Inhabitat

Recycled Subway Cars Turned into Studios in London

Enterprising young artists in the London scene are usually presented with the dilemma of having to rent extremely expensive studio space in order to be able to work. This led furniture designer Auro Foxcroft to a rather ingenious and environmentally conscious solution. What was it? Take old subway cars, mount them on a rooftop, and use them for office space! A bit sparse? Sure! But these recycled subway cars are sure to inspire other green-minded, socially conscious artistic efforts.

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PREFAB FRIDAY: Reaction Housing Emergency Shelters

Emergency shelters have rightly become a fad in the design world. In the aftermath of the hurricanes and other natural disasters in the last few years, it became clear we had a ways to go in providing safe and sturdy emergency shelters for victims. We’ve covered Paul Villinski’s Emergency Response Studio– a traveling artist studio that became a model for emergency shelters. And now, Michael Daniel, a Senior Designer at Frog Design’s Austin Studio, has designed, Reaction Housing, a line of dependable shelters that can be quickly and easily deployed and built– ready in time for the emergency.

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Happy Thanksgiving From Inhabitat!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING INHABITAT READERS!
Thanksgiving is a great holiday – and not only because of the delicious food and the chance to catch up with loved ones. We love it when November rolls around, because Thanksgiving reminds us of the importance of gratitude and appreciation for our lives. Despite volatile times and some bad economic news recently, we have a lot to be thankful for this year. Read on for Inhabitat’s Top Ten Things to be Thankful for in 2008!

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Matthew Carden’s Food Art Provides Food For Thought

Photographer Matthew Carden’s incredible “Small World” food photography offer an entirely new perspective one the foods we consume, interspersing tiny figures amid towering broccoli treetops, massive mushroom forests, and colossal candied yams. His work aims to “make viewers more aware of what they eat, and to think about food as an integral part of our world.” Each edible landscape is a provocative close-up investigation of the …

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Ask Nature: Using Biomimicry to Solve Design Problems

The Biomimicry Institute recently teamed up with Autodesk to launch AskNature.org, an incredible source of information for the growing community of professionals researching and applying the principles of biomimicry. The solutions that animals and nature have come up with have been tried and tested for millions of years (certainly longer than humans have been designing), so why reinvent the wheel? Why not learn from nature to make our designs more efficient, elegant, and sustainable?

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Mailman Cuts Out Junk Mail, You Can Too!

A former North Carolina mailman was recently fined $3,000 and ordered to do 500 hours of community service for cutting out the junk mail. For over seven years, no one on Steven Padgett’s route received a single pizza flyer, ‘Current Resident’ catalog or sweepstakes entry – now that’s something to be thankful for. Unfortunately, this mailman couldn’t put an end to the production of junk mail, leaving much of it in his backyard or garage, but you can. 100 million trees are chopped, processed, glossed and stuffed into US mailboxes every year. Fight back with one of the many opt out services below!

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Ross Lovegrove’s Solar-Powered Alpine Capsule

Appearing for all the world like a habitable version of Chicago’s Cloud Gate, Lovegrove Studios‘ futuristic Alpine Capsule is designed to blend in with nature, reflecting and complementing its immediate environment. Powered by solar panels and a vertical axis wind turbine, the off-grid alpine retreat features a shimmering glass skin with a reflective coating that allows individuals to sleep under the stars while admiring a 360 degree panorama of the beautiful landscape.

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TRANSPORTATION TUESDAY: The Kite Powered Car

Here at Inhabitat we love wind powered vehicles for their inspired approaches towards sustainable transportation – after all what could be simpler than sailing along on a breeze? Designed by Tsun-Ho Wang, Min-Gyu Jung, and Sung-Je Do, this futuristic Wind Light Vehicle is an electric concept car that can deploy a wing-like device to propel it along like a windsurfing board or even a kite!

