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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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MotoArt Recycles Airplane Parts Into High-Flyin’ Furniture

by Bridgette Meinhold, 07/01/09

motoart, furniture, airplane, airplane parts, recycled, upcycled, recycled furniture

We’ve seen designers recycle airplane parts to create desks, tropical eco-hotels and a hostel, and now we can add couches and beds to the lofty collection! MotoArt is a team of designers who transform airplane parts into sleek, highly polished modern pieces of furniture. Based in Los Angeles, the 6 person design crew creates an impressive line-up of upcycled furnishings, sure to please every airplane enthusiast’s flight of fancy.


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Sustainable ‘Alphabet Drawers’ from Kent and London

by Beth Shea, 06/29/09

abc drawers, alphabet chest of drawers, alphabet drawers, Eco Furniture, Green Furniture, kent & london, reclaimed wood, sustainable wood, unique dresser, unique furniture

Kent and London know the ABC’s of sustainable design, and we’re singing the praises of their stylish, FSC approved, solid oak chest of Alphabet Drawers. These 26 letter drawers spell function for the entire household, offering a variety of uses from storage in a child’s playroom or bedroom, to easy filing for a home office. Inspired by vintage printing blocks, this chest is a throwback to a bygone era, but it fits perfectly into our modern day desires for beautiful, eco-friendly design. L-O-V-E it.

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Renewable Cork Eco-Furniture and Accessories by Corque

by Ginger Dolden, 06/03/09

corquemain, corque, cork furniture, portugal, renewable furniture, green furniture, eco-furniture

If you’re looking for unique home accessories that are environmentally friendly and have a clean and elegant design quality, you’ll want to check out Corque’s new collection crafted with – you guessed it – cork! From the fun Rolha candle holder which allows users to turn old bottles into candelabras, to funky Topography placemats, which bring rough terrain to the table, their “Designing Living Objects” line truly showcases the versatility of cork.


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Auto-Cannibalistic Table Decomposes as Plants Grow

Auto-Cannibalistic Table Decomposes as Plants Grow

For the sake of sustainability, we normally hope that our furniture will last a long time in an effort to conserve resources and energy. Ate Atema of Atema Architecture, however, ponders whether this philosophy is truly the correct path to eco-enlightenment. With his Auto-Cannibalistic Table, which is intended to be a temporary object, he embraces sustainability in a less conventional way. The table was constructed with paper egg cartons and wheatpaste glue, which is made from flour and water, and then planted with herbs. The herbs can be picked as they grow, creating a place where food can both be eaten as well as grown–over time, however,  the plants are intended to “eat away” at the table.

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Tennis Ball Chair by Hugh Hayden

Tennis Ball Chair by Hugh Hayden

What do you think of when you think “green design?” Probably not a chair made entirely of recycled tennis balls! This fun and unexpected take on recycling by furniture designer Hugh Hayden is precisely why we named his enormously playful FUNATURE Tennis Ball Chair the winner of our BKLYN Designs Most Innovative Use of Materials Award. Not only is his choice of medium (297 repurposed tennis balls) smart and simple, it’s also fun and engaging. And when it comes to getting people talking about sustainable design, the Tennis Ball Chair is the perfect eco conversation piece.

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BKLYN Designs Sneak Peak: Hugh Hayden’s FUNature

BKLYN Designs Sneak Peak: Hugh Hayden’s FUNature

We’re gearing up for the start of BKLYN Designs next week and are excited to offer a few sneak peaks of some amazing and talented designers who are focusing on green design. First up is FUNature, a furniture line created by Hugh Hayden, a relative newcomer in the world of design. Hayden’s new line of chairs and tables was inspired by the messy yet imaginative and comfortable experience of ball-pools (like the kind you played in at Chuck E Cheese, but without the gross unknown at the bottom). His environmentally conscious line is perfect for adults as well as children and is sure to bring back fun memories.


