The store has now been awarded at the NYCxDESIGN Awards 2022 by winning the Environmental Impact category. As part of the project developed by the New York-based architecture firm Reddymade, the cork pieces were designed, conceived and produced by fellow American designer Daniel Michalik.

“Beauty, character and sustainability were some of the premises for choosing Corticeira Amorim’s cork to equip the technological giant’s new commercial space in New York, thus crossing nature, innovation, history, industry and culture”, reads a statement.

The value of cork

Achieving LEED Platinum status, the highest possible certification within the “Leadership in Energy and Sustainable Design” green building rating system, was one of Google's core goals. In this assumption, the option for cork, one of the most sustainable materials on the face of the earth, with unique characteristics in terms of CO2 retention and holder of an inexhaustible potential for circular practices emerged as a natural preference.

Apart from a set of added values Daniel Michalik highlights the fact that cork proves to be “a blank sheet, where customers can eventually project their ideas, concepts and experiences of the material, interacting in a single space”. “Afterwards, and in addition to the multiplicity of attributes in terms of sustainability, cork is a healthy raw material. This is from the perspective of the natural health system, from the perspective of the fair wage paid for work and, finally, from the perspective of the health of those who use cork objects”.