Kate Gannon is an architect and the founder of Studio Huske, a Swiss brand specialising in silicone play mats for babies and toddlers. She's Irish, lives near Zurich, and has two boys.
She started the brand during the pandemic, after researching play mat materials extensively for her own children. She went deep into safety certifications, silicone grades, and what OEKO-TEX Class I actually means in practice before designing anything.
She writes for parents who read the label, look up the certification, and still have questions. She's used the mats in daily life since they launched, which means she knows where they perform well and where they don't.
The architecture background is relevant. She thinks about materials, durability, and children's spaces differently because of it, and that shows up in how she evaluates products.
A peek behind the process
"Everyone counts"on why your home doesn't have to disappear when you have children
You've said the best products come from founders who needed them first. Were you the market before you were the founder?
Completely. Long before I conceived of Huske, I was a problem solver. I was always not just frustrated by things but dreaming up the perfect solution. I used to listen to How I Built This, the podcast, obsessively. I even bought our stroller, an UPPAbaby modular double that was really ahead of its time, because I heard the founder on that show and trusted the story. I've always had this belief that the best products come from a founder's direct need. And this one was no different.
What was the need?
It was two things happening at the same time. A friend of mine in Ireland, during the first lockdown, told me she didn't have enough space or storage to put her son's toys away at the end of the day. She was drowning in the visual clutter of her life as a mother. And meanwhile I was weaning my second baby, horrified by the ABC alphabet foam tiles that were everywhere. I had bought so many things pre-emptively. Good products, with good reviews. But my child didn't need them, or didn't need them for long, and suddenly I had this mounting clutter everywhere. I hate waste. I was born with that. So something had to give.
Your home matters to you in a specific way. Tell me about that.
I'm such a homebody. My home is my haven, my retreat. I'm an architect and a designer. My home visually pleases me and it's always evolving. When I became a mother that didn't change. What changed was the challenge. We're a living room family in a 105m² apartment. My kids have just as much right to be in this space as I do. But I also think we as adults have just as much right to recognise our home as our own with children in it, as we did before becoming parents, and as we will after. I really have the philosophy that everyone counts. The kids as much as the adults. I'm not sure that's as common as it should be.
So the mat had to work for everyone in the room.
Yes. And nothing available did. Outdoor equipment is the most functional material category in the world, but it doesn't belong in your home and it's not suitable for close contact with a baby's skin. And the beautiful materials I love are too delicate. They fail the moment real life happens to them. I needed the Venn diagram between highly functional and genuinely beautiful. I had no idea if it existed.
How did you find it?
Through a hashtag on Instagram. I sent a DM to the supplier. Got no response. Followed up anyway. I ordered samples from two suppliers, one in China, one in Korea, and held them in my hands. I'm a sensory person. The haptic is key to the aesthetic for me. You feel a material and you know. The Korean sample was immediately different. Versatile but premium. It felt like real leather. But it has superpowers.
What did you reject along the way?
Coated canvas. The wax coating wears away over time, and if it's beeswax it isn't vegan. Tyvek. Too industrial, too toxic. I also have psoriasis and eczema, so I've always been acutely aware that skin is your biggest organ. I needed something that wouldn't off-gas, wouldn't smell, was completely safe for a baby lying on it for hours. That ruled out most things immediately.
Who is the person who buys a Huske mat?
Someone who thinks long-term. Someone who cares about what materials are in close contact with their child. Someone who prioritises longevity over price. And they almost always find it through a recommendation from a friend.
And what do those customers do with it that surprises you?
They get endless thrills from thinking of new uses. A rain cover in a downpour. A mat for the kids' bike in the car boot on the way to the forest. Potting plants on a rainy day inside. They'll send us photos. They can't stop finding new scenarios for it.
The mat started as an indoor product. Did that change?
I only discovered the outdoor use case over time, through customers. Getting outside, even just to sit on the grass with a coffee, matters just as much. The mat follows you out there.
There's the version where it comes indoors with you and your life stays yours, the living room stays liveable. And there's the version where you just leave everything behind and get outside. Both feel necessary. I didn't plan for both. But both are real. I couldn't have foreseen it when I designed it. But it's become part of how I think about being a mother. And customers find the same thing.
But the customers that get it, get it.
They're the ones who'll tell you: get a heavy pile rug that you love and lay your Gallivant on top. Fold it away at night. No foam tile. Your living room looks like yours, and your child has been lying on a surface you trust all day.
And the person standing in front of the €30 foam mat on Amazon?
It gets used. You use it every day. But you're dying for the day you don't have to look at it anymore, and when that day finally comes, you don't even know where to get rid of it. Goodwill, maybe. If they'll take it.
The question I asked that most people don't was: what is this actually made of? Not because I'm particularly virtuous. I have psoriasis. Skin has always mattered to me. I needed to know what my child was lying on for hours. When I started asking, I found the answers surprising. That's what sent me looking for an alternative.
There's no perfect product. The most sustainable choice is to buy nothing. But we have needs, and some products give us joy. I think of the mats as the modern equivalent of the family quilt, holding memories over a whole childhood. The most sustainable products are the ones that last, that you actually enjoy having around.
Everyone counts. Your children have as much right to your home as you do. And so do you.
Read more on the Studio Huske journal, or explore the mats.