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In the foothills of the Austrian Alps, set amid bucolic farmland, is the global headquarters of F/List, a family-owned company that has become a major purveyor of luxury fittings and materials to the high-end aviation, yacht, and residential markets. The company has worked as a supplier to virtually every aviation OEM in the 35 years since its founding.
At last year’s NBAA-BACE, F/List unveiled its Shapeshifter concept, a vision of a future where cabin furniture can morph into various shapes to allow customers to do more with the same space. This year, it will once again show off its morphing credenza—made from seemingly solid wood that can silently and swiftly change shape into that of a desk using pneumatic actuators artfully concealed beneath a layer of flexible wood veneer. Additionally, F/List will be unveiling new designs at its booth at this year’s show.
As part of the Shapeshifter concept, the company also developed a cordless cell phone charger built into a side ledge storage cover with a cradle depression that magically vanishes when the phone is removed. It was covered with Aenigma, a proprietary, durable, stretchable fabric-like material that recently earned a Red Dot award in product design. “When we started the Shapeshifter, we figured we would start with leather because leather can morph and bend, but it’s not really happy stretching,” explained Melanie Prince, the company’s head of innovation. “It sags and it creases, so we said this is not going to work—so we needed to try to build our own material.”
The highly customizable material is created from renewable high-performance natural fibers in a resin matrix. F/List uses cutting-edge chemistry to fuse traditional jewelry techniques with aerospace technology to create a decorative, customizable material that can be produced in various colors, textures, finishes, and thicknesses. Options range from a metallic stingray skin theme to textured glowing geometric patterns.
To achieve the various finishes, F/List uses real metal, stone dust, and even—to provide a luxurious sparkle—ground mother-of-pearl reclaimed from broken buttons from a manufacturer of traditional Austrian clothing.
According to Prince, Aenigma made its commercial debut in one of the company’s major yacht completions, which called for an abundance of stingray skin leather for wall coverings. “They needed about 1,000 stingrays on the wall and our team was feeling a little sad that we would need to kill that many stingrays,” she recalled. “So they basically took one of the skins, created a mold, and without killing any further animals were able to reproduce stingray leather with a non-animal basis.”
In the static display at this year’s NBAA-BACE, the company is showcasing the first installation of the material in a business jet at the Pilatus chalet. F/Lab—the company’s innovation team—responded to a customer’s request for a lightweight, durable surface with a metallic finish for the light jet’s bulkheads and decorative surfaces. F/List’s materials wizards responded by adding pure silver powder to the Aenigma mix, eliminating the need for any synthetic or petroleum-based pigments, and the material was then bonded to a thin, hard backing for use. Through the incorporation of renewable wood-derived materials, every square meter of Aenigma actively sequesters 400 liters of CO2.
“We are excited to present this new material to industry delegates as we lead the way in setting new standards for sustainability within the aviation industry,” said CEO Katharina List-Nagl. “This chameleon-like material epitomizes the versatility of our F/Lab alchemists, highlights the infinite potential for designers, and indicates the trend is beginning to move toward sustainable options for interiors.”
The company will also show off two of its other engineered materials product lines at the show. Whisper Leather is a sustainable plant-based alternative to ultra-leather. It is manufactured from a polymer derived from cornstarch, with a viscose backing, while Linfinium, a linseed oil-based recyclable product, can be used for anything from countertops to flexible flooring. Through the addition of ingredients such as stone dust (recycled from its stone shop), recycled cork, sand from the customer's favorite beach, or even ground apricot pits, the company can alter the properties of Linfinium to change its firmness and surface texture to match needs and service requirements.
Prince explained that the company basically covers “the entire ecosystem of the lifestyle of the ultra-high-net-worth individual.” To better serve its customers in all three of the high-end markets it provides for, F/List (named after company founder Franz List) now has a global footprint with satellite facilities in Denver; Melbourne, Florida; Montreal; Sorocaba, Brazil; London; Berlin; and Dubai, UAE. Of the more than 1,000 F/List employees worldwide, 700 are based at its Thomasberg, Austria headquarters, which includes its primary manufacturing and final assembly facility.
To accommodate growth at its headquarters production facility—which offers 278,000 sq ft of production space and operates one of Austria’s largest photovoltaic plants—the company broke ground this summer on Plant 3. Currently, Plant 2 is largely dedicated to aviation serial production, and the completion of the new 50,000 sq ft facility (expected in the first half of 2024) will free up space through the relocation of the aviation final assembly, quality review, and shipping departments.