If you were to look up “mad genius” in the dictionary, you might find a picture of Adam Kalkin. One glance through his vast portfolio and it’s clear that this is not the work of an ordinary mind. The bulk of Kalkin’s large-scale work involves shipping containers and steel Butler buildings. His cargo dwellings were featured last December in the New York Times and won an instantly fanatical audience (ourselves included).
In the last six months I’ve tried twice to get myself one of Scrapile’s cube lights — the pendant lamp made of their signature striped wood. But each time I get one, I think of someone I want to give it to and end up giving it away!
Recently I had a chance to see one of my delightful gifts hanging in a friend’s house. Because it’s made with varied layers of wood, some of the stripes are translucent enough to let a little light glow through. It’s absolutely perfect (made me wish I’d kept it!).
Where do you want to live?
Today kicks off Inhabitat’s summer series, Green Building 101, our weekly column covering the fundamentals of green building. This series will be structured around the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, specifically the new LEED for Homes for residential building, which establishes seven criteria for creating healthier, greener, more efficient homes.
LEED is not the only system for determining whether or not a project is sustainable – and debatably, it may not be the best. However, it is the most commonly accepted benchmark and an excellent starting point for those wanting to get their feet……green, so here we go!
We’ve been paying close attention to our reader survey, and one emerging trend has been a loud and clear request for more information on how to better understand green building. In answer to your pleas — and since most of the Inhabitat team are LEED accredited designers — we thought it a perfect time to launch a new weekly column: Green Building 101
This new summer series, presented every Wednesday morning, will go over the basics of green building and offer tips and tricks for applying sustainable design principles to your home.
One of the pioneering innovators in turning industrial refuse into functional gear is Freitag, the Swiss company launched by a pair of entrepreneurial bike-riding designers who decided that dirty old truck tarps would make ideal messenger bags. Frietag blew up quickly from its humble beginnings — it’s easy to love bags that are durable, waterproof, recycled, and one-of-a-kind. But in scaling up, Freitag’s never compromised their commitment to material reuse and local production (in Zurich).
But why stop there? Given their knack for putting a super-hip edge on recycling, they’ve now scaled up exponentially, with a concept retail space made from shipping containers. “Lovingly they were gutted, reinforced, piled up and secured. Zurich’s first bonsai-skyscraper.”
How do you go about making yourself comfortable in your indoor landscape? If you are Brooklyn Artist Amy Helfand, you make your outdoor landscape into a rug; a very nice, very beautiful rug. Helfand’s rug designs suggest or depict natural environments — sometimes real, sometimes drawn from her wild imagination. But Amy’s inventiveness does not end with pattern and decoration – the designer has teamed up with Rugmark to insure that the material and manufacturing of her rugs are as forward-thinking as her designs.
They say that mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery….
Some people take IKEA’s Do-It-Yourself ethos very seriously! By ignoring the retailer’s assembly instructions, designer Kieren Jones and artist Joe Scanlan offer some amusing twists on the Swedish chain’s nearly ubiquitous off-the-shelf designs.
We just can’t get enough of How-To-Make-a-Terrarium article that we ran last year, but the girl is more than just a creative green thumb. Melissa also has a line of home accessories that are as playful and inventive as her terrariums, called Poppycotton.
There are a lot of interesting design competitions going on this summer, and some of the most intriguing are sponsored by our fellow design bloggers. We just announced Core77’s Light Object Competition, and now we hear word that Treehugger is teaming up with ID Magazine to launch the Umbrella Inside-Out Competition.
How will the next generation of designers create beautiful, functional pieces that contribute to the health of the planet? The Umbrella Inside-Out Competition asks this question by focusing specifically on one little household object that needs a serious design overhaul.
