Sustainable food and furniture features in zero-waste London restaurant Silo

Mycelium pendant lamps dangle above recycled-plastic dining tables inside Silo, a zero-waste restaurant in east London designed by studio Nina+Co.

Silo is set within The White Building, a creative hub in the Hackney Wick neighbourhood that contains studio space for artists and a craft brewery.

The restaurant, which is headed up by chef Douglas McMaster, sets out to create zero waste and close the loop on food production processes.

Staff try to make the most out of all cooking ingredients – for example, "wonky" fruit and vegetables are blended into smoothies.

Meat is also prepared with a nose-to-tail approach – where chefs utilise every part of the animal, including offal, instead of just popular cuts such as shank or breast.

Some of the produce, like butter and oat milk, is made in-house.

All produce delivered to the restaurant comes in reusable containers, crates or pails, and then served on plates made from recycled plastic bags.

Any food that isn't eventually consumed is fed into an on-site composting machine.

Design studio Nina+Co was brought on board to develop interiors that reflected the restaurant's sustainability-focused ethos.

"At the studio, we know that comfort, style and luxury are totally achievable within a sustainable framework," said the studio's founder, Nina Woodcroft.

"By applying circular thinking, utilising sustainable materials and considering how they will either biodegrade or be disassembled for repurposing in the future, we created a thoughtful interior that lives up to the elegance and integrity of the food."

The white-painted dining room is anchored by a huge fluted bar counter crafted from recycled plastic packaging.

Directly in front is a row of cream stool seats where guests can sit and watch dishes being put together in the open kitchen, which is lined with blackened timber beams.

Recycled plastic has also been used to create the flecked tops of the dining tables. They're supported by cylindrical legs made from sustainably-sourced ash wood and feature cork detailing.

Glass wine bottles drunk during previous dinner services have been crushed, moulded and kiln-fired by a local potter to create the restaurant's wall lights – each one comprises a trio of circular dishes, at the centre of which is an exposed bulb.

Mycelium, which is the vegetative part of fungi, has been used to create the pendant lamps, tables and seating poufs in the casual lounge area, where guests can enjoy cocktails.

"The tables and stools are strong and lightweight, with a soft skin akin to nubuck leather and a resemblance to honed travertine stone," explained Woodcroft. She told Dezeen she'd attempted to incorporate more unusual sustainable materials.

"Some of the innovative materials we hoped to incorporate, like potato waste bio-plastic, pine-needle fibreboard and seaweed fabrics are not yet ready for a commercial environment," she continued.

"However, if a small pioneering restaurant like Silo can achieve what we achieved, I hope and expect the hospitality industry as a whole to step-up their game and apply their substantial collective spend to these areas."

Zero-waste restaurants are gradually growing in popularity as the food industry becomes more environmentally conscious.

Two years ago, Overtreders W erected a temporary zero-waste restaurant at Lowlands Festival in the Netherlands. Recycled plastic was used to make the venue's benches and trestle tables, while large sacks of grain were used as ballast.

Bread baked from potato peelings and pesto made out of kitchen leftovers was on the menu.

The 2018 edition of Manhattan-based fair WantedDesign also had a pop-up eatery called Zero Waste Bistro. Surfaces and fixtures were made from recycled Tetra Pak – a packaging material typically used for milk cartons.

Photography is by Sam A Harris.

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Burnt House is a charred wood extension that looks like a Japanese tea house

Will Gamble Architects has updated a house in west London with an extension modelled on a Japanese tea house.

Burnt House is an extension to a Victorian house in Fulham featuring a charred wood window seat and gridded glazing.

Its design is based on the shoji screen, a facade or room divider in traditional Japanese architecture and a common feature in the tea house.

"The concept of drawing inspiration from Japanese architecture materialised from the clients' desire to use charred timber somewhere in the proposal," explained architect and studio founder Will Gamble.

"The charring of timber is a traditional Japanese method of treating wood, therefore we felt that this Japanese influence should be reflected in the overall appearance of the scheme, not just its timber cladding," he told Dezeen.

The clients, a young couple, had asked both Gamble and interior design studio Smith & Butler to renovate their entire home.

The extension plays an important part in the scheme, creating a large open-plan kitchen and dining space facing the rear garden.

With its Japanese-style appearance, the extension stands out from the brick walls of the main house, but neat proportions and a pitched roof help to tie old and new together.

Although it looks like there is a lot of blackened wood, in fact the only element is a large window seat built into the glazing. The facade steps to help this element fit it, while the steel-framed windows are finished in black to match.

The window seat was charred with a blowtorch, by a specialist in the technique known as Shou Sugi Ban.

"We have used charred timber on projects in the past," said Gamble. "It has beautiful quality to it, as the charring creates a matt finish with a crocodile skin texture."

"The depth and tone of the black can't be achieved using alternative methods such as staining or paints," he continued.

"Not only is it aesthetically pleasing, the charring makes the timber more durable and weather-resistant, and it avoids the need for using retardants, preservatives or paints to protect the timber, which makes it more environmentally friendly."

The kitchen wraps around one corner of the room, leaving plenty of space for large dinner parties overlooking the garden.

The garden itself, designed by landscape studio Garden Club London, reinforces the tea-house vibe. It features an irregularly shaped patio, planting beds filled with white flowers and a silver birch tree.

"Like the Japanese lantern, the screens glow and illuminate the garden at night," added Gamble.

The renovation also includes a new layout for the rest of the ground floor, a simple refurbishment of the first floor, and the conversion of the loft to create a new master bedroom (due to be completed at a later date).

By moving the kitchen and dining space to the back of the ground floor, the design team were able to create a new snug at the rear of the living room.

This room comes with a surprise – behind the full-heigh oak joinery is a secret "speakeasy-style bar".

Here, Smith & Bulter chose a white marble that matches the kitchen, but accompanied it with green leather.

Photography is by Ståle Eriksen.

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