The exhibition Design by Nature is a project in which Front over several years have documented places in nature and investigated the creativity of the natural world. The documentation has been carried out by 3D scanning of forests, rocks, lakes, snow mounds, animal footprints, dens, mosses and plants. The aim is to study and reproduce the impressions, patterns and forms of nature.

An important aspect of Design by Nature has been to investigate nature’s therapeutic qualities for humans. Research has shown that spending time in nature has positive effects on wellbeing, memory and creativity. Front wishes to investigate how the experiences that nature provides can be taken into the spaces where we spend the most time, for example our homes and work places. Another aspect of the project is how our movement patterns change when we are in natural surroundings. We allow ourselves to sit, climb, jump and run in a way we would not in an indoor environment.
 
These investigations take physical form in the exhibition via a series of innovative objects and furniture. These are produced through a combination of traditional craft techniques such as weaving, tufting, embroidery and plant dying, combined with new techniques such as digitally woven tapestries. We encounter these investigations through textiles and furniture, and other experimental objects.
The research around nature has also resulted in a number of different products. Front collaborated with Moroso / More-So on a collection of furniture that recreates fragments of wilderness, using 3D-scanning, milling and weaving. The collaboration also resulted in Pebble Rubble, a modular sofa system that simplifies natural stone formations to create unique lounge seating.
Other projects include Arda, a commercial textile collection for Kvadrat Febrik, which reproduces 12 textures from nature in abstract form; and Forest Floors, a carpet for the Dutch brand Moooi that collages the studio’s photography, 3D scans, paintings and illustrations into new landscapes