An abandoned bowling alley finds a second life in this beautiful series of furniture by LA-based designer/woodworker William Stranger. Crafted from reclaimed strips of wood salvaged from a local defunct Tava Lanes Bowling alley, the collection springs to life in a variety of forms including a series of wall hangings and a low coffee table.

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Post tags: Bowling Alley, green design, green furniture, green Interiors, reclaimed furniture, Recycled Materials, second life, sustainable design, William Stranger

With so many slick electric motorcycles on the horizon, it’s getting increasingly difficult to justify the use of polluting, petroleum-powered older models. But instead of sending old Vespas to the trash pile, Spanish design studio Bel & Bel has a more creative solution: turn the stylish relics into snazzy pieces of furniture!

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Post tags: bel and bel, green furniture, upcycling, vespa

Clothes hangers are clogging our landfills at a rate of nearly 8 billion per year. We’ve recently brought you designers who have been developing brilliant ways to tackle the problem through eco-friendly materials and innovative new designs. Now industrial designers Alex Witko and Courtney Hunt at Organelle Design have hit upon another great idea — Hangeliers, wonderful chandeliers made from off-the-shelf plastic and wood hangers.

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Post tags: eco design, green design, green furniture, green Interiors, industrial design, Recycled Materials, sustainable design

The serene back-and-forth movement of a rocking chair is nothing if not relaxing. It can also be useful and productive, according to Rochus Jacob. The designer’s Murakami Chair, a winner in designboom’s Green Life competition, uses the kinetic energy produced by rocking to power an attached OLED lamp.

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Post tags: Design Competition, eco-friendly furniture, green furniture, green lifestyle, Green Lighting, home design, kinetic energy, OLED, rochus jacob, rocking chair

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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Post tags: green design, green furniture, industrial design, London Design Festival 2009, Products, Recycled Materials, sustainable design

Odds & Ends, Bits & Pieces is a beautiful four-piece furniture set made entirely out of re-purposed materials. Designed by Inhabitat favorite Jo Meesters, the spring-colored furniture was crafted using a variation of upholstering and weaving techniques and is an amazing transformation of 34 discarded wooden beams and 16 leftover blankets.

Read the rest of Odds & Ends Recycled Furniture Changes the Value of Trash

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Post tags: Dutch Design Week, green design, green furniture, recy, recycled, repurposed materials, Studio Joe Meesters, sustainable design, TESTLAB, Transforming Furniture

One of our highlights from Copenhagen Design Week 2009 was a well-curated exhibit of new Danish design titled It’s a Small World. The show asks itself how Danish design is reacting to the challenges wrought by globalization, climate change, and technology, and the result is a rather extraordinary and intriguing attempt to encapsulate the energy of contemporary Danish design.

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Post tags: copenhagen design week, Danish design, green design, green furniture, its a small world, Products, sustainable design

Imagine a design exhibit design that’s completely recyclable. Transpose that vision to a set of artfully-arranged cardboard structures framing a large warehouse space, in a sunwashed wharf in glimmering Copenhagen. And that’d be ShowHow, one of the most genuinely sustainable of the many exhibits on display for Copenhagen Design Week.

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Post tags: copenhagen design week, copenhagen showhow, Denmark, event, green design, green furniture, sustainable design

Skateboards these days are amazing examples of graphic design, and some are practically objets d’art – what a shame that they should to go to a landfill after the boards have lost their pop! Thankfully, Pennsylvania-based Deckstools is here to keep art from the trash heap and to add style to your pad with their striking line of furniture made from reclaimed skateboards.

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Post tags: Art, craft, deckstool, green furniture, jason podlaski, philadelphia, reclaimed wood, repurposed, skateboard, skateboarding, skating, stool

Summertime is fun, but can be tiring — and all you need sometimes is to sit your tush down on some nice, comfy seating. And if you are like us, you want to be locating yourself on a nice bench or stool that is sustainably sourced and constructed. There is certainly no shortage of functional and eco-friendly furniture to be found out there, and this is what we noticed this week in the blog-o-sphere.

Notcot features a modular and biodegradable lounging chair made of plywood, and a stool made of chopsticks and steamer trays.

Core77 tells us about a hand-woven aluminum chair.

Re-nest is highlighting chairs made from recycled whiskey barrels.

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Post tags: "green furniture", eco friendly chairs, eco-friendly furniture, eco-friendly seating, green furniture, recycled furniture, Seating

If you are looking for a cabinet that is every bit as interesting as the trinkets that it contains, search no further. Open since April 2008, Tel Aviv-based Ori Ben-zvi’s Ubico Studio gives the world a refreshing take on repurpoused objects with his beautiful ready made products. His study of function, material and form is evident with their legged cabinet line – the twist is that the cabinets appear to be constructed from discarded drawers, but instead they are built from scratch from reclaimed timber that has been reworked into cabinet form. The angled back and the addition of legs allows the drawer-cum-cabinet to conform to the wall. This method of production enables Ubico Studio’s designs to be repeatable for larger run production, but also keeps the visual charm of a found object reborn into a second life.

+ Ubico Studio

Photos by Sahar Tamir, illustrations and graphic design by Ellia Nattel

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Post tags: cabinet, drawer, green furniture, Israeli, prototype, repurposed, research, Studio Ubico, study, surrealist

Old bequeaths new in Varian Designs‘ beautiful reclaimed furniture, which blends found materials and craftsman techniques with a modern aesthetic. Each piece in this sustainably crafted line is finished using all-natural old-world techniques, and extra close attention is paid to the details and joinery. In the Bartizan Desk pictured above, wood and steel are artfully brought together with the addition of a simple box for storage. The overall effect is a modern line of furnishings that celebrates each piece’s unique history, and we were excited to see lead designer Forest Dickey recently debut his latest collection at Dwell on Design.

+ Varian Designs

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Post tags: forest dickey, green design, green furniture, green Interiors, Reclaimed Materials, Recycled Materials, sustainable design, varian design

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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Post tags: airplane, airplane parts, eco furniture, green furniture, recycled, recycled furniture, upcycled

Austrian designers mischer’traxler have created a solar powered machine that makes an incredible array of furnishings that vary based on how much sunlight it receives over the course of a day. Titled “The Idea of a Tree“, the machine spins spools of thread into stools, benches, containers, and lamp shades that wax and wane as the available sunlight shifts. Variations in weather, the time of year, and other environmental factors create pieces of different shape, color, and size, instilling the furniture with growing, seasonal qualities that mimic photosynthesis.

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Post tags: green design, green furniture, industrial design, misher'traxler, renewable energy, Solar Power, sustainable design, the idea of a tree

As one of Tel Aviv’s most thought-provoking new companies, Junktion, a young, edgy and innovative design studio, is breathing new life into the trash their city has cast aside. Junktion began in 2008 and has made their presence know in the contemporary furniture market with their unique approach to function and unwavering conviction to challenge how people regard junk.

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Post tags: Chandelier, green design, green furniture, industrial design, junction, junktion, phonelight, Reclaimed, Recycled Materials, reuse, sustainable design, Tel Aviv, telephone light