Inhabitat

TreeHugger Reports From Greenbuild 2009

by Lloyd Alter, 11/18/09

greenbuild 2009, sustainable design, building materials, green building conference

Just last week Treehugger joined thousands of designers, builders and architects in Arizona to check out all the latest advances in sustainable building at Greenbuild 2009. By the time we got to Phoenix, we were 28,000 strong, all standing up and cheering for Al Gore’s speech, a new and different one directed at the Greenbuild audience. A conference like this shouldn’t be necessary; every building should be green. But there were stirring speeches, great educational sessions and hundreds of new green products to see.


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Beautiful Buildings Made From Whole Trees

by Daniel Flahiff, 11/10/09

whole tree architecture, sustainable design, green design, green architecture, renewable materials, managed forests

According to the Forest Products Laboratory, a whole, unmilled tree can support 50 percent more weight than the largest piece of lumber milled from the same tree. Putting this principle into practice, Whole Tree Architecture is dedicated to building with materials that lumber companies consider scrap – weed trees, also know as ‘managed forest thinnings.’ The resulting projects are beautiful displays of locally sourced and sustainably managed materials.


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Recycled Paperpulp Cabinet by Debbie Wijskamp

by Moe Beitiks, 11/03/09

debbie wijskamp, paperpulp cabinet, eco friendly furniture, recycled materials furniture

It never ceases to surprise us that much of good, sustainable design is also deliciously fun. Take Debbie Wijskamp’s paperpulp cabinets, for instance. They are what their name implies: drawers and shelves made out of pureed paper mache. And while I want to write sophisticated sentences with phrases like ‘materials reuse’ and ‘resource conservation,’ I just can’t help thinking about how glorious it must be, in a third-grade sort of way, to mash paper into furniture. Wijskamp’s process validates these daydreams.


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Art and Design Converge at the 2009 London Design Festival

by Antonia Halse, 09/29/09

london design festival 2009, sustainable design, green design, furniture, products, recycled materials, industrial design

One of our favorite shows from the 2009 London Design Festival was Corn Craft, a beautiful showcase of sustainable materials hosted by Gallery FUMI and Studio Toogood. Held in Gallery’s FUMI’s personal live/ work space on Hoxton Square, the exhibition hit all the right notes with tactile, emotional art-design pieces by Max Lamb & Gemma Holt, Nacho Carbonell (above) and Raw-Edges Design Studio.


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Aquaquest Center Teaches Sustainable Living Through Design

Aquaquest Center Teaches Sustainable Living Through Design

Aquaquest is a beautiful addition to the Vancouver Aquarium that was conceived as an education center to teach the surrounding Canadian community the importance of eco-friendly living. True to its nature, the complex demonstrates these principles through an impressive set of sustainable building strategies including a leafy green wall, rainwater harvesting, and a highly efficient heating and cooling system.


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StrawJet Transforms Straw Waste Into Building Beams

StrawJet Transforms Straw Waste Into Building Beams

StrawJet, of Ashland, Oregon, has developed a unique process for the creation of structural building components from a variety of waste agricultural stalks. Essentially, they have created a machine that takes waste stalks and creates a tightly wrapped beam which can then be applied to many different facets of construction. The cables are made and wrapped without glues, resins or chemicals and are made completely from waste material. As long as we are growing food there will be straw, so why not use it creatively?


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Retrofitted Hotel Revives Past For Eco-Friendly Future

Retrofitted Hotel Revives Past For Eco-Friendly Future

Recover, restore, and reuse.  That was the mantra employed by Portugal-based architecture team Ezzo, led by César Machado Moreira, in designing Paço De Pombeiro, a twentieth-century rural hotel in Felgueiras, Portugal. The hotel is located on 24-acres of farmland which are primarily used as vineyards, and had existing sixteenth-century buildings. The architects wanted to revive the old structure, so they designed the hotel to complement and enhance the characteristics of the existing structures — and provide space and amenities for up to 22 guests and an outdoor swimming pool.


