When societies undergo jarring events, fresh cultural expression emerges. For example, in a post-9/11 climate, our heightened awareness of security - both personal and national - has redefined the way we draw boundaries and deal with fear.
For the MOMA’s recent exhibition, SAFE: Design Takes on Risk, French born designer Philippe Million created this galvanized steel utility barrier to be a little more inviting than the standard variety; it may prevent passage, but it also offers a place to rest. READ MORE >
If you’ve gotta run the wheel, you might as well do it in bare feet. Many of us are so busy being good little hamsters that we never have face time with green space. A group of students from Dalhousie School of Architecture — David Gallaugher, Kevin James, and Jacob Jebailey — decided to remedy this problem with a street-ready grass-lined wheel.
The wheel is of simple construction–just plywood, mesh, fishing line, and sod–but it’s loaded with meaning. On one hand, it’s a playful protest to the lack of public green space in Halifax. On the other hand, using sod for their material offers a deeper critique on urban greenery. READ MORE >
Anybody remember the launch of C2C Home a couple of years ago? It was an open competition for residential design using the values of sustainability set forth by William McDonough’sCradle to Cradle philosophy. We were highly anticipating the futuristic housing that would emerge through the collaboration of forward thinking developers, talented designers, and dedicated contractors striving to reduce our living footprint. Having heard little in the last two years, we were thrilled to learn that the first Cradle-to-Cradle house is nearing completion in Roanoke, Virginia.
So which entry was chosen? And what fabulous design is about to materialize as a monument to the principles of sustainable living? Here’s a hint: the competition winner (pictured above) will not get that particular honor………
The good people at Core77 have just launched a new and improved iteration of Coroflot, their career and community network for design professionals. At Coroflot, you can create your own portfolio that gives you a personal URL and the ability to network with other creatives, seach for employment, or scout for new talent.
It also features “CoroSpy,” a real-time feed of activity across the Coroflot horizon. Check it out, build a portfolio, browse the more than 34,000 others — it’s all free!
The award-winning sustainable design company, Tricycle, Inc., recently published an “anthology of the moment” about sustainability in the interiors industry. It’s called Reverb and features the collected musings and criticisms of ten eco-consultants, designers, and editors sounding off on where the industry stands today, and how design can be an agent of change. READ MORE >
Glass house meets prefab sophistication in this upscale version of the modern shed by Tsubomi. The creators of Tsubomi have dubbed their structure the “aluminum space packaging system,” which speaks to the lightness and modularity of the design.
Glass and aluminum guard against the elements while maintaining a constant connection to the outdoors. But for those who like to throw stones, panels are available in an assortment of non-transluscent materials including lumber. READ MORE >
Designer Ian Gonsher, a recent graduate of the MFA program in furniture design at RISD, offers a refreshing proposal for repurposing cardboard packaging with his origami-like Box Table.
A concept for encouraging the reuse of cardboard boxes, the Box Table is assembled from a pre-printed box with only a few simple cuts and folds. Gonsher writes, “By creating an incentive for reusability, there are obvious ecological benefits as well as greater product desirability with little extra cost.” READ MORE >
Michael Aram is on the forefront of two of today’s top trends: eco-inspired design and outsourcing to India. For the last 18 years, he has been creating exquisite decorative objects like these bark vases and luna bowls made from recycled aluminum in India. He also happens to live there, so it’s not exactly outsourcing per se…
Nonetheless, with a flagship store opening in New York this October, we thought we would inquire if the location of his workshop helped or hindered the sustainable aspects of his business. READ MORE >
Last week we dug into the LEED-H criteria for sustainable residential materials and resources. Now that we’ve given you the low-down, it’s time to get specific. While the variety of options and applications in this category can be overwhelming, it happens to be one of the easiest avenues for going green at home.
From decking and roofing to countertops and indoor paints, these are the places where the decisions are yours; and they matter. Read on for tips, resources, and product recommendations that will guide you towards beautiful materials that ensure a safe, healthy home. READ MORE >
Last week we published the first half of an interview with Paul Kephart of Rana Creek Habitat Restoration and Living Architecture. Paul has brought his ecological brilliance to the design tables of some of the world’s leading architects. But it’s not just the celeb-scale projects that excite him. In fact, Paul’s enthusiasm is clearest when he speaks of Rana Creek’s public projects, and of introducing principles of sustainability into urban communities where nature is scarce.
Read on for Part II of Inhabitat’s interview with Paul Kephart… READ MORE >
Much like a one-pot meal, furniture constructed from a single piece of material is efficient to make, leaves little waste, and offers plenty of room for variation and innovation. The new Reform collection of furniture at Vivavi is all made from a single sheet of ¼” aluminum, cut and folded origami-style into sleek minimalist pieces that would make Mies proud.
Impressively, the furniture uses no adhesives or hardware to hold any of the pieces in shape, and all materials are 100% recyclable, in case you ever need to switch up your decor. They could even be recycled into another piece from the Reform Collection, if you ever get bored with your table and decide you want a chair instead!
The all-female Front design quartet never misses an opportunity to redefine the boundaries of the possible. Their portfolio contains a vast collection of staged interactions between science, technology and nature.
This light-sensitive wallpaper responds to UV radiation from the sun, displaying a morphing pattern created by shadows from ordinary objects (although the patterns here look more like unidentified flying objects to me…). Leave the techno-genius to the designers; you just paper the walls, open the curtains, and watch the surfaces transform throughout the day. [Presently in prototype.]
What Freitag did for tarps, Feuerwear does for fire hoses. Launched earlier this year by engineering graduate Martin Klusener, Feuerwear creates three different models of bags and an assortment of belts from used fire hoses. All of Feuerwear’s products are extremely durable, given the strength of the hose — you could set these things on fire and they’d withstand the heat.
