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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We all know the inconvenient truth. Now, what can we do, as artists and designers, to make it better?

So asks Respond/Design, a student-led initiative at Rhode Island School of Design. On Friday evening, March 14th Respond/Design is sponsoring a symposium called, simply, “Make It Better,” featuring Metropolis Editor-in-chief (and Inhabitat favorite) Susan Szenasy as keynote speaker and moderator. The event focuses on how art and design can make a difference in our changing world, and asks how institutions of art and design can play a leadership role in crafting a positive future.

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So, we know you’ve read a lot about sustainable design and development here at Inhabitat. Now here’s a chance to propose your ideas for how design and technology can transform the urban environment, and angle for some prize money in the process.

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Upping the green ante in the hybrid car market, Ford and InterfaceFABRIC recently announced that the new 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid will have 100% recycled fabric seating – a first in the U.S. automotive industry. What’s more, the new upholstery also employs an innovative backcoating technology, developed by Interface, that minimizes the use of traditional flame retardant chemicals. Hmmm, does that mean no more toxic new car smell?

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Having come to the end of its useful life, it’s not uncommon for an old building to be unceremoniously bulldozed in advance of new development. Officials at the University of California at Riverside had another — more sustainable — idea for the doomed Wurms Building, however.

UCR enlisted artist Jason Middlebrook to create Live Building, a performance art project in which he harvested and recycled all usable materials in the structure prior to its demolition on December 16th last month.
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Here’s a beautiful take on biomimicry and functional wall art: Michael Meredith’s modular coat rack, Ivy. Using Y shaped components and 4 different connectors, Ivy will “grow” all over your walls to create a unique and organically-inspired hanging system.
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One outing that will definitely be on my agenda the next time I’m in New York City is to visit the third Triennial exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. On view now through July 29, 2007 Design Life Now demonstrates how design permeates every aspect of contemporary life and showcases the best in experimental design and emerging ideas at the center of American culture from 2003 to 2006.
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In an industrial economy that is none too kind to craft labor, its exciting to see a growing number of design companies beginning to prioritize social responsibility in their manufacturing and labor practices. Among the most inspiring is Artecnica, the L.A. based design firm that produces some of our favorite Tord Boontje and Hella Jongerius houseware designs. The Design with a Conscience project has partnered with Aid to Artisans and various celebrity designers to produce designs that are simultaneously sustainable, socially conscious and even affordable.

Our friend Leonora over at Treehugger recently published a fascinating interview with Tahmineh Javanbakht, the co-founder and art director of Artecnica. In it Jabanbakht discusses the trials and successes of setting up design co-ops in impoverished areas of Latin America. Its an inspiring read - check it out here >

+ Treehugger Interview: Artecnica

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Ever wish you could bottle sunshine? With Tobias Wong’s charming new lighting concept you can. Sun Jars collect solar energy during the day and emit a warm amber glow at night. Containing an energy efficient LED and a rechargeable battery, the Sun Jar will give light for up to 5 hours with each charge.

$38 from Charles & Marie

£20.00 at SuckUK

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Every year some of the world’s most creative minds converge on the picturesque seaside town of Camden, Maine for Pop!Tech, the internationally acclaimed conference on technology, society, and the future of ideas. Taking place October 18 – 21, this year’s event promises to be another great one — and you, too, can participate, regardless of geography.

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For a laugh, check out the Onion’s recent spoof on hybrid power in the form of an absurd gasoline-electric light bulb from GE. While we support (other kinds of) hybrids as a stepping stone to sustainability, the satire does a good job of pointing out the absurdity of greenwashing and thinking we can simply retrofit old technology to solve our energy dependence.

+ The Onion, October 2, 2006

The award-winning sustainable design company, Tricycle, Inc., recently published an “anthology of the moment” about sustainability in the interiors industry. It’s called Reverb and features the collected musings and criticisms of ten eco-consultants, designers, and editors sounding off on where the industry stands today, and how design can be an agent of change.
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Designer Ian Gonsher, a recent graduate of the MFA program in furniture design at RISD, offers a refreshing proposal for repurposing cardboard packaging with his origami-like Box Table.

A concept for encouraging the reuse of cardboard boxes, the Box Table is assembled from a pre-printed box with only a few simple cuts and folds. Gonsher writes, “By creating an incentive for reusability, there are obvious ecological benefits as well as greater product desirability with little extra cost.”
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America runs on coffee, and Americans are a people on the run. Every year, we drink more than 100 billion cups of coffee and of those, at least 14.4 billion are served in disposable paper to-go cups. That’s enough cups to wrap the earth 55 times!

Traditionally, those paper cups have been made with a non-renewable, non-biodegradable petrochemical plastic coating. But all that could end with the recent introduction of the new Ecotainer cup from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.
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The design community has a valuable new resource with the recent launch of Mtrl - an industry initiative aimed at providing designers with “material about materials.”

The brainchild of ASM International, the Materials Information Society, Mtrl debuted earlier this month with designer workshops in Boston and Chicago. Additional workshops are planned for the fall and in the coming months Mtrl will launch a searchable materials database on their website along with other valuable resources for designers.
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