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The Brooks Ave House: A Californian Study in Green

The Brooks Ave House: A Californian Study in Green

Vancouver-based architecture firm Bricault Design’s vegetation-clad house in Venice, California is a sexy study in green. The mod abode incorporates sustainable design in a new residential addition that features a lush living wall on three sides of the house and a breezy roof garden perfect for relaxing in the sun. Read on to see the other eco-conscious touches that make other homes green with envy.


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Sustainable Tower “Peels” the Costa Rican City Skyline

Sustainable Tower “Peels” the Costa Rican City Skyline

Driven by a progressive environmental strategy that will exploit sustainable energy design, Spanish-based firm Moho Arquitectura’s design for a mixed-use tower in San Jose will become a new benchmark for eco-friendly design in Costa Rica. In addition to its eco-conscious features, the unique “peeling” quality of the tower is sure to turn some heads!

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Japan’s Otake House Showcases Sleek Passive Solar Design

Japan’s Otake House Showcases Sleek Passive Solar Design

This sleek modern hilltop residence was designed by Japan-based architecture firm Suppose Design Office to make optimal use of passive solar building principles. Every aspect of the residence’s innovative design has been carefully considered to make the best use of available sunlight and natural ventilation, demonstrating how efficient building practices can inform and give shape to elegant modern architecture.


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Novacem Develops Carbon Eating Green Cement

Novacem Develops Carbon Eating Green Cement

We use it to build bridges, roads, sidewalks, and just about every structure relies on concrete for its base – wouldn’t it be wonderful if cement actually negated CO2 emissions instead of creating more? Well, now it can! Novacem, a fresh new startup company has actually concocted a cement that eats up carbon as it hardens! And with an annual production of more than 2.5 billion tons, can you imagine what kind of impact it would have if all the cement we used could do what Novacem’s green cement does?


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Canstruction: Incredible Sculptures Made From Canned Food

Canstruction: Incredible Sculptures Made From Canned Food

Bridging the gap between good design and giving back to the community, Canstruction, the annual international design/build competition where architects, engineers, designers, and students compete to design and build gigantic structures made entirely from full cans of food, is coming to New Jersey in October!


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Grandma Made Village Out of Tens of Thousands of Bottles

Grandma Made Village Out of Tens of Thousands of Bottles

Grandmas make some pretty awesome things – pies, sweaters, and techinically, you. But can you say that your grandma ever made a village??? Ours certainly didn’t. Between 1956 and 1981 Tressa “Grandma” Prisbrey built Bottle Village using tens of thousands of bottles in mortar. The village is “an otherworld of shrines, wishing wells, walkways, random constructions, plus 15 life size structures all made from found objects.” The 1/3 acre lot in Simi Valley, CA is literally littered with the various structures that Ms. Prisbrey created as a hobby, constructive creative outlet and playful reminder of the joy of upcycling.  Unfortunately, a 1994 earthquake has left the village damaged and in need of repair, but recent media attention has helped bring in new visitors and a renewed interest in preserving this wonderful and unique place.


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EDIBLE ART: Biodegradable Bowls Made From Vegetables

EDIBLE ART: Biodegradable Bowls Made From Vegetables

Dutch artist Geke Wouters has created a stunning collection of paper-thin bowls made from carrots, peppers, beet root, leeks, tomatoes, and other vegetables. Each delicate piece of edible art is made using a proprietary drying and forming process that converts organic materials into the paper thin layers, giving you the sense of a microscopic view into their intricate cellular structure. True to their natural materials, no two of these vegetable bowls are exactly alike.


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Laser Cut Leaves are Nature’s Unique Business Cards

Laser Cut Leaves are Nature’s Unique Business Cards

If you’re in the market for new business cards or a cutting-edge new advertising medium, you should take a look at this brilliant idea – your message or logo etched right onto a real leaf, no paint necessary! The resulting leaves are simple, stunning when looked at against the sunlight, and the best part is that if they are thrown away, there is no adverse effect on the environment. Design Firm Tatil Design of Brazil came up with the elegant marketing idea, which they recently used in 2008 during the 55th Cannes Advertising Festival to promote their “Designing Naturally” workshop. Natural Medium, which is what they call their amazing laser cut leaves, was so popular and well received at the festival that it won the Bronze Award for the 2009 International Design Excellence Awards in Eco Design.


