Looking for a way to give your New Year’s Eve bottle-popping festivities a fun bit of eco flair? Zo Loft, one of Inhabitat’s favorite design studios, recently unveiled this cute little Rock-et-Roll champagne bottle rocket that is set to blast off for greener horizons as we enter the new year. The spaceworthy eco-craft is composed of bioresin and recycled foam rubber, and is 100% recycled and recyclable.
December 31, 2008
December 31, 2008
We’ve brought you the most popular stories of 2008, and you voted on your favorites. Now we’d like to highlight some more under-the-radar Inhabitat stories from 2008 that you may have missed - the editors’ favorites. As avid followers of sustainable design, our Inhabitat editors were amazed at the wealth of green design developments that the past year brought. Now with 2008 coming to a close, we’d like to reflect upon some of our favorite stories from the past year. It’s always exciting to discover an incredible new project or hear about an inspired new approach to green design. From the awe-inspiring, to the innovative, to the funny, and just-plain-weird, read on for our editor’s favorite stories of 2008…
JiLL’S PICK: April Fools Day Post - The New Gehry Residence
(Fun with photoshop!)
BETH’S PICK: Life Preservers for Polar Bears On Sinking Arctic Ice
MIKE’S PICK: The New Green California Academy of Sciences Unveiled
OLIVIA’S PICK: Recycled Subway Cars Turned into Studios in London
JORGE’S PICK: Foster Designs House for his Biggest Clients Ever: Elephants!
ABIGAIL’S PICK: THE FARM PROJECT by Mike Meiré for Dornbracht
December 31, 2008
DRUMROLL PLEASE … Here at Inhabitat we feel lucky to have such a dedicated and enthusiastic reader base, so when we revealed Inhabitat’s Top 10 Most Popular Green Design Stories of 2008 earlier this week we wanted to give you the chance to weigh in vote for your favorite stories. Well, the results are in, and we’re excited to reveal our readers’ choice top posts of 2008! Read on to see the results…
December 31, 2008
Do you love us, Inhabitat readers? If so, please lend a hand and vote for us for a Homie award >
Re-nest, Apartment Therapy’s green home design blog, is hosting their very own reader nominated and voted awards ceremony called The Homies. Green-home-o-philes were asked to nominate their favorite green design blogs of 2008 — and with eleven nominations, we are honored to say that Inhabitat is in the final five for Best Green Design Blog!
We’d love to win this accolade, so please cast your vote for us today! Voting closes 5 pm EST on January 5th and winners will be announced on January 6, 2009.
VOTE INHABITAT FOR A HOMIE >
TOP TEN MOST POPULAR GREEN DESIGN STORIES OF 2008
With the end of 2008 rapidly approaching, now is a good time to take a look back at the year and reflect on the most interesting green design developments of 2008. From massive shifts towards eco-friendly transportation to monumental wonders of green architecture to a stunning array of clean technology breakthroughs, it’s been a banner year for green, with thousands of incredible projects cropping up in every field of sustainable design. Over the next couple days we’ll be compiling a bunch of top ten lists for 2008: including our readers’ favorite stories and our editors’ favorite stories. To kick off this list we’d like to highlight Inhabitat’s most popular stories of 2008, (based on number of pageviews according to Google Analytics). We’d love to hear what you think, and we’ll be putting together a reader ‘top ten’ in a few days, so please vote on your favorites below…
TOP TEN INHABITOTS STORIES OF 2008
2008 has been a dynamic year for Inhabitots — after-all this is the year that our bouncing baby blog was born into the world! Although Inhabitots has only been around for five months, we covered a lot of territory in the world of eco design for kids. From maternity wear to monster dolls, diapers to bike seats - if the environment and kids were involved, we were there. Here were the most popular Inhabitots stories of 2008, ranked according to traffic and comments. We’d love to hear your opininons, so please vote below and let us know which ones were YOUR favorites.
TOP TEN GREEN TRANSPORTATION TRENDS OF 2008
2008 has been an incredible year for green transportation as the world’s automakers made strident efforts to green their production lines, cities decided that it’s time to give our car-centric lifestyle a much needed rethink, and some incredible new vehicles proved once and for all that green transportation can be sexier and perform just as well as any other method of transportation. Rather than picking individual stories from the past year, we decided to analyze some of the incredible trends that made 2008 a landmark year in the transportation sector. Read on for an in-depth review of ten green transportation trends, and what we believe 2009 will bring us!
