NOVUS DECOR A GREAT EXAMPLE OF WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

The young Guinan brothers came to us a year ago looking for a product that would fit with their business model. They have a newly established company called Novus Decor, which is based in Limerick, Ireland. This startup produces pots with entirely custom designs for people who love interior design and plants, but how did they come up with this amazing idea? According to them, they decided to purchase their first 3D printing kit in September 2020 during the worldwide quarantine brought by the well-known pandemic. After getting acquainted with the hardware and software for a few weeks, they naturally started to consider how they might use it for practical purposes.

How did it all begin

Working from home and mandatory isolation meant that hundreds of millions of people around the world went from spending very little time in their homes, to spending every second of every day there. As people struggled to get out and enjoy nature, it was only natural that they began to bring nature into their own homes. They grasped the business opportunity when they saw that with Covid-19 there was a massive increase in the demand for indoor plants.

Engineers by trade, Eoin and Conor Guinan combined their technical knowledge and passion for intelligent designs to create truly unique products for one’s home. The value promise was based on the idea that adding a plant to any space can have a massive benefit however, what truly integrates a plant into the space is the plant pot which it calls home. From looking around at various garden centers and online retailers, it appeared that the planter industry has had a mental design block. Everywhere they looked there seemed to be the same old boring pots, with the same designs and made from the same materials.

The Guinan brothers thought that 3D printing could help unlock a whole world of plant pot designs that traditional manufacturing simply could not achieve. These mentioned facts would allow them to produce products that seamlessly integrate nature into your home, so they developed their first prototypes of indoor pots in November 2020 and since then they have not looked back.

How Smart Materials 3D fits into this equation.

With the firm intention of joining a more sustainable world and the idea of developing a range of ecological plant pots, they saw an opportunity in Smart Materials 3D, as one of our most ECO-friendly materials was just coming out of the oven, this is the SMARTFIL ® ECO Pine, a fantastic alternative to traditional potting materials. A filament made entirely of organic materials. It is composed of 60% PLA (derived from cornstarch) and 40% Pine Wood, and its extra high wood content adds a superior feeling and look to our products in comparison to other alternatives.

With this concept they have grown exponentially and currently they have manufactured thousands of custom products shipping them globally through online markets, right now the US being their largest market, they are currently focused on a B2C sale and planning to expand to the B2B market in the future and establish an increased presence in mainland Europe.

This year, we will include their products in our exhibition at the 2022 Formnext edition, which will be held in Frankfurt. We believe it is a success story that we are proud to be a part of, not only because it demonstrates how additive manufacturing, an innovative material, and a disruptive idea can have a huge impact in creating a competitive advantage in the market, but also because we believe in their project, and we intend to continue working and creating with them all the way long. Smart Materials 3D and Novus Decor strive for a win-win set, and as Eoin and Conor proudly state, "We aim to push the boundaries of what is possible. We aim to break the mold!”