Pressed grass panels move into furniture cores

Dezeen reported on 10 July 2026 that American manufacturer Studio TK has adopted panels made from fast-growing perennial grasses, pressed with heat by the company Plantd, as the structural core of its modular Clique Luxe furniture. The panels replace oriented strand board and other engineered wood products. Studio TK says the material cuts cleanly on its CNC machinery and holds staples, nails and screws better than the boards it replaces, with no changes required to existing production processes.

Plantd, which began by harvesting wild grasses and now farms around 400 acres, claims a carbon-negative footprint because the crop grows quickly and needs less land than softwood. Both companies operate in North Carolina, keeping raw material, panel and assembly within one state. The detail that matters is that the panel is invisible in the finished product. It is not a sustainability story told through a surface; it is a component that has to compete on cost, supply and durability in a place nobody looks.