Times Square Unveils A Dazzling LED New Year’s Ball
This New Year’s Eve Times Square in New York is set to debut a dazzling new LED-encrusted New Year’s ball! Composed of 32,256 Philips Luxeon Rebel LEDs, the 12-foot wide energy-efficient orb weighs in at 11,875 pounds, making it twice the size of any ball previously dropped overhead in Time Square. A marriage of tradition and new technology, the stunning new sphere will be ringing in the 100th anniversary of the New Year’s Eve ball.
New York City to Install Super-Efficient LED Streetlamps
Over the past year we’ve been thoroughly impressed with New York’s ever-lengthening list of green credentials. The Big Apple already has a plastic bag tax, an amazing mass transit system, LEED certified skyscrapers, and car free zones, and we’re excited to announce that NYC will soon be installing a new breed of super-efficient LED street lamps. The new units will be tested this coming year in a select area, and if successful, one day all of New York’s 300,000 lights will be replaced with new LED versions.
Make It Right Goes LEED Platinum
Having lost over 14,000 occupants to the floods of Katrina, the lower ninth ward is now tasked not only with rebuilding homes, but rebuilding community. Recently the Make It Right campaign gave an incredible panel at this year’s Net Impact Conference that explored their efforts in rebuilding a growing new community starting with those who were hit hardest by the disaster. We were excited to hear that the foundation has finished construction on 6 homes that are set to receive LEED platinum certification, and that the ninth ward is being steadily shaped into an exemplary role model for a sustainable community!
HOW TO: Make Your Own Green Cleaning Products
To many, the idea of making your own cleaning products out of household items may sound a little crunchy — but if you really stop and think about it, it makes good economic, environmental and health sense. Not only are homemade cleaning agents much safer and healthier for everyone in your family than harsh store bought cleaners, but they can save …
TOP TEN SUSTAINABLE STYLE STORIES OF 2008
It’s no surprise that we love our sustainable style here at Inhabitat, and 2008 has been a particularly exciting year with bold new directions in green fashion and eco-textile innovation. From pollution sensitive dresses to ‘grow-your-own’ Icelandic moss jewelry, the frontier of eco fashion is continually digging deep to put a new spin on material resourcefulness and recycle-chic. ‘Be eco chic’ and ‘green is the new black’ may have been over-used mantras of 2008, but we all know now that sustainable style can be synonymous with sexy, must-have fashion that looks and feels totally fab. Read on for some of the best eco-collections and sustainable styles from 2008.
Recycled Magic Wallets by Tanja Burgdorfer
Reducing waste by reusing beverage cartons, Swiss-born Tanja Burgdorfer’s “Recycled Magic Wallets” creatively makes use of what would normally be discarded. With a little bit of elastic and a few staples, Tanja turns old beverage cartons into contemporary and useful wallets for the environmentally-conscious consumer. Current selection in her etsy shop shows luscious fruit prints. Each wallet is entirely hand-crafted and is available ready-made or bespoke upon request.
TOP TEN GREEN ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS OF 2008
As the holiday season winds to close we’re counting down the days to the new year with a look at some of Inhabitat’s most exciting stories of 2008! It’s been an outstanding year in green building and today we’re looking back at ten of the most impressive green architecture projects of 2008. From LEED platinum superstructures to innovative recycled and reclaimed buildings to ground-breaking monuments that integrate incredible new technologies, read on the year’s best and brightest developments!
HOLIDAY ART: Christmas Tree Chainsaw MassACRE
This week we shared sustainable Christmas tree options for this holiday season. And even though Christmas is over, Chainsaw MassACRE, an art installation by SWA Group– a landscape architecture firm– still makes some enlightening commentary on the reality of the tree farming that makes it possible to provide Christmas trees for the masses. At first glance, the piece appears deceptively festive with rows of suspended paper trees. However, it is certainly a somber reminder of the environment in which most Christmas trees are grown: a more complete view of the installation reveals a chainsaw floating ominously above the crop of suspended paper trees, and a bungalow surrounded by chainsaw cut-outs strewn about on the ground below.
