Inhabitat

VIDEO: The Secret Life of Paper

Earlier this year Inhabitat’s Emily Pilloton highlighted the insightful video ‘The Secret Life of Cell Phones’ produced by environmental nonprofit INFORM, Inc. Now we are pleased to announce the launch of their latest video, The Secret Life of Paper. It explores the environmental impact of the paper production industry, focusing upon forest destruction, global warming, and the complexities of paper recycling.

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BUMBERSHOOT 2008: Seattle’s Green Music & Arts Festival

Bumbershoot kicks off this today, bringing three days of music, art, comedy, and film to Seattle! This year the Emerald City festival is going green in a big way by boasting an entirely carbon neutral production and offering offset purchases for visitors via NetGreen. Hydration stations, biofuel generators, and signage repurposed into tote bags represent just a few of the festival’s sustainable features.

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ECOLLECTION DAY 1: Sustainable Style Hits the Mainstream

MAGIC’s sustainable lifestyle show ECOLLECTION debuted this week to an international crowd of fashion industry buyers. The expansive showcase featured a juried and progressive collection of eco-minded apparel and products, as well as seminars, fashion shows, a plush lux lounge, and a bookstore. The sheer volume of exhibitors illustrated how many new brands are turning an eye toward sustainable design. While the products varied in degree of true “green-ness,” the overall fashion prognosis is optimistic. By fall, it will be much easier to shop for a stylish and sustainable wardrobe. Check out the highlights from day one!

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AND THE BACK-TO-SCHOOL WINNER IS….

For over a week we have run our Back to School Contest to giveaway a fabulous solar-powered bag by Noon Solar. In the last few days, we have received over 100 funny, heartwarming, and just plain wacky submissions from you guys trying to convince us who is the most deserving of the free Noon Solar bag. We were completely floored by how many amazingly thoughtful and creative responses we got, and have had a really hard time picking a winner out of so many compelling submissions. But we only have one Noon Solar bag to giveaway, so without further ado, the winner is….

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ANNOUNCING: The 2008 Architecture and the City Festival!

Attention all Bay Area architecture aficionados! This September AIA San Francisco and the Center for Architecture + Design will be presenting the fifth annual Architecture and the City Festival. The momentous occasion will bring the city by the bay an incredible roster of events including films, lectures, and tours of the city’s great works of architecture. By bike, boat, or foot, come one and come all to experience San Francisco like never before!

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1960’s Meets Sustainable Modern: The Choy Residence

Nestled in Noe Valley, a San Francisco neighborhood known for its contradictions, rests the Choy Residence, a newly remodeled 1960’s home turned modern dwelling. Terry & Terry Architecture took a decidedly “less is more” approach to the project, literally carving out the 1960’s home’s front entry and center core, straight through to the rear facade. The results of their carefully crafted subtractions is an exterior deck with a view and an entry that allows tremendous amounts of natural daylight to flood the interior spaces while increasing natural ventilation and circulation.

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70ºN Arkitektur’s Mobile XBO Prefab

The allure of prefab living resides somewhere between its packed-and-parceled, ready-to-go nature, and its scaled-down simplicity. Fully realizing both of these aspects, 70ºN Arkitektur’s XO Mobile Structure embodies an extreme of living simply – or simply living. The gorgeous prefab features a minimalist two-room construction that comes as-is and goes anywhere you please.

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New Geothermal Technology Could Tap 120,000MW of Energy

On August 22nd, Raser Technologies and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson broke ground on New Mexico’s first geothermal power plant. Situated at Lightning Dock near Animas, the new plant will incorporate an innovative binary liquid technology that allows it to make use of the site’s low levels of geothermal energy. If more of these modular plants are built then they could be mobilized to take advantage of over 120,000 MW of untapped low-temp geothermal energy across the US.

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WIN A FREE SOLAR POWER BAG by Noon Solar!

If you’ve been reading Inhabitat this past week, you might have noticed that we’ve been running a little Back-to-School contest to giveaway some fabulous green goodies, including an awesomely stylish solar powered bag by Noon Solar (worth over $415). Just to make sure all of our dedicated readers have a chance to participate and try for this great prize, we’ve decided to extend the contest deadline by a few more days. In order to enter this contest, you MUST REGISTER FOR THE INHABITAT NEWSLETTER by Wednesday August 27th.

There are just a few days left to enter, so SIGN UP NOW >

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INDEX:AIGA Launches ‘Designing Water’s Future’

Recently the AIGA partnered with INDEX, Circle of Blue and New York design firm Collins, to launch “Designing Water’s Future”, the first annual Aspen Design Challenge. Aiming to stimulate thought and mobilize the design community towards tackling global issues, the project is calling a global audience of design students to redefine and respond to the global fresh water crisis.

