This ArchDaily feature highlights Cork House, a three-bedroom East London home by Polysmiths that demonstrates cork’s potential far beyond wine closures. The architects used cork paneling on both interior and exterior walls, taking advantage of its natural insulation properties while giving the home a distinctive tactile and sensory character. Combined with locally sourced timber, lime plaster, passive ventilation and thoughtful solar orientation, the project shows how cork can contribute to lower-impact, energy-efficient construction while also serving as a beautiful finished material.

This 2022 study examined how oxygen enters wine bottles through natural and microagglomerated cork closures under different temperatures and storage conditions. Researchers found that oxygen ingress depends not only on the cork itself, but also on the fit between the cork and bottle neck, temperature, time, and whether the cork is in contact with liquid. Most notably, contact with wine simulant reduced long-term oxygen ingress by roughly four to five times, while bottle-neck and cork-interface characteristics contributed more variability than cork type alone. The study reinforces that closure performance should be evaluated as part of the entire bottle-and-cork system rather than by cork material alone.

Over the past year or so, Noughties fever has arguably reached its zenith (see: bootcut jeans, the Gen X boot-tuck and everyone romanticising “going analogue”). Nowhere is this clearer, however, than in the recent footwear choices of the fashion set, A-listers and on the runway over these past few seasons.