“Umbrellas suffer from design flaws that often lead to their premature and messy deaths and unwelcome burials in landfills,” says Julie Lasky, Editor-in-Chief of I.D. Magazine. One aspect of the Umbrella Inside Out Competitions asks for an umbrella designed with a Cradle to Cradle(R) sensibility. This means that the object’s entire lifecycle is considered, from its sourcing and production, to the life it leads after its current use.
Our friends over at Core77 have just announced a new design competition called LIGHT OBJECTS: A Design Competition on Sustainability. Open to anyone, entrants are encouraged to go beyond mere “sustainability,” and push the idea of lightness – creating objects that are actually beneficial for the environment instead of just less bad.
Have you ever wanted to put in a grass driveway, but you found yourself worried about ruining the grass every time the car pulls in and out of the garage? Salvaverde is an interlocking modular system that gives extra strength to lawns for parking and walkwaks. Made of recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE), the same stuff used for plastic milk bottles, Salvaverde can support huge loads up to 35 tons per a square foot without allowing any soil compaction. This means that rainwater will continue to filter into the ground naturally, the grass will keep growing and remains healthy, and you won’t be left with tire tracks, puddles, or mud.
Supple Designs of Australia was given a unique brief by a residential client developing 900 lots west of Sydney: a building was needed to be a showcase to entice future homeowners. The developers wanted this building to make a bold architectural statement, highlight both a sustainable lifestyle and construction, and to be sturdy enough to be disassembled and relocated for the same purpose in the near future. Using prefabricated components, Supple Designs produced a well blended mix of modernist ideals, warm “homey” moments, structural expressionism, and a visible eco-friendly statement to serve as a prototype for a more environmentally friendly suburbia.
Toyota’s inching its tentacles into just about every facet of future-forward living. The Prius, of course, has become a household term synonymous with hybrid transportation; then there was the pollution-eating flower; and now, believe it or not, Toyota’s hopped on the prefab housing train.
Thanks to the 1960s Love Bug movies, the name Herbie will forever be associated with anthropomorphic-machine cuteness — and Michael Kritzer’s Herbi is no exception. The hydroponic countertop herb pot is sleek, modern and elegant. But don’t be fooled — Herbi’s not just all good looks and no brain; this little gadget is smart. Even if you are one of those people who can’t keep a stick of bamboo alive, Herbi will grow vibrant herbs for you year-round by telling you exactly what it needs and when.
Inhabitat loves the work of Molo designers Stephanie Forsythe and Todd MacAllen. Readers will remember us (and the rest of the design community) gushing over their Softwall after this year’s ICFF, at which they won the “Body of Work” award.
Included in that body is the incredible “Float” line of glass and barware. Both the clear and frosted versions radiate a purity and crispness that we find utterly irresistable. The distinctive suspended bowl design insulates your hand and protects your furniture, making coasters unnecessary. Instead, condensation from cold drinks beads on the bottom of the glass, which heightens the delicate appeal of the design.
You’ve got to love the curves on this bent Plyboo Spring Chair from Adapt Design. Just looking at the picture one can practically feel oneself gently boinging up and down in ergonomic bliss.
These sleek and sexy chairs are about as sustainable as you can get without sitting in the dirt. According to designer Anthony Marschak, the single curving piece of Plyboo minimizes the weight of the piece and minimizes waste of the materials. A good thing for the manufacturer given the expense of Plyboo.
We felt very flattered this week to discover that Newsweek Magazine picked Inhabitat as one of their Design Dozen: “12 websites that define cool”. We want to congratulate our fellow design bloggers who made the list – all of whom work hard to put together such great websites, and particularly thank Newsweek for giving a shout-out to the blogs.
Searching for the perfect gift for your environmentally aware feline friend? Look no further than these very witty plush birds stuffed with certified organic catnip. Each is handmade with all natural wools and cottons and perches upon a hand cast pewter twig. We love the fact that although this is technically a cat toy – it’s so cute that even non cat owners might enjoy the presence of the plush faux-birds.