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Penn State’s LEED Gold School of Architecture

As students return to campuses across the country for the start of another semester, colleges are starting to showcase some serious strides in sustainability. Some are investing in wind power and other alternative energies to help lower their carbon footprint, while others are endeavoring to green their facilities. Penn State is leading the charge with its gorgeous LEED Gold Stuckeman School of Architecture.

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ECO CUTE OVERLOAD! EcoZoo backpacks for kids

Its almost September and you know what that means: back to school! If you or anyone you know has a child between the ages of of 4 and 10, do we have a back-to-school treat for you. We just spotted the cutest eco-friendly kids’ backpacks ever, and while we’re not personally going back to school this fall, these adorable backpacks make us wish we were. Part pet, part toy and 100% functional, EcoZoo backpacks are made from organic cotton, non-toxic dyes and recycled plastics, and come in the form of pandas, pigs, elephants and puppies.

Check out the EcoZoo collection at Inhabitots.com >

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Earthrace Boat Crosses Globe in 60 days to Break Record!

It’s been an exciting month as we’ve seen green transportation records set on the ground and in the sky, so naturally we are taking the next step and bringing you to the sea with the Earthrace, a 78 ft tri-hull “wavepiercer”. The biodiesel boat recently completed a carbon-neutral tour of the globe in an incredible 60 days and 23 hours, besting the previous world record by 14 days!

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Partly Sunny Climate Change Exhibition During the DNC

Partly Sunny: Designs to Change the Forecast is an exhibition showcasing innovative designs from around the world that focus on solutions to shifting climate conditions. An initiative of students and faculty from Rhode Island School of Design, the exhibition was created to contribute to national conversations about climate change and to illustrate how individual choices and public policies can change the forecast. The exhibition is on display now through August 28th in Denver, CO during the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

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TRANSPORTATION TUESDAY: Peugeot 888 by Oskar Johansen

We love concept vehicles here at Inhabitat – not because we hope that they will be manufactured at some point, but because we’re impressed by the innovative thinking behind them. Take the 888 by Oskar Johansen, which looks like any other slick two-seater – until you dig a little deeper. It turns out this solar-electric super-car is capable of a unique feat of imaginative engineering: it can shrink!

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TRANSPORTATION TUES: Peugeot Unveils 2008 Concept Cars

Every year, Peugeot launches a contest call for entries from the international design community to showcase their talents in a concept car showdown. The theme for this year’s contest requested that they imagine a Peugeot in the megalopolis of tomorrow, and by the looks of the entries, (such as the Stylight above), they definitely delivered. If you think that you’ve seen concept vehicles, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

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TRANSPORTATION TUESDAY: Free bikes at the DNC and RNC!

Public bike sharing is one of our favorite solutions to cutting inner-city congestion while providing for carbon-free modes of transportation. Services such as Velib and Smartbike have proven to be a popular and effective way to reduce our reliance upon cars, so we were excited to hear that Freewheelin will be bringing 1000 bikes to this year’s Democratic and Republican Conventions!

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Solar Powered Plane Breaks Record… Again!

Last year we brought you news of the Zephyr, an unmanned solar-powered airplane that shattered a world record with a flight of 54 hours. Not content with their initial achievement, the creators of the Zephyr decided to give it a second shot. This time the Zephyr flew for an incredible 82 hours and 37 minutes!

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“Architecture School” Reality Show Premieres on Sundance

With the current vogue of reality tv shows sweeping the networks, we’re excited to see one with an admirable humanitarian design mission. Architecture School is a new series that follows twelve architecture students at the Tulane University School of Architecture as they design and build a low-cost sustainable home for a family returning to New Orleans. An excellent example of integrating students within a community, the three year venture will join the architecture school with URBANbuild and the nonprofit Neighborhood Housing Services

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NSW Winner: Bligh Voller Nield’s Sustainable Stockland HQ

Some of the most interesting examples of green innovation are those that transform the environmentally unkind into a beacon of eco-friendly sophistication. Such was the challenge dealt to Bligh Voller Nield in designing the headquarters for Sydney-based Stockland. Their solution recycles an existing structure into a cutting edge workplace so successfully that it received the Milo Dunphy Award for Sustainable Architecture in this year’s NSW awards.

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Top 5 Picks for Green Back to School Gear

As the days grow shorter and summertime slips into September, our thoughts naturally turn towards the start of school and preparations for an eco-friendly education. Balancing books and supplies with a tight budget can be tricky, but happily there’s a wealth of affordable and environmentally sound school supplies out there. Read on for a round-up of five favorites from the current crop of green student staples!

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ZIGGURAT: Dubai Carbon Neutral Pyramid will House 1 Million

The Mayans and Egyptians constructed incredible feats of architecture able to weather the test of time, but they had no idea their pyramids would inspire the shape of the latest carbon-neutral super-structure to hit Dubai. Dubai-based environmental design firm Timelinks recently released some eye-catching renderings of the gigantic eco pyramid – aptly named Ziggurat – with plans for its official unveiling scheduled for the Cityscape Dubai event which runs October 6-9 of this year. The ginormous pyramid will cover 2.3 square kilometers and will be able to sustain a “community” of up to 1 million.

