molded carpet series melts discarded fibers into sculptural furniture skins

Molded Carpet Series turns Soft Textiles into Sculptural Surfaces

The Molded Carpet Series by Jack Craig investigates the material behavior of domestic carpeting through processes of heat, pressure, and manual manipulation. Carpet remnants collected from residential interiors are treated as a raw material rather than a finished surface, allowing their fibers, backing, and color composition to be reconfigured through experimental craft techniques. By subjecting the material to controlled melting and compression, the project examines how a familiar interior element can shift from soft textile to sculptural surface.

The work draws on the visual and tactile qualities of carpet as a material historically associated with warmth and comfort. When exposed to moisture or heat, however, the fibers reveal different characteristics. Through repeated testing, Craig explores how these synthetic filaments respond to temperature and pressure, causing the pile to collapse, bead, and fuse. The resulting surfaces move away from the soft tactility typically associated with carpeting and instead develop dense, textured skins with irregular topographies.

For the series, discarded carpet fragments are sourced from across the city and cut into small, hand-sized sections. These pieces are then heated and molded over furniture forms, where they are pressed and fused into new structural skins. As the fibers soften and recombine, the layered material produces surfaces that appear simultaneously rigid and flexible. The transformation emphasizes the contrast between the carpet’s original role as a domestic covering and its reconfigured state as a sculptural material.

Rust Molded Carpet Chair, 2025 | all images courtesy of David Klein Gallery, Ferndale, Michigan

Jack Craig Explores Carpets Through Material Experimentation

For designer Jack Craig, color plays an important role in the process. Because the carpet remnants originate from different interiors, the resulting palette reflects a range of domestic tones, from muted neutrals to saturated synthetic hues. During melting and compression, these colors blend, distort, and intensify, producing irregular patterns and gradients across the molded surfaces. The textures created by the collapsed fibers further amplify the visual variation, forming dense, tactile fields that resemble hardened fabric or thickened hide.

The project approaches both natural and synthetic materials as open fields for experimentation. Carpet is treated less as a finished product and more as a mined resource whose properties can be explored through manipulation. Through repeated trials, the process becomes a hybrid of craft and material research, combining hands-on fabrication with exploratory testing.

Although the series relies on manual techniques, it operates outside established craft traditions. Instead, it develops a new vocabulary of methods based on experimentation with contemporary materials. By reworking carpeting through melting, grafting, and molding, the Molded Carpet Series investigates how everyday manufactured materials can generate unexpected forms, textures, and spatial objects when removed from their conventional context.

Rust Molded Carpet Chair, 2025

Penumbra Molded Carpet Light, 2025

1/4

Jack Craig at work on Rust Molded Carpet Chair in his Detroit studio

cut into hand-sized tufts, the fibers are heated, melted, and grafted over furniture forms

under heat and pressure, the soft pile collapses and fuses, creating an alien surface that behaves like a thick skin

Jack Craig grafting carpet remnants onto Reverse Portal Molded Carpet Table in his Detroit studio

project info:

name: Molded Carpet Series
designer: Jack Craig | @jackcraigstudio
gallery: David Klein Gallery | @davidkleingallery

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: christina vergopoulou | designboom