HOW TO: Recycle Your Holiday Wrapping Paper
Happy Holidays everyone! Now that Christmas has come and gone, we trust that many of you are relaxing and tidying up all those boxes, ribbons and bits of wrapping paper from yesterday’s gift exchanges. Despite many of our best intentions in our gift wrapping …
Inhabitat Blog Picks of the Week
Opinions seem to be flying this holiday season as we reflect on a year that was both exciting and tumultuous. So this week, we’ve collected some thought-provoking reading that is sure to stir the pot as we head into 2009.
Core77 posts a snippet of an open letter from Cameron Sinclair, of Architecture of Humanity, written in response to Nicolai Ouroussoff’s NY Times article on the current architectural climate.
Nick Douglas at Clean Technica ponders the eco merits of Apple and Dell …
HOW TO: Green Your Christmas Tree
Christmas trees are one of the most enjoyable traditions of the holiday season, and there are lots of easy ways to go green with your Christmas tree: from using living potted Christmas trees, to recycled cardboard trees, to buying LED Xmas lights. After weighing the choices every December for years, and going on my own personal quest to have the greenest Christmas tree ever, here are the most eco-friendly tips I can offer on greening your holiday tree:
HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM INHABITAT!
It’s the end of December and it’s been a stellar year in sustainable design - the Inhabitat team wishes you a wonderful holiday season from every corner of the globe!
VOTE FOR THE BEST ECO GINGERBREAD HOUSE
This year we’ve been floored by the eco gingerbread-building madness that is engulfing the green design circles. We’ve been so thoroughly impressed with the wealth of architecturally-inspired gingerbread houses that we’ve decided to host a poll to round up our favorites! From fine frangipane molding to gorgeous gingerbread construction, we love to see skilled ginger-builders plying their craft to spread holiday cheer. But now we need your help to determine who shall be crowned Green Ginger-builder King! Help us out and..
GREEN GINGERBREAD HOUSE: The Inhabitat Alpine Cabin
Up here in New York, we’re sloshing our way through a semi-white and wet holiday season, but we love the wintery imagery conjured up by Inhabitat contributing writer Bridgette Steffen’s alpine gingerbread cabin! Aside from its cozy construction and idyllic setting, the cabin includes some great, eco-friendly building elements like a solar roof and composter. We think this GSC-certified gluten-free cabin deserves some fanfare because its sustainable merits are anything but sugar-coated.
Kids in Malawi Make Toys From Junk
toy car made from an old milk carton
If the souring economy’s got you down this holiday season, here’s something that will help put things in perspective and remind you how lucky you really are. In many parts of the world, people are too poor to purchase toys for their kids (much less shoes and socks). Kids, however, need …
Paprika Recycled Water Bottle Christmas Tree
We’ve shown you lots of inspired eco takes on the traditional Christmas tree this holiday season, but this one takes the cake! This gorgeous “Ice Tree” sculpture is made from 300 recycled water bottles suspended in the air. Created by graphic design studio Paprika, the provocative installation is hanging in the window of Montreal’s furniture store Domison throughout the holidays. We love how the inspired sculpture casts and reflects beams of light, creating an eye-catching display that raises awareness of the possibilities of recycling.
London Unveils Sleek Zero-Emission Double Decker Buses
Recently the London Transportation Department held a contest to redesign the iconic Double Decker bus, and we’re excited to announce the winning entry by renowned architects Foster + Partners! They’ve created a zero-emissions, super accessible, and environmentally innovative double decker bus that heralds a new era of sustainable public transportation for London.
Last Chance for great Xmas gifts from the Inhabitat SHOP
If you’ve been reading Inhabitat at all recently you may have noticed that we just launched a fabulous online boutique to help all you online shoppers find the best of the best in terms of green design. Now we want to remind you that while the Inhabitat Shop is a great place to find Xmas gifts - you need to …
GE Unveils the World’s First OLED Christmas Tree
Recently the OLED research team over at General Electric unveiled the world’s first OLED Christmas Tree! Forging ahead of the usual end-of-the-year slowdown, GE’s Global Research Center headquarters in Niskayuna, NY rang in the holidays with a 6-inch-by-15-ft. OLED system all rolled-up into the form of a tree. The radiant source of holiday cheer provides a glimpse of how OLEDs can transform the future of the lighting industry.
