London's MONC champions sustainable design with its mountain-inspired interiors

Eco-conscious eyewear brand MONC celebrates the rocky landscapes of the Italian Dolomites with biodegradable and salvaged materials at its new London store on Chiltern Street.

The MONC Marylebone shop is designed by London-based studio Nina+Co. It features corrugated and ribbed surfaces, sculpted forms, stone textures and peach hues, referencing the chiselled mountain peaks and honed stone in northern Italy, where MONC’s products are made.

‘Like the eyewear at MONC, we considered the life cycle of everything we brought into the empty space,’ says founder Nina Woodcroft. ‘The main materials are either bio-based or recycled and the whole store is designed for disassembly, so everything can be easily re-used in a new space or repurposed and recycled further down the line.’

In its London shop, compostable corn-starch foam stretch across its ceiling like ribbons of ice cream running through Viennetta and cushion minimalist wall shelving. It has furniture made from mycelium mixed with Yorkshire-sourced hemp shiv, mimicking natural stone. Three ribbed concrete cores, salvaged by Nina+Co from a local building site, form striking window display stands.

A large slab of apricot recycled plastic by Swansea-based Smile forms a freestanding anchoring unit. This is set against a backdrop of non-toxic clay paint and an existing plywood flooring. There’s also a corrugated panel made from a hemp composite, vintage lighting, and accents of MONC’s primary material, bio acetate – a bio-degradable and petroleum-free plastic.

MONC’s Chiltern Street store is designed to be a temporary, flexible space that goes from shop by day to hosting events in the evening. East London fabricators EJ Ryder created its larger pieces using only mechanical fixtures rather than glue, so they can easily be unbolted and separated for recycling.

MONC – 21 Chiltern Street, London, W1U 7PH