In case you didn’t see them when they came out this spring, Adam Frank’s latest line of lumen lamps is not to be missed. We fell instantly in love with his first version — a silhouette of a tree — and the new trio of bird designs sent us head-over-heels. All you do is light the little oil lamp and a shadow flock of birds erupts onto your wall.
Five towers will soon loom over the Khao-lak Lamru National Park in Thailand, evoking powerful, mountainous forms created by the same tectonic forces that brought an end to so many lives on December 26th, 2004. Overlooking the nearby beaches which were hit hardest by the tsunami, visitors will be able to wind their way up into two of the structures, where they can not only reflect on those tragic events, but understand the cause of the disaster- and what’s being done to prevent it from happening again. Clad in a skin of greenery, the largest of the towers houses a hollow space for contemplation, occupied only by a large mangrove.
I’d love to hear from anyone (Dutch or not) who is knowledgeable about designy things to do in the Netherlands. As regular readers will know, Inhabitat has a bit of a thing for Dutch design. I am about to embark on a Dutch design tour this July and am looking for suggestions on where to go, what to do, and who to check out for Inhabitat.
At the moment I’m thinking of hitting Amsterdam, …
Last week, San Francisco’s Knoll Furniture Gallery opened its doors to reveal the first ever LEED Certified Showroom. Why go through the trouble of LEED certification if your product is furniture, you might ask? It’s all part of the ‘doing good by being good’ incentive that so many corporations, including many non-profits, are adopting in recent years. The Audubon Society, Sierra Club, and the NRDC, to name a few, all have LEED Certified Headquarters. Knoll, not exactly a non-profit, shows they care about more than just about the tactile materiality of their designer pieces, but of the overall environment in which they inhabit… now if only those Frank Gehry woven maple chairs came in cost competitive FSC-certified wood…
Prefab Friday has been a great way to build up the Inhabitat prefab archive, giving us a weekly reason to look for new developments in the industry, or add in old favorites. The weeHouse from Alchemy Architects definitely fits into the latter category — already widely-known (and one of the few prefabs actually available for purchase!), this mini mansion is a gem among the super-tiny prefab set, and relatively affordable at $125 per sf.
Like the Loft Cube or the Micro-compact Home, the weeHouse is a single module that can be plopped on just about any site, including a rooftop.
Being a vegetarian, it is a little hard for me to smile on a design proposal about pig farming. Nevertheless, I was totally taken with Dutch architecture group MVRDV’s clever (and I think tongue-in-cheek?) urban design proposal for a “Pig City” – consisting of huge skyscrapers filled to the brim with automated pig farms.
In 2000, pork was the most consumed form of meat at 80 billion kg per year. Recent animal diseases such as Swine Fever and Foot and Mouth disease are raising serious questions about pork production and consumption. Two opposing reactions can be imagined. Either we change our consumption pattern and become instant vegetarians [unfathomable!!] or we change the production methods and demand biological farming.
When we first wrote up the Hansa Canyon temperature-sensitive bathroom fixtures last year, people went nuts trying to figure out how to procure some of the high-tech LED faucets from the elusive German company. Unfortunately those Hansa Canyon people didn’t seem to be on the ball and were unresponsive to all the email flooding in from the states. Now we’ve just discovered another European company making similar temperature sensitive bathroom fixtures which illuminate your water with blue light when it’s cold, red when it’s hot, and violet when lukewarm.
Last month, we made our way over to Williamsburg to check out the Brooklyn side of New York Design Week. One of the best things we discovered in Brooklyn was Hivemindesign. Hivemind’s exhibition space was breathtaking, and every single one of their designs was simply stunning. We went crazy over the huge cast steel hanging lights. The entire underside of the dome-shaped light has been hand-strung with bright colored string in a style that’s reminiscent of summer camp arts & crafts but with an intricacy and sophistication no camper could achieve.