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WAY BASICS Eco-friendly Flat-Pack Furniture

WAY BASICS Eco-friendly Flat-Pack Furniture

Love the idea of flat-pack in concept, but think the reality involves a frustrating wrestling match with an allen wrench and a cryptic set of Swedish instructions? Not so fast! …

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MILAN 2009: Designersblock Show

MILAN 2009: Designersblock Show


Each year the Designersblock show at the Milan Furniture Fair brings together an incredible assortment of designs by a diverse range of designers, and their 2009 offerings did not disappoint. At this year’s show it’s back to basics with simple, raw and natural materials dominating the exhibition. Some of the designs appear to have come out of an afternoon spent in the woods or countryside. Others look like they were shaped by nature itself. Designers seem to have made it a point to give new value to worn out or overlooked objects and to work locally with traditional makers and manufacturers. Designersblock once again showcases some of the most relevant thoughts on today’s design.

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Eco fashion hits LA with Designers & Agents show!

Eco fashion hits LA with Designers & Agents show!

This weekend, the Designers and Agents fashion trade show has come to LA to showcase the hottest emerging apparel designs. Since environmental sustainability is naturally future-forward, we are thrilled to see the trend-setting D&A show getting serious about eco fashion. At the D&A shows in both New York and Los Angeles, there were dedicated ‘Green Rooms’ to showcase emerging sustainable design. Inhabitat partnered with D&A on the Green Room this year to help curate green furniture, art and product design to compliment the green fashions on display, and we are excited to report back with the latest news.


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Eco-Luxury Hotel for the Bahamas’ Star Island

Eco-Luxury Hotel for the Bahamas’ Star Island

Next year, eco-luxe travel will get a new destination with the opening of a new five-star resort for Star Island in the Bahamas. In and among diving, playing tennis and drinking a cocktail or two, holidaymakers will discover that the resort is entirely energy self-sufficient, with power coming from solar, wind and micro-hydro generators. And, that the sustainability aspects of the resort’s construction, interior and grounds have also been considered in impressive detail.


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WASTE NOT lamps made from recycled plastic utensils

WASTE NOT lamps made from recycled plastic utensils

The best work on display at New York’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair this year came from student designers. BVD Collective, a student project from Appalachian State University, proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt by debuting a stunning collection of lighting fixtures made from recycled plastic utensils. Made from 100% post-consumer plastic utensils (yes, that means dirty forks collected from waste-bins), the ‘Waste Not’ line of lamps highlights just how elegant and inspired recycled design can be. The gorgeous Go Go Ghost table lamp (shown above), by Corey Daniels, is made from 121 recycled plastic knives collected over the course of countless BVD group lunches from a fried chicken restaurant.


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ICFF 2008: Newspaper Chair

ICFF 2008: Newspaper Chair

Dozens of rolled up newspapers found their way back to functionality in the cleverly designed Newspaper Chair by Kimberly Kulka, a student at California College of the Arts. We love the smart thought process behind this chair – store your magazines and newspapers underneath the form for added structural stability and cushioning (and storage space of course). This is one of the most inspired takes on the magazine rack idea that we’ve seen in awhile.


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ICFF 2008: Inhabitat Reports

ICFF 2008: Inhabitat Reports

Today is the last day of the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in NYC, and we are madly going through all of our photos of the furniture, products, and of course the parties from the past few days. If you missed the NY furniture fair this year, don’t fear – you can catch up on all the best new green design right here at Inhabitat.


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ICFF 2008: Highlights from the NY furniture fair

ICFF 2008: Highlights from the NY furniture fair

Inhabitat is at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in NYC, and we’ve been scouring the show all weekend for the hottest sustainable design finds. We’ve had a great time catching up with some of our all time favorite designers, and discovering a bounty of fresh ideas from this year’s new innovators.