Herzog & de Meuron’s Lush Green BBVA Headquarters
Herzog and de Meuron have been very busy lately designing some amazing new buildings in Europe, like their Project Triangle in Paris. Their newest design for the Spanish banking group BBVA will be built on the outskirts of Madrid as early as 2013. The verdant green headquarters will feature luscious gardens and will create it’s own microclimate by using natural ventilation, evapotranspiration, and the shade of the gardens and buildings to create a cool artificial oasis on a desert-like site. The project is meant to function as a small city, encouraging people to walk and meet within the outdoor spaces.
GREEN GIFT GUIDE: For Her
Eco-savvy ladies should be able to enjoy the finer things in life without having to compromise their environmental ethics. There are plenty of places out there to find glamorous green gifts for that special lady in your life, if you know where to look. Read on for our top picks for green goodies sure to please any discerning eco-chick.
GREEN GIFT WRAP IDEA: Bobo Wrap Scarves
While it makes a fun tradition, gift-wrapping packages with paper and tape is an inherently unsustainable practice: think of all the paper and ribbon that goes into the trash each holiday season for the sake of making presents pretty. Here’s a lovely green gift-wrap idea: wrap your present in a silk scarf this …
Eco-nifty Wrapping: 20 Eco Gift Wrap Ideas from Future Present
From Future Present, by Jane Rosie
With Christmas just around the corner (a mere 4 days away!), it has probably crossed your mind that wrapping presents is not the eco-friendliest practice. That’s why we’d like to share a couple of ways you can eco-ify your wrapping technique this holiday season. The first is presented by London-based design recruitment agency, Represent, who shares with us twenty different tape-free ways to wrap your gifts, through their project Future Present.
SUSTAINABLE STYLE: Swap Your Way to a Better Wardrobe
Seasonal style trends and the intrigue of the fashion world are pretty seductive at first glance, but when it comes to defining one’s sustainable style, there are a variety of threads to investigate. In addition to supporting eco-designers who create collections that smartly incorporate sustainable textiles, fair trade practices, and environmentally-responsible agendas, there are also some pretty cool ways to have an eco-friendly wardrobe without ever spending a penny. Enter the new clothing swap phenomena, or the ‘art of the swish’.
GREEN GIFT GUIDE: For Pets
We spoil our pets and it’s ok. For many of us they are our children, our confidants and our friends - of course we love making them comfortable and happy as well as safe and healthy. Fortunately, a new wave of eco-friendly and healthy pet products have come along so we can be sure that we’re providing the best for our furry loved ones.
REVIEW: Ruff Wear’s Eco-Sensitive Gear for Dogs
Ruff Wear is known for their tough dog toys and gear: stuff that lasts and makes hikes and playtime a lot more fun. This past year, Ruff Wear came out with a line of eco-sensitive gear, made from recycled materials and natural non-toxic rubbers. Inhabitat Test Dog, Cooper, recently had the opportunity to play with Ruff Wear’s new eco-sensitive line. While we admit that the dog will play with anything, especially sticks, he has grown awfully fond of his new toys. And after 2 months of tossing, gnawing, and tugging on them, they still look brand new. So for all of you with dogs who can destroy a new toy in minutes, Ruff Wear’s line of eco gear is definitely worth checking out.
HOW TO: Make Your Own Applique Shirt
Looking to get crafty and save money with your Christmas gifts this year? If you are looking for presents for small kids, here’s a crafty idea that is sure to please the little guys in your life! Applique shirts are all the rage in children’s boutiques, and you can easily …
Inhabitat Blog Picks of the Week
With so much sustainable design goodness out there on the world wide interwebs, and so little time to find it all, we thought we would share some of our favorite stories of the week. From wonderfully green eye-candy to promising trends and initiatives, we are happy to report that the despite the tough economic times, we are finding plenty of things to be cheery about this holiday season.
Apartment Therapy’s Re-Nest features holiday-themed textiles that are subtly elegant in design …
