Sometimes the most interesting materials aren’t new. They’re simply overlooked.

Every year, more than 330 million tennis balls are produced worldwide. Most are discarded after only a handful of matches and, because they’re made from bonded layers of rubber, wool and nylon, they’re notoriously difficult to recycle. Many will spend centuries in landfill.

Belgian bio-designer Mathilde Wittock, founder of MWO Design, looked at that waste stream and saw something entirely different.
Not garbage. Raw material.

Through her studio, MWO Design, she has transformed discarded tennis balls into Soundbounce—a beautifully tactile, high-performing acoustic material used in furniture, wall panels and architectural installations. Each square metre incorporates approximately 283 reclaimed tennis balls, creating surfaces that absorb sound while giving a second life to a material that was never designed to have one. Even more impressive, the modular system is assembled without adhesives, allowing every component to be disassembled and recycled again at the end of its life.

What makes the project remarkable isn’t simply the material.

It’s the mindset.

Mathilde’s work lives at the intersection of material science, sensory design and circular thinking. Rather than asking, “What should we make?” she asks, “What already exists that deserves another life?” That shift in perspective is where real innovation begins.