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BKLYN SNEAK PEEK: Bamboo Furniture from Ecosystems

BKLYN SNEAK PEEK: Bamboo Furniture from Ecosystems

New sustainable furniture company EcoSystems creates cute, family-friendly furniture that is as thoughtful of the environment as it is to the owner. Starting with renewable materials, EcoSystems follows an earth-minded agenda from start to finish, including taking responsibility for their designs at end of its (first) lifecycle, by taking back and recycling their furniture when you are done with it. Did we mention this stuff is super cute and durable – coming in a variety of primary colors and innovation seating/table configurations? Ecosystems will be showing at BKLYN Designs this weekend, and you can be sure that Abigail and Jill will be stopping at this booth during Sunday’s Mother’s Day Green Design Walking Tour >


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MODERN SLANT Eco End Table from Todd Laby

MODERN SLANT Eco End Table from Todd Laby

Ever since we first laid eyes on Todd Laby’s stunning green furniture design back in 2005, we’ve been huge fans. Unlike so much of what passes for ’sustainable design’ these days, this thoughtful designer manages to make green design about more than simply using bamboo or eco-friendly adhesives in standard designs, but instead rethinks the very nature and construction of the objects we own, and does so in a way that is sleek, chic, and always provocative. In his ‘Modern Slant’ line of plyboo coffee tables, the bottoms and legs of the tables are positioned at acute angles in order to efficiently balance books and magazines, and keep them from falling over like in your typical flat shelf. Now Laby has a brand new end table that utilizes this same clever idea of angular legs to support all of your literature needs.


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BACK TO SCHOOL: Target’s Economical Eco Furniture

BACK TO SCHOOL: Target’s Economical Eco Furniture

It’s that time of year again, and we know lots of you are headed back to school — many moving into dorm rooms and new apartments. For many of you that means trips to IKEA to find cheap furniture, but often cheap furniture comes with a downside: formaldehyde-filled plywood that off-gases in your space and can cause indoor air pollution. Fortunately our favorite cheap-chic retailer Target has come to the rescue with a new line of economical furniture that is cute, eco-friendly and flat-packed for easy transport.


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SUNDANCE CHANNEL’S “THE GREEN” INTERVIEWS SCRAPILE

SUNDANCE CHANNEL’S “THE GREEN” INTERVIEWS SCRAPILE

On Tuesday May 29th at 9 p.m. EST, be sure to catch the Sundance Channel’s “The Green” television programming as tomorrow’s “Big Ideas for a Small Planet” episode focuses on sustainable furniture. The episode, titled “Big Ideas for a Small Planet: Furnish” should be of particular interest to our design-minded crowd, including an appearance by Inhabitat-favorites Bart Bettencourt and Carlos Salgado of Scrapile, who recently participated in our Reclaiming Design panel and are the subjects of this exclusive clip. Read on for more info about the episode, the show, and “The Green.”


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NEWSPAPER EXTENDABLE BENCH

NEWSPAPER EXTENDABLE BENCH

It’s not uncommon to have a stack of newspapers sitting around; but it took the ingenuity of designer Charles Kaisin to turn a pile of old news into durable seating. The brilliance behind Kaisin’s Newspaper Extendable Bench is the lack of processes required to turn the raw materials into a functional piece of furniture (that still resembles its original form).


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GROW YOUR OWN GRASS FURNITURE

GROW YOUR OWN GRASS FURNITURE

Here’s a great spring project to get you ready for those up-coming summer barbeques: grow your own lawn furniture with the Terra Grass Armchair kit. All you need to do is assemble a cardboard frame, fill it with soil, seed it with grass, then stand back and watch it bloom. In just a couple weeks, a green and grassy armchair will appear in your lawn!

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Eco-Friendly Bamboo Designs by Todd Laby

Eco-Friendly Bamboo Designs by Todd Laby

Last week I attended the opening of the Bay Area Furniture Art exhibit at the Blue Room Gallery. One of the designers that stood out to my green-hunting eye was Todd Laby, whose company, Rhubarb Decor, aims to improve the perception of green furniture through “aesthetics with ethics.”


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