Inhabitat

MIRROR WEATHER STATION

For whatever reason, the more features a gadget has, the more people want it, even if all but one of those features are useless. Which isn’t to say we don’t all need a mirror that also has a graphic weather forecast, an atomic clock, and a vibrating alarm. It has a two-color display and shows indoor and outdoor temperatures through a remote sensor. You could just listen to the radio, use an alarm clock, and primp in an unobstructed looking glass, but that would be so 20th century…

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 0

GIRARI

Recycled aluminum specialists Girari have been producing sustainable home furnishings from post-consumer aluminum for over ten years. Girari’s gorgeous line can be seen in-person at their brand new design showroom on Robertson Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California. We’ve taken a special interest in their Bamboo Vase, baring an amazing cast aluminum resemblance of one of our favorite renewable materials.

Girari’s organic design incorporates cast aluminum bases and frames with tempered glass, natural woods, marble and granite tops. Each piece is individually hand crafted. In a successful attempt to avoid sharp lines, Girari’s pieces are softened through a slight curve, while the cast aluminum legs and rails are seamlessly connected.

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 0

PREFAB FRIDAY: Andrew Maynard

We just can’t get enough of Andrew Maynard, so we thought we’d say a few more words about him for our Prefab Friday roundup. In the diverse collection of projects in Maynard’s portfolio, we get a picture of an architect whose ideals run as deeply as his talent for good design. His protest treehouses emerged as a direct action in defense of the Tasmanian forest; his unfolding homes spoke even more strongly for sustainability, underscoring the importance of considering time in design. Rounding out the portrait of a visionary designer, Maynard’s prefabs embody not only sustainability, but affordability.

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 0

ANDREW MAYNARD’S ACTIVIST ARCHITECTURE

Abandon your preconceptions of the architect as a quiet, bespeckled intellectual who cares more about sharp Italian suits and clean concrete lines than about saving trees. Here comes a new breed of architectural environmental activism in rising star Andrew Maynard, who has designed these awesome treehouses in order to protest logging.

The vigilant protection of endangered forests represents an enduring legacy of environmental activism, from the Chipko movement in India in the early 70s to Julia Butterfly Hill’s long sit in the redwoods. Few things deter a logger from felling a tree more effectively than a protester clinging fiercely to its trunk. Except maybe a protest structure that clings to three trunks at once.

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 4

CATCH JILL ON THE LAZY ENVIRONMENTALIST

Best known as the founder and CEO of Vivavi, Josh Dorfman also wears the hat of a radio host with his show, The Lazy Environmentalist, where he regularly features some of our favorite cohorts and leaders in the burgeoning movement towards making sustainability sexy and cool.

On this week’s show, Green Goes Mainstream, you can hear our fearless founder, Jill Fehrenbacher, discussing Inhabitat’s inception and growth, and the coming trends in green media and …

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 0

THE HOME HOUSE PROJECT: the future of affordable housing

Good Design. Sustainability. Affordability?

Rarely could these ever describe the same project, much less a single attitude towards housing. In 2003, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, launched an open competition with these objectives in mind, and the results proved to be contrary. 440 entrants took house plans from Habitat for Humanity and turned them into environmentally friendly designs for low and moderate-income families.

Currently showing at the Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota are some of the results of the HOME House Project competition. Projects ranged from traditional vocabularies to the futuristic, all of them integrating building ideas such as prefabricated and recycled materials, passive heating and cooling, and rain water recycling.

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 0

RUBBERSIDEWALKS

Across the country, cities constantly struggle with public safety and ongoing financial burdens caused by tree roots lifting cracked concrete sidewalks. Rubbersidewalks offer a convenient solution to this problem. The modular sidewalk system allows air and water to reach the soil below, and can be pulled apart for easy tree and root maintenance, decreasing the need for urban tree removal.

Rubbersidewalks are made of 100% recycled tire rubber. The waste rubber from one passenger tire creates one-square-foot of Rubbersidewalk, helping to recycle the more than 34 million passenger tires disposed in California alone. At the end of their lifecycle (at least 14 years), Rubbersidewalk pavers can be recollected and recycled back into the manufacturing process.

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 5

BAUMRAUM TREEHOUSES

When designing a treehouse, it’s almost always a good idea to add a little childhood nostalgia and rustic charm to the mix, even if the end result has modern leanings. We’ve talked about treehouses big, small, and uber-futuristic, and each has had its own special flavor; but no matter how you distinguish yours from the rest, once you put a house in a tree, you join the ranks of the make-believe revivalists.

German cooperative baumraum knows how to keep imagination alive in their homes. Combining architecture, landscape design and “arboriculture,” they create treetop dwellings which integrate beautifully into their forested surroundings, and preserve the integrity of the trees that support them. With the breezy playfulness of a hammock and the trusted stability of an old oak tree, baumraum won’t make you grow up to enjoy a sophisticated house.

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 3

BERLIN, COPENHAGEN, & GOTHENBURG

Winter is not, perhaps, the most temperate time of year to head off to Germany and Scandinavia, but the airfare sure is reasonable! I’m excited to report that from February 23 to March 13 I’ll be bundling up and traveling through Berlin, Copenhagen, and Gothenburg (Sweden) — and I’d love to get some travel advice from you!

