Green Leap is Monmade’s product development program advancing sustainable, regionally made products for the built environment. The inaugural 2023 cohort brought together producers of all experience levels to explore the research, design, and production of market-ready goods—from concept to specification. These products have since been integrated into commercial and hospitality interiors across Pittsburgh. As Green Leap continues to grow, the work of our first cohort remains foundational to the program’s ongoing impact. Explore the original producers and products below.
Green Leap 1.0
Debut Products
Now available by order, Green Leap products from our inaugural 2023 cohort include creatively diverse lighting, furniture, and wall systems. This debut collection showcases functional, design-forward solutions paired with compelling maker narratives—raising the bar for sustainable product development and procurement in the built environment.
About the Program
Throughout the Green Leap 1.0 program, the cohort participated in a series of sessions led by experts in sustainability, product design, marketing, and industry engagement. Producers explored how their products could add value to design and development projects, meet market demands, and serve as a foundation for long-term business growth.
Using Monmade’s sustainablyMonmade assessment framework, each producer evaluated their business operations, production methods, and product development practices—making informed declarations to increase their environmental and social impact.
Green Leap 1.0 Cohort
After an open call for applications in 2022, ten producers were selected for Green Leap. Each producer created a product or suite of products ready for specification by the A&D Community. Our product collection offers tear sheets for quick reference. Below we detail each producer’s product development journey, for deeper insight into what it takes to create a market-driven, sustainable product available now for order.
Camp Copeland Studio
Alyssa and Drew Kail founded Camp Copeland Studio in 2015 to improve everyday lives through considered design and intentional living. Inspired by Japanese minimalism, Scandinavian design, and the Swedish concept of “lagom” (meaning “just enough”), Camp Copeland handcrafts mindful home goods and decor in kiln-formed glass and wool. Through Green Leap, they incorporated reclaimed felt for a system of sound-dampening decorative wall art panels for home and office.
Emmanuelle Ceramics
Since 2020, Monmade has featured Emmanuelle Wambach’s everyday collection of ceramic tableware featuring lace motifs. Inspired by her mother’s love of flowers and gardening, Emmanuelle combines different texturing, carving, glazing, and under-glazing techniques to create slab-built pieces. With Green Leap, Monmade launched Emmanuelle’s first lighting products that embrace biophilic design principles—that is, our inherent need to embrace nature in the modern built environment—featuring natural textures and shapes.
Jessica Alpern Brown
Jessica Alpern Brown’s primary work as a paper cutter now informs her multidisciplinary art and design practice and exploration of interior design products. Her current work features a variety of materials from found objects and organic matter to resin and acrylic, including her Contour Discs which premiered with our Monmade x CDCP Collection in 2021. Jessica’s inherently sustainable mindset informs her newest Light Lines pendants developed through Green Leap. The colorful creations maximize material use and minimize waste by using cut-offs from her Contour Discs.
Reimagined Recycling
Reimagined Recycling is a Pittsburgh-based program and creative studio that collects #4 and #5 plastics for shredding and repurposing into new plastic products including home and design goods. Established and operated by Ashley McFarland, this non-profit organization processes and reuses materials that would otherwise be excluded from mainstream recycling programs and destined for the landfill. With Green Leap, Ashley experimented with larger products suited for the built environment, like floating shelving, while also working with Brian Ferrell Designs to develop Bloom Pendants.
Brian Ferrell Designs
Artist Brian Ferrell channels his deep experience in multiple craft forms for his studio practice, typically making sculptural furniture and vessels. An experimenter at heart, he draws inspiration from architecture and nature, working skillfully with mixed materials, including wood, metal, and clay. Green Leap connected Brian to Reimagined Recycling to explore new uses for the pressed plastic sheets. Brian combined traditional and modern processes to create Bloom Pendants, which utilize materials that reflect the natural world and also human impact on it.
Safran Everyday
Safran Everyday was created out of artist Maia Leppo’s desire to provide provide simple, beautiful, functional goods. Inspired by botanicals and architecture, Maia brings her fresh sense of design to expand into homeware like plant holders, towel holders, and hooks. Through Green Leap, she expanded Safran Everyday’s collection with Color Pops Wall Planters featuring whimsical, modern shapes, and colors. Adding the ready-to-hang, lightweight planters transform greenery into works of art while also helping to improve air quality and environmental comfort for interior spaces.
SPACAPAN
SPACAPAN is a woman-owned and operated artisanal glass company. With repeating forms designed to make a subtle statement, SPACAPAN lighting reflects the minimalism of artist Margaret Spacapan’s fine art sculpture. SPACAPAN’s assortment of glass pendants and custom chandeliers are hand-blown, cut, ground, and polished for long-lasting beauty and durability. With Monmade, Margaret launched the Wallace Pendants, and with Green Leap she introduced Reilluminate, a collection of minimalist pendants made from reimagined recycled glass bottles.
OtherWondersMFG
OtherWondersMFG is a design and fabrication studio with a focus on sustainability. Owner Carl Bajandas works with wood, metal, and other materials to create custom railings, panels, and much more. Using digital design and fabrication techniques, Carl now expands his practice and is focused on the production of his line of studio furniture. The collection explores intentional design and simplicity through functional, durable pieces, including seating and tables.
Temper and Grit
Temper and Grit is a multimodal design and fabrication studio specializing in creating custom solutions for the built environment. Established by Nicholas Volpe, Temper and Grit’s talent for designing, prototyping, and finishing has led to a diversified portfolio with work in the graphic, architectural, industrial, and artistic fields. Nick offers a unique blend of standard product lines, design solutions, consultations, and custom-fabricated installations. With Green Leap, Nick introduced a standardized contemporary wall cabinet sustainably made from Bamboo plywood and manufactured by regional partner Eisenwood.
Tenderwerks
Pati Beachley is a Pittsburgh-based, non-binary sculptor. Her work mixes masculine and feminine attributes forcing a dialogue into gendered text and imagery—she adds a queer narrative by casting carpet and fibrous materials. As owner and designer of Tenderwerks, her Pittsburgh-based studio and foundry, Pati creates pieces celebrating the pleasure of everyday, useful objects that transcend the ordinary. With Green Leap, Pati applies her aesthetic using reclaimed materials to knobs and handles for cabinetry and pulls for entry doors. Tenderwerks Fabware: Door & Cabinet Hardware Collection features repurposed carpet textures cast from recycled aluminum components.