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SUSTAINABLE STYLE: Asiatica’s Recycled Japanese Textiles

We are constantly digging deeper for eco designers who are reworking the threads of sustainable style with new offshoots of innovative textiles and refashioned couture. There seems to be quite a few collections on the scene where recycling and upcycling vintage or thrift-store fabrics is the MO, but only a handful might be considered sculptural, museum-quality designs. Asiatica is a real exception to this trend, as their one-of-a-kind collection features recycled vintage kimonos and state-of the-art Japanese textiles in a fusion of methods and materials that really makes them stand out as art objects. We also love that Asiatica’s design showroom is located well outside of NYC’s fashion world, rooted instead in America’s heartland – further proof that decentralization is a great way to spread the seeds of sustainability and fashion artistry.

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Teich Sustainable Bags for Fall 2008

With the first colors of autumn beginning to seep into our sun-bleached psyches, one’s attention understandably turns to what is on the horizon for sustainable style Fall 2008. NY Fashion Week is less than two weeks away, and we are already gearing up to cover some of the eco-fabulous events that are on tap here in NYC. We wanted to kick off our fall pre-view reporting with one of our favorite local accessory designers, Alison Teich of Teich Collection. Alison creates luxurious eco friendly clutches and bags that are geometrically bold and colorfully crafted. If you are looking to add just one new piece to your green closet as a way to inject your wardrobe with new sustainable hues, Teich might be just the fall find for you.

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Growth Series Ceramics by Stanley Ruiz

This past week showcased the A+: The Young Designer’s Platform at Accent on Design/The New York International Gift Fair, and ‘new organics’ designer Stanley Ruiz was featured as one of the bright young stars on the design scene. You might recall that we featured Ruiz’s twig accessories right after New York Design Week in May, so we were excited to learn that he was selected to exhibit some of his latest creations at this week’s hugely popular venue. The Brooklyn designer artfully fuses craft, natural artifacts, and industrial design know-how to create sculptural objects that are grafted with new life and budding green promise.

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Jamie Ward’s Furniture Reborn

Dusty old furnishings often receive a second life with fresh upholstery and a new coat of paint, but rarely do we have the patience or skill to repurpose parts and fashion an entirely new piece of furniture. Jamie Ward, a design student in Manchester, England, takes cast off chairs and tables, deconstructs them, and rebuilds them into exceptional examples of functional art.

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Inhabitat heads to Magic to cover the first-ever Ecollection

It’s time for a little green MAGIC! Next week, Inhabitat will be reporting live from the first-ever ECOLLECTION fashion show in Las Vegas. Part of the larger international MAGIC show, ECOLLECTION is the most comprehensive collection of environmentally conscious apparel and lifestyle brands. With over 80 brands exhibiting their sustainable wears as part of ECOLLECTION and more than 60 showcasing their eco-lines throughout the show at-large, sustainable fashion has definitely hit the mainstream. Check back next week as Haily Zaki reports with the latest and greatest new designs and products.

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PREFAB FRIDAY: Tom Kundig’s Mobile Rolling Huts

Part pre-fab home and part RV, Tom Kundig’s mobile home ‘Rolling Huts’ are a tribute to the simplicity of rural Romanticism, much like their predecessor the Delta Shelter. While the Delta Shelter was originally intended as a retreat in the mountains, the owner of the home soon realized he needed temporary residences for his guests, and so commissioned Kundig, to develop a series of mobile counterparts.

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TRAVELODGE HOTEL MADE FROM SHIPPING CONTAINERS

Travelodge recently opened a hotel in Uxbridge, England that is constructed entirely from prefabricated shipping containers. The completed design uses eighty-six containers of various sizes that were retrofitted into bedrooms and bolted together onsite. The exterior has been clad and fitted with windows, thus converting the assemblage into a seamless 120-bedroom hotel. Verbus Systems estimates that the structure’s prefab composition saved the hotel chain more than half a million pounds and at least 10 weeks of construction.

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BACK TO SCHOOL CONTEST: Win a Noon Solar bag!

It’s mid August, the leaves are turning brown, and you know what that means! Fall is just around the corner and school is about to start up for students around the country. In the spirit of back-to-school goodness we’re announcing a contest over the next week to give away some fabulously green back to school gear, including an awesome solar powered school bag by Noon Solar - worth over $400.

For how to enter read below >

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East Meets West Down Under: Leura House by James Stockwell

Nestled in the picturesque Blue Mountains near Sydney is James Stockwell’s Leura House, winner of the 2008 Wilkinson Award – the Australian Institute of Architects New South Wales’ highest accolade for a residential project. Inspired by Japanese design methods and informed by warm California modernism, this sleek dwelling embodies a new and decidedly Australian brand of contemporary sustainable architecture, marking Stockwell as one of the country’s top young architects.

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