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BOTANY BUILDINGS Grow Buildings From Trees!

BOTANY BUILDINGS Grow Buildings From Trees!

We’ve seen trees molded to form fantastic living chairs before, and now a young group of German architects are bending trees to their will to form a new breed of living architecture. The team is calling their tree-shaping system “Botany Building,” and while it may not be the cure to climate change, it’s an incredibly interesting way to create living structures.


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Omega Center for Sustainable Living Opens in Upstate New York

Omega Center for Sustainable Living Opens in Upstate New York

On track to become the first green building to achieve both LEED Platinum and Living Building Challenge Certification, the Omega Center for Sustainable Living (OSCL) embodies the synthesis of wastewater recycling, clean energy, and eco-friendly architecture. Designed by sustainable design firm BNIM Architects as a functioning model for the nonprofit organization Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, the state-of-the art environmental education and water reclamation facility in Rhinebeck, New York serves as a teaching tool to educate visitors on Omega’s ongoing environmental initiatives, including innovative wastewater strategies.


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A77 Architects Fashion Home From Demolition Materials

A77 Architects Fashion Home From Demolition Materials

Argentinean architects Gustavo Dieguez and Lucas Gilardi of Estudio a77 transformed an existing 1950s house on a small lot in an upscale neighborhood of Buenos Aires into an innovative eco-friendly dwelling. Constructed from recycled and reclaimed materials, this ‘demolition house’ turns trash into a treasured abode. Using approximately 50 meters of recycled highway guard rails from the General Paz (a highway surrounding Buenos Aires) and 300 meters of discarded metal profiles, wood, iron doors and windows found in scrap yards, Dieguez and Gilardi rework demolition materials into fully functioning structural elements.


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Holey Concrete: Pervious Paving Reduces Stormwater Run-off

Holey Concrete: Pervious Paving Reduces Stormwater Run-off

Let’s be clear – paving a surface does not reduce storm water run-off, but if you must create a street, parking lot, driveway, or any other form of this detriment, an apples-to-apples comparison between pervious concrete and asphalt paving will show many exciting benefits from this innovative form of paving. First of all, those little air pockets mean less material overall, and with the cost of oil as unstable as the resource itself, petroleum-based asphalt is no longer the cheapest form of paving. For the first time in history, the cost of concrete and asphalt have reached comparable dollar values. Add in the cost of additional storm water management devices – grids of piping directed towards drains and retention ponds, and suddenly permeable concrete starts making a lot more sense. Then there is the environmental cost of leaching toxic chemicals, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) used as a sealcoat on asphalt, into what should be nature’s flow of water back to the ground table.


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Scientists Discover How to Grow Plastic on Trees

Scientists Discover How to Grow Plastic on Trees

We tend not to acknowledge it, but our dependence on oil is not limited to the consumption of fossil fuels for energy and transportation. Finding an alternative to plastic (which is also made from oil), is proving to be one of the most difficult problems we face today. Recently scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have announced a groundbreaking development that provides a simple solution to the problem, transforming plant cellulose into plastic in one single step.

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Volume by Test Collective: Eco Storage for Your Vinyl Records

Volume by Test Collective: Eco Storage for Your Vinyl Records

When we first spotted this lovely piece by Test Collective at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, we were quite taken with the streamlined form and minimalistic look. The unit is aptly named Volume, because of its generous size and because it considers the storage, display, and celebration of vinyl records – a unique sole-purpose for a piece of furniture which we found intriguing! While we certainly applaud the use of Corian and bamboo, we think it is equally important to point out that the concept behind the piece – collecting old LPs instead of purchasing new CDs – is just as sustainable as the materials, making Volume all the more appealing to green music-lovers.

