07/08/2026
The story of Søuld begins on the Danish island of Læsø, where people developed a unique way of building with eelgrass more than 400 years ago. In a landscape with few natural resources, naturally washed ashore eelgrass became an abundant building material for the island’s distinctive seaweed houses.
Women collected the eelgrass from the shoreline, dried it and wove it into thick thatched roofs around simple timber frames. Over time, the roofs compacted into a dense, durable layer that offered natural insulation, weather resistance and remarkable longevity, with some surviving for more than 300 years.
By the beginning of the 20th century, around 250 eelgrass-thatched houses shaped the landscape of Læsø. As modern construction methods emerged, the tradition gradually disappeared until a renewed interest in the material led to the restoration of the remaining seaweed houses and the rediscovery of traditional knowledge.
Today, Søuld builds on this heritage by combining centuries of material knowledge with contemporary research and technology. The result is high-performance acoustic materials that bring the remarkable qualities of eelgrass into today’s architecture—preserving an important part of Danish building culture while giving the material a new purpose.