Several weeks ago in Toronto, real estate development company Landmark Building Group announced a new design for the Westside Lofts. You may already be thinking, “Not another mid-rise, mid-town loft development” – but this project has us intrigued for social as well as environmental reasons. Active 18, an impressively responsive and realistic community association, has taken an interactive roll in this project’s design (during the second go-around, anyway) and that of other developments nearby. Because of this community response, the developers have committed to making the project a more pedestrian friendly, economically varied, and environmentally sustainable place. Or so the story goes.
TranSglass is one of our favorite recycled-design projects of all time. Contradicting the old notion that recycling in design equals handicrafts made from buttons and popsickle sticks – the TranSglass project proves once and for all that the efficient reuse of waste materials can go hand in hand with haute design.
Designers Tord Boontje and Emma Woffenden have created a gorgeous line of tableware from recycled wine and beer bottles from the restaurant industry. Tumblers, vases, and carafes are all fashioned through collecting, cleaning and re-cutting old glassware into new shapes.
The wonder material of bamboo continues to amaze us with its potential. From plywood, to salad bowls, to the ethereal structures of Kengo Kuma, this sustainable, structural grass seems to have endless possibilities. Now, Bamboo Living is sponsoring an international competition to design buildings out of bamboo. The competition is open to all students, architects, and designers, with the goal of raising awareness of the ecological benefits of using bamboo as both a material and a technology.
If Inhabitat were going to spin off a retail site it would be exactly like Branch. In fact, we really couldn’t do it any better – so we are just going to throw in the towel. When we first discovered Branch, we were a little jealous that they beat us to the retail punch. The store literally carries all of our top 20 favorite Inhabitat designs:
Photo: Richard Reames, Arborsmith
There are houses built in trees and then there are treehouses. Last year, we had one of our first encounters with a home literally made from trees, using the art of weaving (and sometimes grafting) trees together to form structures — a practice ecological designer, Richard Reames, called “Arcorsculpture.” The Fab Tree Hab was one of the design entries for the Index: awards, emerging from the genius of a crew including MIT architect Mitchell Joachim and our friend, Javier Arbona of Archinect. The project description emphasized consideration of whole systems (and ecosystems) in creating a truly sustainable built environment, rather than a piecemeal approach that could yield uncertain longterm outcomes.
Bags made out of recycled materials have been around for quite some time – but on the whole they’ve been a pretty frumpy bunch. That’s why we are so excited to discover Trash Bags - an Australian company providing eco-inspiration to show that you can make hip, recycled (and fair-trade!) handbags out of many different kinds of refuse — including plastic grocery sacks, newspapers, and telephone directories, as well as the old-time favorite: juice-containers.
Choosing a material is probably the most fundamental decision a designer makes, and it has a profound impact on the aesthetics, function, and sustainability of an object or structure.
That’s why Mtrl, an initiative of ASM International is offering two exciting new workshops specifically created for designers. Held in Boston and Chicago, these “Wrkshps” provide an opportunity for designers of all disciplines to explore materials through the intersection of art, science, industry and product design.
Say the word “cabana” and most people immediately conjure ideas of banana daiquiris, palm trees and flower print shirts. However, take one look at The Modern Cabana and a totally different aesthetic comes to mind. Not to say that this great little outdoor room wouldn’t lend itself perfectly to a lazy afternoon with some blended drinks and tiki torches! Designed and produced by brothers-in-law Casper Mork-Ulnes and Nick Damner of San Francisco, the Cabana originated out of a desire to provide a little extra space that is often desired, but hard to implement.
As fans of flatpak construction, we are intrigued by the new Itbed design from It Design. Made from folded 7mm thick cardboard, the accordion folded cardboard bedframe is easy to collapse and store away, making it a perfect guest-bed for unexpected visitors. While we are a little suspicious that this design really is as simple as it looks – i.e. merely a stack of folded cardboard – we have to hand it to It Design for trying to market this simple space-saving take on the fold-away bed.
LOTS MORE GREAT GREEN DESIGN STORIES HERE... KEEP READING!
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