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Kid Kustoms Stroller Converts into a Trike for Inhabitots

Kids grow up quickly, which often leaves parents scurrying to find storage space for outgrown cradles, high chairs, and other children’s items. This chic convertible stroller by Kid Kustoms runs laps around your standard baby buggy by converting into a tricycle as your child grows. The result is an inspired transportation option for tots that saves space, material and money with an extended product life-cycle. It also doesn’t hurt that …

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California To Become The Electric Vehicle Capital of the US

Recently the cities of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland unveiled a massive concerted effort to become the electric vehicle capitol of the United States! This groundbreaking development heralds a nine-step plan that includes everything from buying fully electric vehicles for all government transportation to expediting the approval of charging outlets throughout the bay area, including those located on the street. The creation of this essential infrastructure marks a huge step towards the acceptance of electric vehicles as a viable alternative to those that run on fossil fuel.

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Honda Debuts The Hydrogen-Powered FC Sport

It is not everyday that a well-known car manufacturer releases a concept vehicle that makes everyone’s head turn, but that’s exactly what Honda did last week at the Los Angeles Auto Show. The FC Sport is a hydrogen fuel cell three seater based on the same technology deployed in the FCX Clarity. Hardly your run-of-the mill hydrogen-powered vehicle, the FC Sport is a high-powered sports car designed to show that new greener technologies can compete against any fossil-fuel powered engine.

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Harvard’s Green Graduate Student Residence

Students are not always known for their green-mindedness. Facing habitual late nights and juggling multiple deadlines, it can be hard balance an eco lifestyle with a studious one. Fortunately, Harvard is joining the ranks of colleges that are trying to incorporate green design right into the campus. The famed Ivy League university commissioned Kyu Sung Woo Architects to design a new graduate student residence that aims to achieve a high level of LEED Certification. The 115,000-square-foot project is aimed to provide housing for 50 percent of the school’s graduate, professional, and doctoral students.

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Rent a Living Xmas Tree to Replant in San Francisco

San Francisco residents looking to deck their halls with green holiday decor will be excited to hear that for a limited time the SF Environment Department is teaming up with Friends of the Urban Forest to offer living Christmas trees that will be replanted in neighborhoods after the holidays! Although they’re not your classic x-mas evergreens, these adopted saplings offer an excellent alternative to clear-cut trees, and will live on as a gift to the community long after the holiday season.

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EcoRock: Sustainable Drywall will Rock your Green World

Drywall is the number three producer of greenhouse gasses among building materials, trailing just behind cement and steel. Its production generates 200 million tons of carbon dioxide gas, a host of gypsum mines, and immense amounts of energy are required to fire the 500 degree kilns in which it is produced. But a ‘game-changer’ is on the horizon: EcoRock. This innovative material requires no gypsum, no ovens to produce, is made from 85 percent industrial by-products and is fully recyclable!

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Bruce Munro’s Brilliant Fiber Optic Fields of Light

Bruce Munro’s gorgeous fiber optic ‘Field of Light‘ installation is inspired by the beautiful displays of flowers that burst forth from Australia’s desert landscape. The UK based lighting designer conceived of the installation 15 years ago while driving across Stuart Highway on a road trip through Australia. Every night he would stop to rest at roadside campsite, where green grass and surreal sculptures struck a stark contrast to the surrounding red desert. Munro was fascinated by these oases, and how dormant desert seeds would burst into beautiful flowers when it rained. The idea followed Munro for years all the way back to the UK until he could finally bring it to life in a brilliant installation at the Eden Project in Cornwall.

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SUSTAINABLE STYLE: Boot Up for Winter 2008

There is perhaps no better wardrobe investment for Winter 2008, than a super stylish pair of eco chic boots. Shoes and accessories should carry over from year-to-year, so it really pays to do your homework when selecting covet-able footwear that will keep you looking fab for more than just one season. We have picked out a few of this season’s cutest vegan and ethical fashion finds so that you can easily ‘boot up’ in sustainable style while also keeping the wintry slush at bay.