In addition to visiting my brother and generally taking in the sights (such as the Reichstag Dome pictured above), I’m looking …

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 0

FREEDOM OF CREATION Rapid Prototype Designs

Design company Freedom Of Creation (FOC), straddles the cusp between cutting edge engineering and haute-design. The future-forward company is pushing the boundaries of manufacturing production with their research and experimentation in new methods of rapid prototyping. The fruits of their research manifest in stunningly beautiful geometric designs – shaped into lamps, furniture and even textiles. The Venus lamp (above), made from laser-sintered PA would make Bucky proud with its pure geodesic structure, whereas the On the Rocks tables and chairs (below) look like scientific diagrams of molecular crystalline structure come to life. FOC is also exploring textiles (see below), and while their creations don’t necessarily look very comfortable to wear, they are quite fetching on plastic mannequins.

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 0

SUPER SMART PRIVACY GLASS

Imagine a high-tech glass that you could change from transparent to frosted with the flick of a switch… You could use it for home windows (eliminating the need for blinds), for store fronts (at night), and even for bathrooms (requiring users to stretch for a new level of trust in technology). Although Privacy Glass is not in common use yet – the technology has actually been around for quite a few years, and there are many stunning examples of this smart material in use all over the world. French company Saint-Gobain produces an “intelligent” glass called Privalite, which can be switched from an ordinary-looking clear glass to a foggy-looking frosted glass by running an electrical current over a polymer liquid-crystal film sandwiched between two plates of glass.

Apparently the Koolhaus-designed Prada flagship store in SoHo, New York, utilizes privacy glass in the dressing rooms. I’ve been to the store on several occasions, but I’ve never quite made it as far as the dressing rooms (bloggers can’t afford Prada), so I have yet to see this in the flesh. Fortunately New Yorkers don’t need to be well-heeled to see Privacy Glass in action. Inhabitat reader John tells us that there is a more accessible (and fun) implementation of privacy glass, right around the corner from the Prada store, at Bar 89 (89 Mercer Street in NYC) “The bathroom doors do the trick and are tripped by an infrared censor. The bar is ok, but the bathrooms on the mezzanine are worth a stop.” {Thanks John!}

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 36

PREFAB FRIDAY: Studio Force4

We’ve talked a few times about urban bioremediation projects, in which trees and plants are used as tools to clean contaminated land. This kind of renewal not only spares the use of invasive reconstruction, it makes the process of cleaning as beautiful and enjoyable as the final outcome.

Danish firm Studio Force4 has a development plan that brings bioremediation, compact living and prefab construction together to create a forested urban oasis. The Boase Concept will establish a forest in the city, choosing trees specifically for their ability to clean polluted soil. With residential units positioned above the trees, residents will have the benefit of dense green space situated in the middle of the city.

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 0

WE HATE SPAMMERS / comments are disabled

Dear readers-
A bunch of you have written in to ask about why our comments aren’t working. We have had to shut them down because some spawn of satan has set up an automated spam-bot to send us comment spam about online blackjack every 5 minutes. Naturally we delete all comments like this immediately, but the spam was coming in such a deluge that we have found it impossible to sit at the computer constantly deleting it. So we have had to shut comments …

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 0

NOMADIC MUSEUM (Ashes & Snow)

Designed by well-known Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, the Nomadic Museum is the permanent home for the art exhibition “Ashes and Snow,” by Gregory Colbert. Built from 152 stacked shipping containers, the building forms a central walkway for viewing the artwork, suspended on either side.

Through May 14th, the exhibit will be located on the Santa Monica Pier, having previously opened in Venice, and then in the first Nomadic Museum at Pier 54 on the Hudson River. Truly “nomadic,” the museum was designed to be disassembled and reconfigured to house the traveling exhibit. The shipping containers not only make up the building module, but evoke the voyage of “Ashes and Snow” as it moves from location to location (the exhibit has no final destination.)

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 2

MANGO LEAF

Uniquely modern, wonderfully colorful and one hundred percent natural (including the dyes), Mango Leaf’s line of handspun bamboo products put an elegant eco spin on standard wooden dishware. Whether you like dark, rich colors, or bright, energetic shades, Mango Leaf can suit your style. Scrupulous attention to detail and a commitment to using only natural materials are the trademarks of Mango Leaf’s design. Not only is each product put through vigorous durability and ergonomic testing to ensure it lasts for years, but the pieces are surprisingly affordable, starting at $38.00.

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 1

FLOATING MOBILE HOME

We’ve talked about mobile homes and we’ve talked about floating homes, and now a conceptual convergence brings us a floating mobile home. Designer Hallstein Guthu calls his concept a “mobile eco-home for the contemporary techno-nomad.” Might be something you’d find at Burning Man if it weren’t waterborne. And Norwegian.

In fact, this is the result of a highly elaborate and imaginitive architectural Masters thesis at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Guthu emphasizes the use of technologically advanced design as a means of achieving a greener, more sustainable structure. With an outer membrane comprised of solar cells, a wind turbine, and a recycled aluminum structure, the highly efficient home is designed with awareness of its eventual disposal (you can recycle it!).

READ MORE >

digg this digg this email this email this tweet this tweet this facebook this facebook this 0