There’s a Growing Buzz about Sustainably Engineered Fiberboard

Panels of sustainable design fiberboard (SDF) used for cabinet doors manufactured by &Shufl.

Photo © courtesy of the manufacturer

Sustainable design fiberboard (SDF) isn’t new, but it is capturing new interest among designers and architects as a greener, durable and more colorful alternative to traditional MDF for applications ranging from kitchen cabinetry to doors, walls and flooring.

Proponents tout the engineered wood panels’ thicker durable panels that ease machine-cutting and installation, formaldehyde-free binders, sustainable timber sources, and plant-based dyes that penetrate the boards and make additional finishes unnecessary.

There’s a Growing Buzz about Sustainably Engineered Fiber Board

&SHUFL’s Raw collection of cabinetry, built from SDF.

Photo courtesy &SHUFL

Tom Surman and Percy Weston, whose London firm favors unfussy, sustainable materials in projects such as their teaching kitchen in an elementary school first encountered the timber particle board under the brand name Valchromat while the two were students at the Royal College of Art in London where each earned his M.Arch. “Our philosophy is no unnecessary, fiddly details and finishing,” says Surman explaining why they chose SDF for the design of their first piece of furniture. The durable SDF table consists of just four computer-cut parts, no hardware, can be assembled in 10 seconds and is FSC-certified. “There’s no thin, fragile paint finish to chip, which makes it very durable,” he says.

There’s a Growing Buzz about Sustainably Engineered Fiber Board

A prototype of an SDF, easy-assemble table by Surman Weston, a London-based architecture firm. A solid oak wedge holds its four pieces in place.

Photo courtesy Surman Weston

Danish designer Lotte Hyldahl cited similar reasons for rolling out an entire line of SDF cabinetry two years ago for her six-year-old company &SHUFL. “It’s a very honest and tactile material. It can be maintained and revived in a way that few products can. If it gets a stain, it can be sanded and repaired. It does require re-oiling once in a while, but if that is done, it can stay beautiful for many years,” says Hyldahl.

There’s a Growing Buzz about Sustainably Engineered Fiber Board

Assembly for Surman Weston’s four-piece SDF table takes just seconds.

Photo courtesy Surman Weston

While the verdict is still out on whether SDF under its many brand names always features a low-VOC binder, (at least one 2000 study published in the American College of Chest Physicians' Chest Journal reports workers who handle a chemical used to produce SDF have developed asthma-like symptoms), the fact that it can qualify for Roseburg LEED credits in the same way that sustainable MDF does, but feature versatile through-color is at least a step in the right direction.

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Kelly Beamon was the products editor for Architectural Record and managed the monthly products newsletter Material World. Before joining the staff of RECORD, she worked as a senior editor for This Old House and Interior Design, and as the managing editor of Surface. As the executive editor of HD magazine, she moderated talks on design trends for HDExpo, an annual hospitality design conference held in Las Vegas. She has also been quoted on design by the New York Times, ABC News, and USA Today and has written columns on American house styles and kitchen and bath trends. She has a B.A. in English from Chatham University in Pittsburgh and 18 years of architecture and design writing to her credit. She resides in Brooklyn with two children, two guinea pigs, and threadbare period original furnishings by George Nelson, Kazuhide Takahama, Charles and Ray Eames, and Gustav Stickley.