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Ward Massa
Ward Massa leads FRONT, which he wants to grow into the top platform for sustainable and aesthetic building materials in Europe. What started with one brick made from waste is now a collection point for all kinds of innovative bricks, tiles, facade and wall panels. Architects and project developers can turn to FRONT for affordable and scalable materials.
And this is necessary, as debris from construction, demolition, and industrial processes is one of the largest waste streams in the world. In Europe, it accounts for about 35% of all waste generated. In countries like the United States and China, the percentage is even higher. On top of this, the construction sector is responsible for a third of all carbon emissions in Europe.
We talk to Ward, three years after his participation with StoneCycling in the very first Secrid Talent Podium. Since then, the company that he started with designer Tom van Soest, has evolved into FRONT. We talk about market innovation, entrepreneurship, and the role of designers.
Hi, Ward. It’s good to talk to you again. How are you doing?
“Well, I have arrived at a fun moment in my entrepreneurial career, because we can finally start making real strides.
We can start producing our first brick, which Tom van Soest designed ten years ago with construction waste and with which we started StoneCycling, at scale. Tom has returned to his craft. And we now also offer various other innovative materials in addition to his WasteBasedBrick, hence the rebranding of StoneCycling to FRONT.”
Those are big steps forward. Let’s back up a bit first. How did Tom van Soest and you start StoneCycling together ten years ago?
“Tom and I both grew up in Venlo, in Limburg. I’ve known him for a long time. When we were 16 or 17, we already had a graphic agency together. Websites, posters, that kind of thing. He could make things, and I could tell stories and sell them.
Afterwards, I went to study in India for a few years. When I came back, Tom was working on his bricks at the Design Academy. He asked me if I wanted to join him. That was in 2014. I wanted to, if we could build a scalable company to really have an impact on the construction industry. So that’s when we started.”
You’re now continuing FRONT without Tom. Why did you make this choice?
“Yes, a designer with a business strategist is a very interesting dynamic. We’ve learned that by now. Tom enjoys being in the lab and developing beautiful things with his hands. But taking a promising idea to scale in a factory and creating a viable business, that’s a different ball game altogether.
Our focus shifted from product development to sales, marketing, and setting up and managing partnerships with producers. We needed investors and our product needed to be sold. Now, ten years later, Tom and I have spoken about that. Tom wants to make things himself. That makes him happy, which is why he returned to his roots. With Blended Materials , he’s now creating beautiful new products again by hand, in Venlo.”
We are finally getting into the affordable segment.
Do you still want to make the same impact on the construction industry with FRONT?
“Absolutely! Debris from construction, demolition, and industrial processes is still one of the largest waste streams in the world. Moreover, the construction sector is responsible for a third of all carbon emissions in Europe. It's bizarre if you dive in a little bit.
Take the retail world . All those new food concepts here in Amsterdam, one of those new Smashburger bars, for example. They’re beautifully designed, with tiles on the wall and the floor. But two years down the line, that isn’t trendy anymore, and then everything is demolished, and a new concept is put in.
The same thing happens in the hotel business. Most hotel rooms are renovated within seven years. When they do, everything is just taken out and thrown out with the trash.”
You started with a brick made from construction waste. Are you going to continue with that?
“Yes. We’re going to scale up Tom’s bricks and we’re now selling other biobased building materials and materials with lower carbon emissions . On top of that, we also want to influence how those materials are used in buildings.
Our biggest breakthrough is the collaboration with DC Bricks , a huge manufacturer able to produce twenty million WasteBasedBricks a year at half the price. As of this month, that finally puts us in the affordable segment . This means we can start taking big steps forward because we can use our products in a lot more construction projects.”
Why are you only now succeeding in producing the WasteBasedBrick at scale?
“The biggest mistake we made with StoneCycling is that we continued with an overpriced product for too long. We went into a lot of sales processes, which can sometimes take years for real estate projects. However, at the end of the day, 93% of the time we were thrown out for being too expensive.
We secured enough orders and investors to continue operating, but we never generated enough revenue to run the company sustainably at its core. Still, we were involved in almost 200 projects in 16 countries. These were always very special projects, sometimes in prime locations in New York or London. Luxury apartments, complexes, museums, that sort of thing.