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SUSTAINABLE STYLE: Izzy Lane’s Ethical Knitwear

There is something idyllic and old-worldish about Isobel Davies‘ collection of knitwear. Which seems fitting considering its beginnings. Several years ago, Davies discovered two harsh realities in the world of sheep: first, that sheep in Britain were slaughtered for being lame, too small, or missing a pregnancy, etc. and the second, farmers were burning wool rather than selling it because it wouldn’t make any profit. Davies wondered how the industry that helped to push British industrialization had practically been eliminated. So in 2002, she saved her first 4 sheep, and since then has worked to build a business focused on animal friendliness and sustainable practices. Today, Davies’ UK-based label, Izzy Lane, offers wonderfully classic, yet still contemporary, knitwear collections that are also oh so ethically conscious.

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Omi International Art Center Grows Greener

It’s one thing when environmental art brings you out into the field, up into the trees, and reaches beyond our usual expectations, but The Omi International Art Center in Columbia County, NY does all of this and then some with its new LEED-certified visitors center and gallery space. The Charles B. Benenson Visitors Center & Gallery opened its doors this past June and was celebrated as a perfect marriage between green building and the environmental sculpture projects that the site is world-renowned for. Designed by Hudson Valley based FT:Architecture, the new visitor building is consistent with the art center’s objective of melding art, architecture, and a landscaped environment that fosters creative residencies and installation projects for some of the world’s most provocative sculptors and enviro-artists.

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Lea Turto: Sacred Groves

There’s something about the shock of red in a forest that makes it ethereal and otherworldly. That’s part of Finnish artist Lea Turto’s point. In 2005, she covered a series of tree stumps in Helsinki’s central park with red felt in order to highlight and celebrate their natural forms. The piece is called The Sacred Realm of the Forest Elf, in deference to an old Finnish word and spirit: Hiisi.

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Raindrop Shaped Treetents by Dré Wapenaar

Sylvan housing reaches new heights with these wonderful dewdrop shaped Treetents by Dutch sculptor and designer Dré Wapenaar. Originally designed to ease the lives of tree-sitting activists, they also make excellent treetop retreats for campers, kids, and anyone soothed by an evening spent softly swaying among the branches. Each beautifully formed droplet attaches directly to a tree trunk and is roomy enough to sleep a family of four.

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Frank Lloyd Wright Renovation Receives Merit Award

In 1988, Lawrence and Sharon Tarantino bought a run-down house in the Millstone borough of New Jersey. A house that was designed by none other than Frank Lloyd Wright. Turns out, that Wright had been thinking of the environment back then. The home, along with about 100 others, was designed in his “Usonian” style– a style that utilized admirable green building principles, including smaller footprints, lower cost, passive solar and radiant heating. The couple, principals of architecture and design firm, Tarantino Studio, renovated it, which won an award from the New Jersey chapter of the American Institute of Architecture.

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PREFAB FRIDAY: Blu Homes

Blu Homes is a relative newcomer to the prefab design world. That being said, they are in the midst of two projects that should be completed by Spring 2009. One is in Blue River, Colorado and the other is in Salt Lake City, Utah. Blu Homes focuses on more than good contemporary and energy efficient design. With a Blu Home, you’ll get a fun and beautiful design, but you’ll also get walked through the whole process from site evaluation, permitting, financing, design, site work all the way through construction and finishing the home. And you’ll know the price right from the start because it’s a package deal. Not many other prefab builders offer that service, especially at the affordable price they’re guaranteeing on their website.

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IS IT GREEN?: The Laundry Ball

The GreenWashBall is a device that you toss into the washing machine to clean your dirty laundry in place of detergent. An innovative concept, but not the first of its kind – “laundry balls” like the GreenWashBall are abundant, including the Miracle II Ball, the Laundry Solution ball, and the Mystic Wonder Laundry Ball. They are supposedly popular in Europe and the laundry ball industry is hoping to gain popularity in the U.S. Completely cutting the use of detergent is enticing from both ecological and economic standpoints, but how exactly does the GreenWashBall work, and can it up to its claims?

