01 . 05 . 16
James first met Hannah and Justin Floyd at last year’s DO Lectures in West Wales, where they were part of the team of volunteers helping the event to run smoothly. Hannah and Justin are from Buckfastleigh in Devon, a town that was once the centre of a thriving woolen industry but which has since declined as demand for the coarse wool of upland hill sheep to make carpets has fallen when the local factory closed. Much of that wool is now considered an almost worthless by-product of sheep farming, and might otherwise have to be burnt. Hannah and Justin are designers, and sought a new use for this waste product; their solution was Solidwool, a composite material combining the coarse wool of Herdwick sheep with a bioresin to produce a material with similar properties to fiberglass.
