Cork: Versatile, Sustainable, and Durable

Strike the per­fect bal­ance between high per­for­mance, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and aes­thet­ics with cork. This beau­ti­ful nat­ur­al mate­r­i­al, which uti­lizes renew­able cork bark grown in sus­tain­ably man­aged forests, can be used in both wall­cov­er­ing and uphol­stery appli­ca­tions, and it meets the demands of high-traf­fic interiors. 

Sus­tain­able Cycles

Wolf-Gordon’s cork wall­cov­er­ing and uphol­stery tex­tiles are har­vest­ed from respon­si­bly man­aged cork oak forests. Unlike oth­er wood prod­ucts, cork can be col­lect­ed with­out cut­ting down the tree on which it is grown. It is stripped from the bark of live cork oak trees and regen­er­at­ed after 9 to 10 years, encour­ag­ing respon­si­ble stew­ard­ship of this resource and earn­ing it the sta­tus of a rapid­ly renew­able resource. Cork bark planks are air-dried, then boiled to remove the bark’s rough out­er lay­er and clean and soft­en the mate­r­i­al. The flex­i­ble bark is shaved into thin sheets, which are arranged into var­i­ous pat­terns. This sys­tem is care­ful­ly man­aged to ensure that cork har­vest­ing pro­motes the health of the for­est. ​“No cork grow­er wants to over­stress their trees,” says cork expert and prod­uct design­er Daniel Micha­lik. This sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture pro­tects not only the cork har­vest but the entire ecosys­tem: accord­ing to Micha­lik, cork forests ben­e­fit car­bon seques­tra­tion, pre­vent soil ero­sion, and pro­mote bio­di­ver­si­ty. The final prod­uct is free of con­flict min­er­als, heavy met­als, per­flu­o­ri­nat­ed com­pounds, phtha­lates, and solvents. 

High Per­for­mance

Cork wall­cov­er­ing and uphol­stery are not just nat­ur­al — they’re also tough enough to stand up to con­tract stan­dards. When used as uphol­stery, Wolf-Gordon’s cork prod­ucts are high-per­form­ing and meet all Asso­ci­a­tion for Con­tract Tex­tiles (ACT) stan­dards. They are intrin­si­cal­ly imper­me­able to liq­uids, mildew-resis­tant, and hypoal­ler­genic. Our cork uphol­stery meets or exceeds 100,000 Wyzen­beek dou­ble rubs, mak­ing it ide­al for heavy-use appli­ca­tions. Cork is equal­ly use­ful in wall­cov­er­ing appli­ca­tions, boast­ing a Class A fire rat­ing and mildew- and rot-resis­tance. In addi­tion, cork wall­cov­er­ing is a nat­ur­al insu­la­tor that also has acousti­cal prop­er­ties — ide­al for use in poten­tial­ly noisy set­tings, such as the com­mon area of the Amwins Char­lotte Ser­vice Cen­ter, designed by Gensler. 

Stun­ning Design 

The unique nat­ur­al pat­terns of cork are on full dis­play in Wolf-Gordon’s cork wall­cov­er­ing and uphol­stery prod­ucts, and these organ­ic shapes and tex­tures are enhanced through thought­ful design. In the cork tex­tile Ama­rante, metal­lic foil glints between ver­ti­cal­ly flow­ing oblong shapes, high­light­ing the nat­ur­al col­or stri­a­tions with­in the cork bark. Lis­boa​’s close grain resem­bles sun­light dap­pling the sur­face of a stream, empha­siz­ing the earthy material’s nat­ur­al ori­gins. Dra­mat­ic Sin­tra​’s small-scale grain and large-scale, play­ful tiger-like strip­ing is a stun­ning dis­play of the design flex­i­bil­i­ty of this textile. 

With its sus­tain­able life­cy­cle, strik­ing appear­ance, and high per­for­mance char­ac­ter­is­tics, cork wall­cov­er­ing and uphol­stery are ver­sa­tile solu­tions for a wide range of inte­ri­or applications.