Featuring: The Sustainable Materials Library at SFSU
A new collection offers inspiration and helpful insights for designers of all stripes.
This newly minted library from San Francisco State University checks so many boxes in my library + creativity brain: community-led design and collection development; accessibility in person and online; a collection that offers inspiration and practical information for users and visitors.
For background on the Sustainable Materials Library and to set the table for the following conversation, check out this press release. Many thanks to Professor JD Beltran for answering my questions about the Sustainable Materials Library. In some instances, responses have been edited for clarity.
Building this collection and space in collaboration with students must have been really interesting for everyone involved. Can you tell me a little about any unexpected outcomes or moments that happened among the students and other folks involved in developing and building the Sustainable Materials Library?
All of the students involved were SFSU Design Majors, and this project was, for many, the first time they actually were required to source materials and to physically build something—build shelves and walls and cut tiles to mount and display the materials samples, as well as conceptualize and build exhibitions to show off the sustainable materials they had collected. They also had never dealt with the process of sourcing materials for a project.
The students gained skills in researching developments in the field of sustainable materials as well as in writing companies and inventors all over the world to source and arrange delivery of specific material samples to the college for the library. Many of the companies they contacted were thrilled to hear from us and send samples so that the sustainable products they manufacture became part of a physical and online resource for more sustainable products and construction.
The students were given the assignment to research and source any sustainable material they were interested in, anywhere, and then find a company or resource creating that material and communicate with them so that they could send them a 5”x5” sample for the library.
The students themselves never dreamed they would discover and access innovative, bio-based, and upcycled materials such as agave resin, cellulose cardboard, python leather, hempcrete, and recycled natural rubber. These incredible materials were sourced from all over the world, from innovative materials companies based throughout the United States as well as in New Zealand, Italy, Australia, British Columbia, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
Over the course of the semester, the samples were delivered to the SFSU Design department, and everyone would gather around to see the student who sourced and ordered the material sample open the package and see and feel what the cool new material was like. We’d pass the sample around the whole class with ooohs and ahhhhs—it was sort of like Christmas!
Students also became proficient at building sustainable exhibitions to showcase the samples. They used found materials like leftover cardboard boxes, garage-sale cast-offs, and scavenged wood and tree branches from the small forest that surrounds the campus. They also learned how to use power tools like jigsaws and power drills to construct shelves and build the mobile walls for the permanent library—and came away from the project with lifelong skills and experience in actually building a library from the ground up.
Do you have any stories or anecdotes to share about whether and how people are using the Sustainable Materials Library, in person or virtually?
After SFSU Design’s first exhibition in 2022 showcased the library’s first set of 20 sustainable materials samples, press coverage of the library prompted Gail Lee, then Director of Sustainability of the University of California, San Francisco to seek out Professor JD Beltran about this resource. She had several lengthy meetings with Professor Beltran about the library project, and shared that she had been trying to determine ways in which the construction companies for UCSF’s own construction projects could be better educated about available sustainable choices in construction materials during the planning process.
They brainstormed the accessibility of other existing materials libraries [most of which did not emphasize sustainable materials and were expensive to gain membership access to, as well], and determined that expanding the library for access to not only the SFSU community but to the general public was key. Since then, the library has had multiple inquiries from creators and builders who learned about the library through research and press articles asking to visit.
One of our key collaborators is the City of San Francisco’s Environment Department, and its visionary Director, Tyrone Jue. In consultation with Director Jue’s department and staff, we are now collaborating in efforts to include information about sustainable construction practices and the sustainable materials resources at the SFSU Sustainable Materials Library as part of the key, mandatory process in obtaining any new building construction permit in the City of San Francisco.
Are there plans to continue working with the Sustainable Materials Library in upcoming SFSU courses, including those outside the School of Design?
This past year, after learning about SFSU’s Sustainable Materials Library, Professor Beltran was contacted by the California College of the Arts Graduate Design Program and learned of their graduate students’ research and invention of new sustainable building and product materials. As a result, the SFSU Materials Library now has eight new sustainable materials samples created by these students, and a continuing collaboration with CCA.
The SFSU Sustainable Materials Library was generously funded by SFSU’s internal climate agency Climate HQ, which develops and underwrites grants for new climate and sustainability projects every year. Through Climate HQ’s initiation of campus-wide partnerships, the Sustainable Materials Library has collaborated on sustainability projects with other departments, including the Comics Department to create and publish a graphic novel on microplastics and the Cinema Department to host a film festival featuring films about climate sustainability.
With the library’s launch, are there other thoughts or reflections you’d like to share?
The realization of the sustainable materials library over the past four years has been a dream come true for SFSU Design. To be able to have the university commit a gorgeous and accessible permanent space for the library, and then have Climate HQ contribute funding to fill it with greenery and furnishings. To have the support staff of SFSU Design Richard Ortiz and Justin Wong dedicate their efforts to co-designing and building the library infrastructure solely with sustainable materials—even inventing a novel hempcrete base wall display made completely of sustainable materials to show off the tiles. And then to have each of the 120+ SFSU and CCA design students fill this remarkable space with amazing sustainable materials samples sourced from all over the world has been simply incredible—truly an achievement of a lifetime.
Check out everything about the Sustainable Materials Library at SFSU over at their website, green-library.org.