fast efficient and sustainable: the new era of material sampling

as consumers we are told to reduce, reuse and recycle. we make sure our newspapers, bottles, and cans go into the right bins and bike to work. few of us, however, will strive to make an entire industry more sustainable. but that’s what adam sandow, founder and CEO of SANDOW, is doing with material bank, the world’s largest architectural and design-focused material resource library.

when sandow expanded his publishing business into architecture and interior design, he quickly gained expertise on the needs and wants of professionals in these fields. after countless conversations in offices and showrooms, he identified a major pain point for designers, manufacturers, and for the environment: the sampling process.

‘boxes upon boxes of architectural and interior samples arrive in our office daily,’ admitted chelsey atkins, a leed green associate and interior designer with strada architecture in pittsburgh. 

the quantity of packages is only one part of the problem. the other is what to do with the leftovers once the final selections are made. most design firms will keep some in libraries for future use, but space is finite and upkeep a challenge. all too often, these materials end up in landfills.

with material bank, SANDOW is driving positive disruption and giving the industry a better way to sample, one with drastically less frustration and waste. it took two years of research and development to launch, and the results were worth the effort. it is now the only platform from which designers can search for and order material samples from hundreds of leading brands with a single click of a button.

with clear time- and aggravation-savings for designers, for whom the platform is always free, material bank is an instant success. thousands of designers are applying for membership, embracing the ability to conveniently search across hundreds of thousands of materials and receive samples the next morning.

even more so, designers who have fought the battle of the sample for years are heartened by the platform’s support for more sustainable practices. first, material bank aggregates all of the items requested in one package, no matter how many different brands or material types are included. additionally, the packaging is designed specifically to make it easier to return samples for reuse. the result: material bank now reclaims more samples than any other company in the world.

material bank is revolutionizing interior design with frictionless processes that help designers to be more efficient while also being better global citizens. with a streamlined, simplified sampling process and support for more sustainable practices, it’s a better way of doing things. designers get to discover new brands and materials, be more creative and do what it is they want to do, all while knowing they’re doing their part to mitigate the industry’s environmental impact. learn more about this ground-breaking platform, here.