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Stackable Lego Takeout Containers by Takeshi Miyakawa

Stackable Lego Takeout Containers by Takeshi Miyakawa

If you live in a city where plastic takeout containers are not recyclable, you may be feeling the same frustrations that we are. Those of us who can’t bear the thought of simply tossing the receptacles that hold our beloved chinese food, sushi, and wraps try to reuse them as many times as possible. But what could make people who don’t really care about the environment want to hold on to their food containers instead of trashing them? That is the question that designer Takeshi Miyakawa set out to answer. His solution? Shaping the containers to look like a childhood favorite that most adults find difficult to resist–legos!

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Woven Palm Leaf Vava Lamp from IKEA

Woven Palm Leaf Vava Lamp from IKEA

Ikea showcased its brand new PS Collection at this weekend’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair, and one of our favorite designs on display was this beautiful pendant lamp made from carefully folded palm leaves. Designed by Wiebke Braasch, the Vava lamp is inspired by an image from her childhood of dried sea urchins. Braasch wanted the spiky weave of the palm leaves to create a contrast to the soft discus shape of the shade.

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Uhuru Scrap Metal Stoolen

Uhuru Scrap Metal Stoolen

The passionate Uhuru design team launched several new products at BKLYN Designs last week. It is hard to select a favorite from all of their sophisticated, yet quirky furniture designs, but we can say that their new stools made us do a double take. All of their work is produced from sustainable materials such as locally reclaimed wood and steel, but it is unexpected and inspiring to see scrap metal look so inviting to sit on. It is commendable that they have made such a mechanical material take on such natural form.

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Green Coup d’Grace Media Console by Object Interiors

Green Coup d’Grace Media Console by Object Interiors

Extraordinary green designers Object Interiors unveiled their new Live Earth collection at this year’s BKLYN Designs, and we were particularly struck by their Coup d’Grace Media Console (such a fitting name!). Made from a formaldehyde and VOC-free MDF shell, the console reflects the mission of the collection “to connect all the raw, natural elements that make up the construction of a finished piece” and provide “a sensory connection with live things reflected in the furniture around you.” Dried grasses are embedded into the console’s front sliding doors, which are translucent panels comprised of 3Form eco-resin. The patented material is constructed using 40 percent post-consumer recycled waste and is an increasingly popular, PVC-free alternative to plastic. Even better, eco-resin can be returned to 3Form for recycling at the end of its lifespan.

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BKYLN Sneak Peak: EcoSystems’ Snug-it! Desk

BKYLN Sneak Peak: EcoSystems’ Snug-it! Desk

One of Inhabitat’s favorite eco-design posses, EcoSystems, will be unveiling its new line at next week’s BKLYN Designs showcase, but for you lucky readers we have an early offering: their new ‘snug-it!’ collection of affordable eco furniture, named after the brand’s innovative hardware connectors. One of our favorite pieces from the snug-it! collection is this desk, made from bamboo and FSC Appleply, both with natural oil finish.

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BKLYN Designs Sneak Peek: Uhuru Designs

BKLYN Designs Sneak Peek: Uhuru Designs

Lots of up-and-coming and established designers will present new collections at BKLYN Designs this weekend, and we don’t want to miss a single, solitary piece of work—which is why we love getting an advanced look at what’s to come! Bill Higendorf, co-founder of Brooklyn–based furniture company Uhuru Design, sent us a sneak peak of the three new locally and sustainably produced designs he and partner Jason Horvath are debuting at BKLYN Designs this week. While they’re every bit as functional as Uhuru’s previous products, the limited edition Stitched Table, Standard Chair and Metal Stoolen have a little added oomph that sets them apart.

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POO BRICKS: Students Develop Cow Dung Building Bricks

POO BRICKS: Students Develop Cow Dung Building Bricks

A group of students from Prasetiya Mulya Business School in Indonesia recently won the 2009 Global Social Venture Competition with their “EcoFaeBrick“, a quality, easily manufactured, low-cost sustainable building material made from cow dung. The bricks are not only 20% lighter, but they have a compressive strength 20% stronger than clay bricks and their production doesn’t rely upon devastating quarry mining techniques.