We spend a lot of time talking about sustainability and design, but it’s important not to overlook the value of experiential learning — especially for kids. That’s why we love this Solar Powered Helicopter. The blades of the propeller have compact solar panels that store energy while the copter sits on a window sill, and then use it to make the propeller spin. It’s a simple lesson in the natural power of the sun.
We also love this helicopter because it’s designed like a classic kid toy, with simple wooden shapes and primary colors (not like so much of the neon plastic junk out there today). Available in natural and bright colors, at only $32.00 each, how can any kid resist?
America runs on coffee, and Americans are a people on the run. Every year, we drink more than 100 billion cups of coffee and of those, at least 14.4 billion are served in disposable paper to-go cups. That’s enough cups to wrap the earth 55 times!
Traditionally, those paper cups have been made with a non-renewable, non-biodegradable petrochemical plastic coating. But all that could end with the recent introduction of the new Ecotainer cup from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. READ MORE >
Our highly scientific reader survey revealed that you want to see more flying houses! So here you go - and as a bonus, we’ll throw in some heavy machinery. It is this very image of prefab that many of us dream about: a modern, elegant, minimal space, gliding through the air, gently touching down where there was once only a blank lot o’ dreams. The delivery guys plug in a few hoses, collect a signature, and drive away with a smile – just like the guys who delivered your washing machine.
In alignment with that dream, Espaciao Minga and the design firm of F3 Arquitectos have developed this compelling prototype known as the Minga. We’re a little rusty on our indigenous Chilean languages, but word on the street is that “Minga” means something along the lines of “an act done by a community for the benefit of a single family”. READ MORE >
Talk about having your cake and eating it, too, a family in the West Village has brought a little country into the city by plopping a bucolic meadow and a classic front porch on the roof of their Manhattan apartment building.
With research and architectural planning, they figured out how to plant out a 1,200-sq-ft sedum roof that wouldn’t compromise the structural integrity of the building. On the contrary, it would offer natural insulation and prevent excessive storm run-off, all while enabling the owners of the top floor apartment to rock in their porch swing and overlook a tranquil green expanse, against the backdrop of the New York City skyline.
The 92nd Street Y in New York hosted a fantastic panel discussion last night (7/19) entitled The New Green: The Changing Face of Environmentalism in New York. The participants (full list below) had many great insights into how a city known for innovation, but not necessarily environmentalism, is now marrying the two in a number of extremely dynamic ways. READ MORE >
Look up in the sky: is that light a particle? A wave? A drinking implement? In the hands of super talented Los Angeles designer/architects Dan Gottlieb and Penny Herscovitch of Padlab, light is several thousand drinking straws, packed into a honeycomb to make a beautiful pendant. READ MORE >
When we think of greenhouse gas emissions, most of us envision a tailpipe spewing exhaust out of the back of a car. But 40% of the carbon dioxide that contributes to our warming planet comes from buildings. While some of that is a secondary effect of operational needs such as electricity, A/C, and heating, many GHG’s arise from resource extraction, manufacturing and production of the building materials themselves.
Of all the criteria covered by LEED-H and our own GreenBuilding 101 series, MATERIALS and RESOURCES has perhaps the broadest application and relevance. They are the ingredients, and choosing them wisely makes all the difference in terms of the overall impact of the building throughout its life. This is where ‘environmental footprint’ or ‘life cycle assessment’ come into play; as we learn in Cradle to Cradle design basics, the materials are in the picture from the first round of planning to the final stages of demolition or renovation.
Today’s series walks you through choosing ingredients wisely, being sure that the materials you select, and the resources it took to produce them, are a part of the whole picture of a sustainable home. READ MORE >
As far as green roof designers go, you can’t get much more committed or accomplished than the team at Rana Creek. While their name often gets partially eclipsed by the names of their starchitect collaborators, such as William McDonough and Renzo Piano, it’s Rana Creek’s genius that yields such massive marvels as the rooftops of the Gap corporate headquarters and the California Academy of Sciences.
I discovered Rana Creek in March, when I attended CA Boom, the West Coast annual design show. Across a huge exhibition floor, I was drawn to Rana Creek’s living wall display, which they’d custom designed for the occasion as an example of a climate-appropriate botanical rain catchment system. Of course, the technical functions of the wall weren’t the main attractor; rather, it was the incredible artistry of the sculptural bent metal, through which succulents were penetrating by what seems like the sheer force of a plant’s irrepressible will to thrive. READ MORE >
On the subject of art imitating trees, check out this awesome design for tree-like windmills, from One Architecture, Ton Matton and NL Architects in the Netherlands. Leave it to the Dutch to come up with such a clever, beautiful, eco-friendly idea for power generation. This is why I am going to Holland people! (I’m hopping on the next plane over there. Seriously…) READ MORE >
Somehow we missed this at ICFF, and we aren’t really sure how we could have overlooked such a fabulous lighting design. Not only do these lovely chandeliers mimic the organic growth patterns of tree branches - but they are twice as nice, since they are made of recycled materials as well! Designer Christopher Poehlmann salvages aluminum pipes from local scrap yards, and welds them together in pieces to create these gorgeous “New Growth” chandeliers. Since each piece is made from found materials, stitched together bit by bit (sort of the way a tree grows) - each is completely unique — just like a living tree. READ MORE >
Following the material reuse thread, designers John Greg Ball, Shoko Cesar, and Darryl Barton have teamed up to create a lamp made of trash. Layering disposable plastic egg cartons, they produced an ambient light source that projects illumination in multiple directions by reflecting it off of the contours of the egg cups. The end result, of course, is anything but trashy. READ MORE >
Get Inhabitat Email
