The Waste from Andalusia’s Intensive Olive Oil Production Becomes Design

Spain dominates the olive oil market, covering 40-50% of the world’s demand, but what is the environmental cost? Spanish designer Jorge Penadés presents his project Uprooted

Jorge Penadés Presents Uprooted, a Project Rooted in the Spanish Olive Oil Industry

Spanish designer Jorge Penadés’ work focuses on natural raw materials and their intrinsic properties. Among these, wood stands out: “Early in my career, I was fascinated by leather, earning me the nickname ‘The Leather Guy.’ Later, I discovered wood,” explains Penadés. “It’s the only material that regenerates itself and is carbon negative. It’s the material of the future.”

In his latest project, Uprooted, set to debut officially at the Madrid Design Festival 2025, Penadés focuses on olive wood, a challenging material to work with due to its coarse natural texture and its irregular, unpredictable growth patterns. By combining field research and design experiments, he has created an empirical exploration of the olive oil industry in southern Spain and the narratives connected to it—from traditional cultivation and harvesting methods to the recent industrialization of the sector, which, while increasing productivity, has caused environmental harm and a considerable depletion of natural resources.

The Economic and Cultural Value of Olive Oil in Southern Spain

Spain is the world’s leading producer of olive oil; it is estimated that Andalusia alone, Penadés’ homeland, currently accounts for over 20–25% of global production and 80% of Spain’s output. According to the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food, more than 350,000 farmers cultivate olives, the industry provides around 15,000 jobs, and each season generates wages exceeding €32 million. These figures were the starting point for Uprooted, which began as a university project over a decade ago:

“During my master’s program, I was asked to look at my roots and cultural background for inspiration and reflection. I was born in Los Boliches, a small fishing village in the far south of Spain, near Marbella, in Andalusia. My region is the world’s leading producer of olive oil, and olive trees have always been part of our Andalusian culture, as they are for many other Mediterranean countries like Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Morocco.”

“Over the past ten years, I’ve pursued this research intermittently. Thanks to a friend who owns a small, environmentally and socially sustainable olive mill in Granada, and his extensive network within the industry, I’ve been able to gather many insights and data. Unfortunately, greenwashing is not uncommon among the major players in the sector,” Penadés adds.

The Environmental and Social Damage of Intensive Agriculture

As Penadés recalls, in recent years, the Andalusian landscape has changed dramatically. The majestic, centuries-old olive trees that once dotted the fields and rolling hills have been reduced to just a few surviving specimens. “When we in Andalusia realized that olive oil was in high demand, we started producing it in ever-growing quantities. The first question farmers asked was how to harvest olives more efficiently,” explains the designer.

The traditional harvesting method involves farmers using a stick to shake the branches of the trees, causing the olives to fall onto large nets spread on the ground. Recently, machines have been introduced that speed up the harvesting process but irreparably damage the olive trees. “These inventions marked the beginning of intensive and super-intensive agriculture,” Penadés continues. “Both methods require olive trees to be planted at specific intervals. However, everyone knows that native olive trees, like any natural element, grow wherever and however they please. So, when intensive and super-intensive farming took over, hundreds of thousands of native olive trees were uprooted to make room for new trees planted systematically in grids optimized for fast and efficient harvesting.”

Recent industrialization campaigns are estimated to increase the productivity of cultivated Andalusian lands by 76.6%. Automated drip irrigation, sensors to monitor soil moisture levels, and olive ripeness are additional strategies developed to mitigate the effects of climate change on harvests. Nevertheless, international newspapers like the Financial Times identify super-intensive olive farming as the greatest threat to small producers who still rely on traditional, less efficient, and more costly methods.

Camper’s Pop-Up Store at Galeries Lafayette: The Second Life of Andalusia’s Centuries-Old Olive Trees

Faced with this industrialization of nature, Penadés began to wonder about the fate of all those uprooted trees that were never replanted. “I quickly realized that this type of wood is not suitable for the manufacturing industry, which prefers long, straight logs that can be cut into numerous panels for mass furniture production. Olive wood, on the other hand, is short, twisted, and knotted. So, the roots and trunks of olive trees are cut, dried, and then sold as low-cost firewood,” he explains.

Convinced of the potential of this raw material, Penadés began pitching his idea to various Spanish carpenters and companies: “I discovered that no one wanted to believe in my project for one simple reason: the roots of olive trees grow organically underground, creating intricate patterns that often incorporate stones and small rocks. In short, no carpenter wanted to work with me for fear of breaking their machinery. And without any prototypes to show companies, it was impossible to convince them of the merit of my idea.”