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Amazon Debuts Frustration-Free Packaging

Just in time for the overly packaged holiday season, we are thrilled to see that Amazon is debuting a new eco-friendly idea called ‘Frustration Free Packaging’. If you’ve ever tried to open a plastic package twice the size of the product inside and ended up with box cutters in one hand and carpal tunnel syndrome in the other you may know ‘wrap rage.’ Then once you finally got the plastic off, you still had 18 wires to unwind and a mountain of mostly unrecyclable trash. The folks at Amazon are working hard to remedy this problem with the introduction of Frustration-Free packaging. Amazon is working with manufacturers to eliminate dreadful clamshell packages for simpler brown boxes. Not only will it make wrapping and unwrapping much easier, but these boxes can broken down like any other and recycled.

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ANNOUNCING… Greener Gadgets 2009

Attention all eco inventors, green design visionaries, and gadget geeks! We’re excited to announce Greener Gadgets 2009! Registration is now open for the return of this provocative conference, which will take place on February 27th, 2009 in NYC. Like last year’s inaugural Greener Gadgets event, the 2009 conference will convene some of the world’s leaders in green tech to explore the sustainable side of the consumer electronics industry. This year’s event is shaping up to be better than ever, with a star-studded lineup of speakers and another exciting design competition, and Inhabitat will be posed at the center of the technological whirlwind to present, cover, and bring you all the latest news. Be sure to check out our coverage from last year’s event, complete with photos and videos, live webcasts and the latest up-to-the-minute coverage.

Greener Gadgets 2009 will take place at the McGraw Hill Conference Center in NYC on February 27th, 2009.

REGISTER FOR GREENER GADGETS TODAY >

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Illuminating Solar Blinds Turn the Lights On

What do you get when you take an average vertical blind (the kind found in practically any rental apartment across the United States), outfit it with special mini photovoltaics and LED pixels, then add a healthy dose of creative inspiration? The surprisingly chic and witty Solar Vertical Lamp designed by Yoon-Hui Kim and Eun-Kyung Kim. By creatively applying existing technology, Kim and Kim transform the lowly blind into a sustainable, sexy, and dramatic lighting system. Finally, a blind that has truly seen the light.

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Hand-powered Penguin Eco-Light

Perfect for emergency preparedness and cute to boot, this adorable penguin eco flashlight would make an excellent addition to any home. The bright light eschews a landfill-bound battery for a pump powered kinetic charger that provides an hour of light for each minute spent pumping. Capable of …

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Protecting Storm Swept Coastlines With Oyster Shell Seawalls

Photo by Sean Powers, University of South Alabama

Coastal erosion is one of the most daunting problems that a seaside city or county can face. The loss of shorelines and coastal areas due to storm activity can be a devastating event, with damages ranging in the millions of dollars. There are a number of methods used to try and contain such erosion, but a new technique is seeking to establish a thriving underwater ecosystem in process. Marine scientists in Alabama are utilizing tons of oyster shells to create a barrier reef that will serve as a habitat for sea life, filter the water, and protect the coast.

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Revitalized Solar-Powered Union Lofts

These sleek solar-powered lofts are part of a stunning adaptive reuse of an old textile warehouse in San Diego. Designed by Jonathan Segal Architecture the 20,000 square foot block receives 50% of its energy from photovoltaic panels and integrates a variety of urban living environments for a mixture of very low income (50% of the median), affordable and market rate units. A paragon of efficient modern minimalism, the Union is a truly beautiful project that recognizes that one of the best ways to build green is to revitalize something old to become new.

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New Zealand’s Whimsical Yellow Treehouse Restaurant

The new Yellow Treehouse Restaurant by New Zealand based Pacific Environments Architects Ltd. (PEL) is a stunning architectural feat perched high above a redwood first. Appearing for all the world like an enormous chrysalis grafted onto a 40-meter-high redwood tree, the project is constructed of plantation poplar slats, redwood balustrading milled at the site, and makes extensive use of natural lighting throughout.

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BambooSK8 Eco Friendly Skateboards

Note to skaters – according to the Science Channel, skateboards have replaced furniture as the leading contributor to maple deforestation. The Canadian maple takes 40 to 60 years to mature before it can be cut down to make your decks. The good news? BambooSK8 is a true-green company that makes first rate skateboards that are durable, sustainable, and even stronger than maple.

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