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Tono 8 All-Natural Cork Building Blocks

Tono 8 All-Natural Cork Building Blocks

We found these awesome cork building blocks at the Milan Furniture Fair this week and love their simple and beautiful look. Designed by Tetsuo Tonouchi with safety and fun in mind, these lightweight building blocks are made from natural cork and non-toxic paints, and have super-soft edges. While they are a perfect eco-friendly toy for children, we know …

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Paper Wood Stools Sit Lightly on the Earth

Paper Wood Stools Sit Lightly on the Earth

Drill Design is set to unveil these new Paper Wood Stools at this week’s Milan Furniture Fair with the tag line that “off the rack” just will not do. Composed of wood veneer and recycled paper, these stools break the mold by moving away from the one size fits all paradigm. Not only are they light of weight and sturdy in strength but they come in a variety of heights to seat everyone from tiny tots all the way up to the towering Shaquille O’Neals in the crowd.


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Bettencourt Green Building Supplies

Bettencourt Green Building Supplies

Bart Bettencourt has been making beautiful repurposed wood furniture with Scrapile for years, but you may not know that he also owns Bettencourt Green Building Supplies, which is an excellent source for environmentally-sound building material solutions. Based in Brooklyn and with warehouses in Massachusetts and Virginia, they’re a great go-to source for the construction and design industries as well as sustainably-minded homeowners.

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ECO DECORATING: Mod Green Pod Wallpaper

ECO DECORATING: Mod Green Pod Wallpaper

Traditional wall coverings often use PVC, a harmful and toxic material that has been known to leech into the air, so buying toxin-free textiles is an important health consideration that can’t be ignored. Mod Green Pod was founded by Lisa and Nancy Mims as a means to offer safer —and more fashionable— alternatives to conventional textile prints. Their products not just graphically gorgeous, but green in their materiality, completely free of vinyl, and use water-based inks on 100% certified organic cotton-based fabric.

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Outdoor Ad Companies Debut Recyclable Eco Billboards

Outdoor Ad Companies Debut Recyclable Eco Billboards

As of March 1, the three largest outdoor communications companies will no longer be using paper or PVC for their billboards, citing the need to transition to more environmentally friendly materials. As an alternative, Clear Channel Communications, CBS Outdoor, and Lamar Advertising will now be rolling out Eco Posters made from fully recyclable polyethylene (PE) substrate. These new posters take less time to install, don’t require any toxic glue to paste them up, don’t peel or wrinkle like paper, and can last up to 3 times as long.


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Student Designs Biodegradable Packaging for McDonald’s

Student Designs Biodegradable Packaging for McDonald’s

Fast food packaging takes up a hefty chunk of our landfill space while effectively clear-cutting our forests. The golden arch proprietors dole out over 2 billion burgers a year, each individually wrapped in plastic coated paper and thrown into a paper bag with a few paper napkins–that’s about 75 per second, worldwide. Toss in a dozen other fast food conglomerates and we’re up to our ears in greasy garbage. What’s worse is that most of this paper makes its way into a trashcan after only about 5 minutes of use. Seeking to counter this consumptive cycle, University of the Arts grad student, Andrew Millar, designed biodegradable packaging for McDonald’s from grass paper, which has naturally grease-resistant properties.

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Houndstooth Dogtent: For The Most Discerning Pup

Houndstooth Dogtent: For The Most Discerning Pup

Most dogs feel slighted while camping. Humans get fancy, engineered tents to crawl inside and stay warm, cozy, and out of the elements. Some dogs get a bed roll and a toy, but lucky dogs get a luxurious Houndstooth Dogtent made by John Santos, founder of New York-based graphic design studio Common Space. This dogtent is collapsible, made from biodegradable plastic and will make your pup more stylish out-of-doors than you.


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LOTS MORE GREAT GREEN DESIGN STORIES HERE... KEEP READING!