“Only in 2021 did I find a young carpenter willing to help me. After that, I immediately presented my idea to Camper.” The Spanish company commissioned Penadés to create a pop-up store inside Galeries Lafayette in Paris. For the occasion, he designed portable, reusable, multifunctional hexagonal stools that evoked the rugged aesthetic of Spain’s arid landscapes. “In 2024, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London invited me to present the project I had created for Camper during the Make Good: Rethinking Material Futures symposium. I was deeply moved because it was a commercial project. That’s when I realized there was more to this research, something I needed to explore and develop further,” recounts the designer.

Learning to Listen to Materials Through the “Material Led Approach”

Since then, Penadés has dedicated himself to a series of practical experiments aimed at exploring the limits and properties of olive wood. During this phase, the contribution of curator Seetal Solanki proved fundamental.

Solanki is the author of Why Materials Matter: Responsible Design for a Better World (2018) and the creator of the “Material Led Approach.” This design methodology is based on the will of the material itself, as a direct consequence of its intrinsic properties and qualities. “It all started with my concerns about the stools made for Camper’s pop-up,” recalls Penadés. “When they came out of the woodworking shop, they were perfect. But just a few weeks later, they began to bend, and suddenly, they were no longer stable. I had no idea what was happening until my carpenter told me, ‘It’s normal; wood is alive.’”

Solanki, who demonstrated in her book how even the most basic elements of the earth can be transformed into entirely new materials, encouraged Penadés to reflect on the relationship designers establish with the materials they work with. “She told me that I was forcing the material to behave according to my will. She urged me to listen to it and try to understand what it wants in order to incorporate its characteristics into my design rather than the other way around. After all, I know I was born into a patriarchal world where, as a white heterosexual man, I expect things to be and behave according to my desires and needs. This dialogue with Seetal made me realize that we should all strive to understand what is happening around us, ask more questions, and force things less.”

The Inconsistency of Nature as a Creative Stimulus for Designers

Understanding that nature and its raw materials cannot be forced has allowed Penadés to adopt a more adaptable and fluid perspective toward his design practice, which often grapples with the inconsistency and unpredictability of resources and possibilities. “Everything in life is inconsistent. If you think about food, you know that in nature you can’t find the same ingredients all year round; there’s seasonality that must be respected. With wood, it’s the same: there is no consistent type of wood that produces objects that can be endlessly replicated because, as a natural element, it has grown under natural conditions, all of which are very different. Being able to embrace this inconsistency is the greatest luxury we can afford.”

Through the Material-Led Approach, Solanki encourages designers to step out of their comfort zones, challenging their certainties and fostering a dialogue with materials. Penadés, likening his role as a designer to that of a journalist, posed ninety-nine questions to olive wood in the form of small, practical experiments. “I dissected the wood into many small samples and performed targeted actions, first manually and then using mechanical tools, to elicit reactions from the material. In some cases, I didn’t even receive a response, and I learned that in the future, I would need to rephrase those questions. Then, I applied both my reflections and the material’s reactions to product design.”

Uprooted at the Madrid Design Festival 2025

Next February, during the Madrid Design Festival, Penadés will present the culmination of his last ten years of research at Espacio Gaviota with an exhibition that integrates elements of collectible design, photographic works, and installations. The exhibition layout, curated by Penadés under Solanki’s supervision, will provide a comprehensive overview of the entire project, from the early exploratory phases of Spanish olive cultivation to its most recent practical outcomes.

The exhibition begins by offering visitors some context on Spain’s olive oil industry, featuring large olive tree roots, a stack of firewood, and a series of photographs by Max Creasy. The next section delves into Penadés’ early practical experiments, presenting some of the products designed for the Camper pop-up store in Paris, accompanied by text and images. Moving forward, the project Uprooted is explored through a selection of the ninety-nine questions Penadés posed to olive wood, alongside physical samples representing the material’s responses to these provocations. This exploration is anchored by Solanki’s question: “Are designers lazy?” The exhibition concludes with a series of olive-wood collectible design objects, showcasing how thoughtful relationships with materials can influence design processes and push the boundaries of the field.

“We need to let go of this macho attitude that assumes we can control everything. Just as a doctor must understand the effects and reactions of a medicine before prescribing it to a patient, a designer must know the properties of a material before proposing it to a client or applying it to a project. I hope Uprooted serves as an invitation for other designers to question themselves, gain a deeper understanding of their surroundings, and embrace this new, more respectful and inclusive methodology.”

Jorge Penadés

Born in Málaga in 1985, Jorge Penadés bridges and fuses contexts that rarely intersect, creating materials, furniture, interiors, installations, exhibitions, and educational methods. Among his most recent projects are the Camper store near the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2023); The Final (Group) Show, co-curated with Matylda Krzykowski at Dropcity in Milan (2023); and an exclusive collection of furniture and accessories created in collaboration with Kris van Assche for Berluti, LVMH (2021).

Penadés has lectured at prestigious cultural institutions, including the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The presentation of the Uprooted project at the Madrid Design Festival 2025 coincides with the tenth anniversary of his studio.

Agnese Torres