Kiri Sawtell explores how a trailblazing furniture designer’s reckoning with sustainability became his magnum opus.

Michael Alvisse, an interior designer and one-half of sustainable furniture pioneers Schamburg + Alvisse, is a true Renaissance man of Australian design.

When he’s not crafting furniture for Zenith Interiors, he shares his knowledge as a lecturer of interior architecture at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and volunteers with Surf Life Saving Australia. He is also the sustainability judge in this year’s Interior Design Excellence Awards (IDEA). 

Since 1997, Alvisse and his business partner, respected furniture designer Marc Schamburg, have shaped environmental stewardship and sustainable furniture design in Australia – long before sustainability entered mainstream design culture. 

Together, they became the first Australian furniture designers to be independently certified as meeting the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC) rigorous environmental and social standards for sustainable timber supply chain management, which Alvisse cites as one of his proudest moments. 

“Surprisingly, in the beginning, none of this focus on sustainability was planned,” he tells inside, from Thirroul, on the New South Wales south coast. “We simply embraced our many mistakes and committed to learn from them.”

Alvisse’s design philosophy is rooted in the Buddhist concept of ‘benevolence’, which advocates compassion and kindness towards all life.

For Alvisse, ‘benevolence’ is more than just a theoretical concept. It became a defining value for him in the early nineties, when Schamburg led Alvisse on a transformative design tour of Northern Italy, where they studied the works of the legendary architect Carlo Scarpa. Alvisse recalls being profoundly moved by Scarpa’s architectural masterpieces, notably the Querini Stampalia Library in Venice and the Brion Family Cemetery near Treviso.

“During this tour, Marc and I decided that whatever we do from now on, right down to the simplest, smallest, humblest things, we would do them as beautifully as we can,” Alvisse says.

A stretch in ethical innovation

Schamburg + Alvisse’s first major success was the Stretch stool, a brightly hued, spool-shaped resin seat that received acclaim in Wallpaper* magazine. With international interest spurring sales, an unexpected discovery forced the pair to consider the unthinkable — that perhaps they shouldn’t make the product at all.

The designers spent days assembling an order for Stretch stools in a resin factory in Artarmon. Alvisse recalls feeling overcome by a “sickening wall of chemical fumes”.

“Here we were designing these physically beautiful pieces, yet their manufacture exposed the craftsmen to toxic chemicals,” he says. “My degree in architecture didn’t consider the potential health impacts of harmful chemicals in construction materials. That was not a question in those days.”  

Schamburg + Alvisse commissioned a report by sustainability expert and UNSW academic Kirsty Máté to investigate the safety of the materials used in Stretch. The report found the solvent used could readily penetrate the skin, eyes and lungs, potentially causing neurological and genetic damage or cancer.

“That was our wake-up call,” Alvisse says.

Despite investing tens of thousands of dollars to produce the range, the UNSW report exposed some hard truths.

“It meant three-quarters of our collection failed to meet our ‘benevolence’ criteria for good design. We decided to pause production of the resin stools until we found a safer manufacturing process.”

However, discontinuing the resin Stretch pieces did not stop the phones from ringing in their Surry Hills studio. Just a week later, a design firm from the United States called, wanting to specify thousands of the discontinued Stretch stools.

“Here was this opportunity from a rather high-profile global client, one that could open up all kinds of doors for us,” Alvisse says. “Declining that job due to our concerns about workers’ health was one of the toughest decisions we had to make.”

The setback only fuelled their commitment to sustainability, leading to intensive research and development into safer materials and achieving FSC certification through rigorous screening of their timber supply chain for environmental and social performance.

“It put the fire in our belly to work harder – to design and manufacture green furniture in a country with a shrinking manufacturing industry.”

Schamburg and Alvisse dedicated a year to testing environmentally friendly water-based glues, requiring extra time and craft. They also guided their suppliers in an often challenging transition to safer alternatives.

“There was nothing easy about it,” Alvisse says. “Every step along the way was a big risk for a small and self-funded independent company.”

Schamburg and Alvisse’s collections prioritised quality over price point. “It’s a hard thing to build a brand on, but that’s the path we took,” Alvisse says.

“Industry colleagues told us: ‘People won’t pay for this’, ‘This will fail’, and ‘You’ll send your suppliers broke’.”

Despite industry scepticism, Schamburg and Alvisse’s dedication to quality and sustainability paid off. They pioneered furniture using post-consumer recycled plastics and built a green global manufacturing network.

Taking a stand against consumerism

A career highlight came in 2016, when the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) acquired their iconic ‘Stop Playing With Yourself’ puzzle seating.

“It was the ultimate anti-consumerism piece. We designed it so that people couldn’t buy it,” Alvisse says. “We hoped this piece would be shared by the broader community, which is what the NGV has done.”

He recalls the moment the piece went “viral”. “We got emails from people in Finland, London, New York and Latvia, saying, ‘We’ve just seen ‘Stop Playing with Yourself’ in a magazine; we want it’. Perhaps it struck a chord with people because it was whimsical, dynamic, beautiful, and something they couldn’t have.”

For nearly 20 years, Schamburg + Alvisse independently produced furniture for corporate and high-end residential clients. In 2013, they sold their brand to Zenith. The move heralded new beginnings and the opportunity to scale up their ethical manufacturing system globally. A decade later, they continue to design highly sought-after collections for the leading commercial furniture company. 

“When we met Zenith, 75 to 80 percent of the Schamburg + Alvisse collection was certified by Good Environmental Choice Australia (GECA) and FSC, a high bar for our industry,” Alvisse says. “Zenith honours that sustainability benchmark and remains committed to expanding on it.

“Marc sent me a message the other day; he said, ‘Look, Schamburg + Alvisse stuff from the 1990s is in vintage shops in Collingwood and Fitzroy’. We never imagined that. We only ever wished our products would be looked after rather than dumped in landfill.”

Championing sustainability in design

Alvisse continues to advocate for sustainability in design. He recently toured the Asia Pacific to meet clients, some impacted by extreme weather events. He says designers are eager to design for environmental resilience and to help cut carbon emissions.

As the world grapples with back-to-back climate disasters and biodiversity loss, architects and designers are demanding greater transparency from suppliers’ sustainability claims. Alvisse supports initiatives such as Architects Declare Product Aware database, simplifying the vetting process for sustainable procurement.

He says clients are increasingly specifying furniture and finishes made from safe materials designed for easy re-use and repair.

“There are massive opportunities to win new business from companies asking, ‘How do we make our built environment more resilient? How do we cut our carbon emissions? How do we save on long-term capital costs and maintenance costs?’”

It’s a focus that starkly contrasts much of today’s consumer goods, which Alvisse says are designed to be disposable, not repairable.

“At the first sign of a downturn, global manufacturers tend to drop their certification systems – the very things clients rely on to distinguish authentic sustainability from greenwashing,” Alvisse says.

“We must work with the climate. Designing for resilience is all about quality.”

Alvisse suspects it won’t be long before a new entrant disrupts the industry with a focus on transparency and resilience, just like he and Schamburg did two decades ago. This innovation potential excites him, both in his role as a jury member for IDEA and through his work in design and education.

“The best thing I can do is to share knowledge to help our industry rise to the challenge of protecting people and our ecosystems,” says Alvisse, striking a synergy between design and surf lifesaving.

“Having people feel safe and cared for, whether at the beach, inside a building, or in a town or city, is gold. We need this more than ever.”

Photography supplied.

This article originally appeared in inside 119. Click here to subscribe and receive future issues.