Rui Peng | Director | Critical

Gestalt x Critical collab partner

As a Māori owned company, the founders of Critical believe that our wellbeing and our future depend on the mauri (life force) of te taiao (natural world). Therefore our life’s work is to uplift that mauri by caring for our planet. They started Critical because they wanted to be good tīpuna (ancestors) for future generations so their tamariki (children) can prosper for thousands of years to come. Climate change and plastics pollution are the defining challenges of our generation. In Aotearoa NZ, we import over 400K tonnes of new plastics, and send into landfill up to 330K tonnes of used plastics every year. Meanwhile 11% of global carbon emissions are from the production of building materials. At Critical, they are building both the products and the technology platform to transform plastic waste into beautiful, low carbon and endlessly recyclable materials to empower the next generation of buildings that will make our mokopuna proud. Rui co-founded Critical with the goal of building an enduring company that exists to manaaki (care for) people and land. As an architect by training he obsesses over making great products and cares deeply about the creative process designers often embark on to realise their projects.