6 Sustainable Interior Design Ideas That Will Surprise You

At StoneCycling, we notice that our WasteBasedBricks® and brick slips are being used in interior projects more and more. The often surprising ideas of the architects and interior designers we collaborate with inspired this article, in which we share sustainable interior design ideas using upcycled brick.

Hopefully we can spark your creativity and motivate you to look beyond the standard usage of the brick and brick slip!

6 Sustainable Interior Design Ideas That Will Surprise You || StoneCycling

01. Orientation of the Brick

Designers often say that they like our sustainable interior design products, but want to move away from the look and feel of a standard brick facade. 

In the left example below, for the flooring of a tech company in Amsterdam, Studio Rian Knop used the WasteBasedSlip® Blackpepper (Sliced) in an upright position, with a light joint.

On the right, the designers of a private house in The Netherlands used the WasteBasedSlip® Wasabi (Shine) in horizontal position, also without adding a joint.

StoneCycling || Floor of Waste in The Netherlands
Blackpepper Sliced WasteBasedBricks
Wasabi WasteBasedBricks House in Venlo, The Netherlands || StoneCycling
Wasabi Shine WasteBasedBricks

02. Working with Different Brick Textures

Our WasteBasedBricks® and WasteBasedSlips® come in a variety of different colours and textures. In the photos below you can essentially see the same combination of bricks in the ‘flavours’ Salami, Orange and Mushroom, but in the textures in Raw, Punched en Sliced.

The photo in the right lower corner is an example of the Shine texture (available for our Aubergine, Wasabi and Truffle bricks), which is an innovative and sparkling top layer that gives a spectacular look to your facade or interior wall.

6 Sustainable Interior Design Ideas That Will Surprise You || StoneCycling
Sliced
6 Sustainable Interior Design Ideas That Will Surprise You || StoneCycling
Raw
6 Sustainable Interior Design Ideas That Will Surprise You || StoneCycling
Shine
6 Sustainable Interior Design Ideas That Will Surprise You || StoneCycling
Punched

03. Variations in Brick Thickness

Another way to apply our sustainable interior design materials in a way that’s not a regular brick wall, is to make variations in the thickness of the brick or brick slip.

You can choose to get the bricks cut in the thickness that you require, going as thin as 15mm! In the following photo examples of interior walls, you can see that they were clad with brick slips of 15mm and 25mm thick.

StoneCycling || Starbucks Europe
Horizontal Application at Starbucks in Bucharest, Romania
BREEAM Outstanding Interior at LC Packaging HQ in The Netherlands || StoneCycling
Vertical Application at LC Packaging in Waddinxveen, The Netherlands

04. Playing with the Joints

When applying sustainable interior materials, joint size and colour can have a huge effect on the overall look and feel of a wall, floor or facade.

In the examples below, showcasing the Mushroom Raw in the same pattern for each of the walls, you can see the effect of using a lighter or darker joint while working with exactly the same bricks or brick slips.

6 Sustainable Interior Design Ideas That Will Surprise You || StoneCycling
6 Sustainable Interior Design Ideas That Will Surprise You || StoneCycling
6 Sustainable Interior Design Ideas That Will Surprise You || StoneCycling
6 Sustainable Interior Design Ideas That Will Surprise You || StoneCycling

In a similar way, using no joint at all or leaving the joint open, has a big effect on the look and feel on the end result as well.

Below you can see a few examples of using different joints at some of our most recent projects where we have turned sustainable interior design ideas into reality in collaboration with our partners:

Eye-Catching Sustainable Ace & Tate Store Barcelona || StoneCycling
Example of vertical brick slips with an open joint
Bar Ramona, Amsterdam, The Netherlands | StoneCycling
Example of vertical brick slips without using a joint
StoneCycling || EOSTA in The Netherlands
Example of horizontal brick slips without joint
StoneCycling || Floor of Waste in The Netherlands
Example of brick slip used as flooring with a 10mm joint

05. Bespoke Brick Slips

At StoneCycling® you have many possibilities when it comes to the sizes and shapes of our products to work with. For all of you who are really into detail: we can produce the brick slips in such a way that they cover each and every part of the element of a wall or facade.

Here’s an example of the different types of sustainable brick slips for the first Pistachio project that is currently being built in Amsterdam. We’ll make sure to add more photos once the project is completed.

StoneCycling WasteBasedBricks® - Pistachio Custom Sizes
Sustainable Interior Design Ideas: Custom Pistachio Brick Slips - Credit: Amy van der Horst

06. Colours in the Brick Mix

Colour is of course also one of the key elements that can turn a regular brick wall into a unique work of art. Our minimum order quantity is 200 m² per colour (for interior design projects) to keep our production sustainable, but you are welcome to use different textures of each colour within that order.

Are you working on a bigger project? Then mixing colours could be the way to go! The following examples show an interior wall using three different textures of one brick (Raw, Sliced and Punched) at a large company’s headquarters on the left, and our long time favourite mixed colour facade at the Colourful Condo in Amsterdam on the right.

Which one is your favourite?

StoneCycling || EOSTA in The Netherlands
Combining Textures At Eosta
Colourful Bricks at Condo in Amsterdam: Eye-Catching and Sustainable! || StoneCycling
Colourful Condo In Amsterdam

The examples in this article are meant to spark your creativity around sustainable interior design ideas. We are sure these are only a few different ways you can apply our products. 

That’s why we are excited to hear YOUR ideas, so feel free to reach out to our brick team to discuss your design and investigate if we can make it a reality, together.