Architects, developers, and contractors are using those projects to win awards and increase the value of their buildings. Those are success stories and evidence that, after ten years, the industry is finally starting to do this at scale.”
Does this mean the market is ready for sustainable building materials?
“Yes, demand is increasing tremendously. Architects and real estate developers are more and more able to find us. That’s also because large municipalities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht are setting ever-higher sustainability requirements for new buildings. That’s great. It’s a huge driver.
What I find incredibly interesting is that all those buildings are developed by real estate developers, who always resell them to a real estate investor. These are usually pension funds or parties like that. We recently saw that there are even more stringent requirements for the buildings they buy. In other words, this transcends legislation. In the long run, the value of their real estate portfolio increases with a good BREAM score or another sustainability score.”
You now also want to expand your product portfolio with FRONT. Do you have examples of new materials?
“Yes. Another important step we have taken is to broaden our product range. We see that, on the supply side, there is still not a lot to be found that is ready for the market.
This is why we started looking for ‘young StoneCyclings,’ which we help to market through our platform. We’ve already set up six collaborations. The CornWall , for example, is an interior wall panel made from corn kernels and other organic waste. The Paper Waste Panels, also wall coverings, aremade from paper that can no longer be recycled.
We’re also working with an American company to replace cement. This is very relevant, as cement is traditionally made at incredibly high temperatures and is therefore extraordinarily polluting. Their technology adds bacteria that normally form coral to sand and gravel. Coral is actually a kind of lime sand, which makes it a variety of cement. They have found a method to get those bacteria to do that job much faster and make a product that is just as strong as concrete. ”
Visible materials in, on and around a building.
Why do these innovators like working with you?
“Actually, with these new materials, it’s like Tom’s bricks at the beginning. These are materials that have been developed from a certain technology, but have yet to be made into a product that the market is willing to pay for. We have gathered a lot of market knowledge and built up a large commercial network in construction through all these sales processes over the past ten years. We’re now making use of that.
You can use that coral technology, for example, for an infinite number of purposes, they just ended up with a manufacturer of tiles. So, suddenly a company like that finds itself in the world of clinkers and tiles. Within that kind of organization, nobody knows anything about our market. Their innovative tiles are much more expensive than the cheap gray pavement tiles you usually see outside. So, you need to know what the demand is, tell the story well, and design a product that is aesthetically pleasing.
The same goes for the CornWall. That technology was conceived at KU Leuven as part of a PhD track. We’re helping to mold that technology into an initial product that we can take to market. We’re having those sales calls anyway. In this way, they can make their first sales, but more importantly, show that their technology works and find other manufacturers that also want to adopt it.”
After Tom, do you see a role for designers in that development?
“Definitely! In my view, the order of a fruitful collaboration is technology, designer, entrepreneur. I see that most innovations don’t come from the design world, but from technical universities. Most designers I know are neither technology developers nor entrepreneurs. But such technical innovations still need to be used to make something that connects with the market. That’s where I see the role of the designer.
So, we’ll hire a designer as soon as we find an innovative technology. He or she can then use our market knowledge to develop a product with an interested manufacturer. This then results in a basic material that represents a certain value in the market, such as a sheet material or a tile. It’s also about the aesthetics, such as colors, textures, formats, and fixings.”
How important is aesthetics to you?
“Design is in everything we do. That’s Tom’s legacy and his love of making beautiful things. This is also why we focus only on the visible materials in, on, and around buildings . This includes floors, facades, walls, ceilings, roofs. That’s what we like ourselves, and you can take good pictures of them, meaning you can tell a good story.
So, for us, aesthetics is not only in the products themselves, but also in how we present those products . We pay an awful lot of attention to storytelling, like on our website, for example. A tile made of corn waste, people remember that. It’s simply a good story. ”
So, a beautiful product must also tell a story?
