatedly in recent years. In addition, most manufacturers do not know exactly where the down used comes from. According to “Stiftung Warentest”, a survey conducted in 2013, none of the companies questioned were able to provide precise information about the origin of their down and thus rule out live plucking. Furthermore, the majority of down is currently sourced from China and Eastern Europe. Since live plucking is widespread in these regions, the associated animal suffering cannot be ruled out. Animal rights activists suspect market shares of far more than 5 %. (cf. UTOPIA, 2016)
ZEITRAUM is aware of its responsibility and sources duck down from France, which comes exclusively from dead animals, as a by-product of the meat industry. They are processed in Germany, meet the high requirements of “STANDARD 100” by OEKO-TEX® and have been certified with the “RESPONSIBLE DOWN STANDARD” label, among others. Nevertheless, we increasingly refrain from using down for ethical reasons. As an alternative, we use “recycled polyester sticks”. In addition, the use of recycled down is being planned for the coming years.
Polyurethane foam
Polyurethane can be found in almost all areas of our lives. For example, car seats, dashboards, shoe soles or skis are made from polyurethane. ZEITRAUM uses an HCFC- and CFC-free MDI polyurethane system as upholstery material. In contrast to TDI systems, MDI systems are not harmful to health during production. When it comes to the composition, the company attaches great importance to working with as few additives as possible.
The foams used for the models MORPH LOUNGE, ZENSO LOUNGE, NONOTO LOUNGE, FRIDAY, MORPH POUF and other upholstered furniture comply with the German fire protection standard and have been certified with various environmental certificates, such as the OEKO-TEX Standard 100. OEKO-TEX Standard 100 is a globally recognised, independent testing and certification system for textile raw materials, intermediate and end products at all stages of processing, as well as for accessory materials used. The test criteria and limit values refer to important legal regulations on banned AZO dyes, formaldehydes, nickel, etc. as well as the European chemicals regulation REACH and numerous other environmentally relevant substance classes.
Due to the negative ecological properties of polyurethane foam, we have been searching for alternatives with comparable properties for several years and are successively reducing our consumption of synthetic upholstery materials.