“I think storytelling is extremely important in the whole sustainability transition. Storytelling is sometimes looked down upon, and then you have to show your data sheets. But my experience over the past ten years is that great stories are ultimately the biggest driver for people to make choices. A beautiful and sustainable floor sings around in an organization, co-workers talk about it. If you buy a cool or sustainable product yourself, you also like to tell your friends about it. That’s just the way it works.
I believe that selling a product isn’t enough if you want to create change. You have to create a feeling and a community of people who also want to design and build differently. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
What story do you tell your clients?
“We supply quite a few products to Starbucks and parties like that. They build a store and glue tiles to the wall. Three to five years later, they demolish everything and start over. We want those kinds of parties to use a CornWall, for example, instead of a ceramic tile, which consumes a lot of raw materials and energy. The CornWall is biobased and biodegradable and can also be used to create a beautiful wall.
The quality of that product fits much better with the lifespan that these types of companies are looking for, their walls don’t have to last a hundred years. That’s the kind of conversation we try to have with our customers, so that they start making more conscious choices.
Ideally, I want to completely avoid using products that are thrown away after three to four years. That’s why we try to offer systems for most of the products as well, so you don’t need to use glue anymore. For facades and interior walls, we have designed fastening systems that allow products to be reused.”
Creating a platform that leaves a legacy.
Is there a story behind FRONT’s new purple logo?
“Oh, you need to ask our branding friends at Ape to Zebra . We wanted a nice color that contrasts with the usually earthy colors of our products. But my colleague and I came up with a fun story ourselves.
Are you familiar with the purple Marvel universe? Marvel develops cartoons, like Spider-Man and X-Man. Underneath their logo, you see the worlds of all the superheroes, with their own friends and enemies. That’s kind of our philosophy as well. The purple FRONT universe, with underneath it the world of waste based bricks, the world of bacteria, and the world of biobased materials.
But it’s not only about that universe, purple is also the color of the crown chakra. It’s also about spirituality.
How do you unite entrepreneurship and spirituality?
“Looking back, founding a company is really all about yourself. Ten years of StoneCycling has gone hand in hand with my own development. You meet inspiring people on your path, you run into resistance and frustration, you get to know yourself and your dreams better and better.
For me, it was a requirement to contribute something to the world. Ten years ago, I would never have imagined that I would work in building materials, it could have been something completely different. Tom had a great idea, and my joy is ultimately in building an organization and a movement.
Imagine if everyone used their talents not just to make money, but to make our world more beautiful. I really enjoy using our company for that, including the people who work here and the clients we work with. After all, we devote a good part of our lives to it.”
What will FRONT look like ten years from now?
“I think it will be really cool if, ten years from now, we are the top curated platform in Europe that architects and developers turn to for sustainable and aesthetic materials . We’re aiming for at least 30 materials, but of course, there can be many more. When you work with us, you know that the materials are sustainable, technically tested, and sold at a reasonable price.
It would be fantastic to create a company that really leaves a legacy behind. That’s the dream, that we can exert enough influence to raise the benchmark and show what’s possible. That innovators from the technical and design worlds have a place to bring their materials to market much faster. That we’re one of the parties that pushed for the sustainability of building materials from the very beginning.”
How can people help you become Europe’s top curated building platform?
“We’re obviously looking for more entrepreneurs with cool materials they want to take to market. And I would love to take a look inside innovative companies to see how they do things . For example, how they have set up a community or get a certain product ready for market. The construction industry we work in is quite conservative. A lot of other industries are much further along.”
Finally, what is your most important insight or message to readers?
“Well, that’s more of an insight in hindsight. I actually don’t know if this is a good message to start with. But you have to have a certain amount of naiveté to do something innovative. If not, you simply won’t start. Pioneers don’t let reality slow them down. And that’s precisely the fun of it.
Look, if you’re only counting bricks, the direct impact of a company like StoneCycling, or now FRONT, is quite limited. Our real impact these past years is that we have demonstrated that you can make sustainable building products and that there are parties willing to pay for them.
The fact that there is finally a major producer who is going to make our bricks, that’s the innovation that makes a difference. Because, if one producer does it and gets it sold, everybody is going to do it. That’s how that works. Looking back at what Tom started at the Design Academy, that’s pretty cool.”
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