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

There is something so fascinating about miniature worlds and peering down from above and imagining all the intricate daily happenings of the tiny people who live there. What if that tiny world was made up of re-purposed kitchen and hardware items that were forged together in some sort of crazy modern industrial architectural style? Well, that’s what David Trautrimas did with his amazing series of digital photographs “Habitat Machines.” His body of work is both exciting and inspiring with retro lines, cool metal finishes and are the ultimate in recycled materials.

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Post tags: Art, artefact art, david trautrimas, digital photography, eco-art, gadget art, green art, Habitat Machines, kitchen appliances, kitchen gadgets, models, Photography, recycled, recycled gadget art, repurpose, vintage gadget art, Waste reduction

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

We generally associate plastic shoes with blister-generating sandals or galoshes that take eons to decompose in landfill, but when it comes to (recycled) plastic shoes of the sustainable ilk, Melissa Shoes takes a quantum leap forward in eco-fashion footwear. Our good friends at Kaight NYC turned us on to these babies, and we wanted to share this green style tip with you ASAP so that you can scoop up a pair of these very sexy sustainable vegan shoes, and join the Brazilian-design trend. Brazilian shoemaker Melissa has just put out these super sexy recycled-plastic kitten heels for spring, and we can’t wait to get our hands on a pair of them!


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Post tags: accessories, Brazilian-made, eco-fashion, green, kaight, melissa shoes, new york city, plastic, recycled, shoes, sustainable style

After all the hoopla from the recent New York, London, Paris, and Milan fashion shows, it is nice to get back to basics and think about what might be essential for tweaking the-olde-green closet. Granted there is some impressive sustainable technology currently being used in eco-fashion and greener garment production, but it is also nice to see a movement towards the tailoring of old-made-new materials via thrift store sifting and creative construction. A range of designers are recycling luxury fabrics into eco-chic creations, while others are transforming caste-off materials into totally edgy designs. We are not advocating dumpster diving per se, but in the spirit of Cradle to Cradle authors McDonough and Braungart, why not remake the way that we make things as well as wear them from start to finish?

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Post tags: accessories, eco-fashion, Estethica, Fashion, From Somewhere, green, recycled, sustainable style, upcycled, upcycling, vintage

It’s true that good things sometimes come in small packages, and Alyson Fox’s ‘A Small Collection‘ is no exception. The Austin-based photographer, illustrator, and innovative clothing designer has come up with a home-brewed recipe for eco-style and one-of-a-kind mix and match separates that defies the clotheshorse instinct. As an art director and storyteller extraordinaire, Fox has created a pint-sized collection that not only exemplifies a resourceful use of sustainable materials and recycled swatches, but also demonstrates that a streamlined collection of key pieces is all that one needs to flaunt one’s personal style.

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Post tags: A Small Collection, Alyson Fox, Art, austin, eco-fashion, fashion designs, illustration, recycled, Sustainable, Texas based designer

We brought Baumm’s colorful recycled billboard bags to Inhabitat earlier this year after Emily discovered them in Buenos Aires. These one-of-a-kind accessories have once again grabbed our attention with an exciting launch of a new series available direct from District Cotton in NYC.

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Post tags: 'Baumm, accessories, apparel, bags, billboard, Buenos Aires, District Cotton, New York City, Organic, Recycle, recycled, upcycle

When we think of greenhouse gas emissions, most of us envision a tailpipe spewing exhaust out of the back of a car. But 40% of the carbon dioxide that contributes to our warming planet comes from buildings. While some of that is a secondary effect of operational needs such as electricity, A/C, and heating, many GHG’s arise from resource extraction, manufacturing and production of the building materials themselves.

Of all the criteria covered by LEED-H and our own GreenBuilding 101 series, MATERIALS and RESOURCES has perhaps the broadest application and relevance. They are the ingredients, and choosing them wisely makes all the difference in terms of the overall impact of the building throughout its life. This is where ‘environmental footprint’ or ‘life cycle assessment’ come into play; as we learn in Cradle to Cradle design basics, the materials are in the picture from the first round of planning to the final stages of demolition or renovation.

Today’s series walks you through choosing ingredients wisely, being sure that the materials you select, and the resources it took to produce them, are a part of the whole picture of a sustainable home.

Read the rest of GREEN BUILDING 101: Materials and Resources, Part I

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Post tags: bamboo, biopaver, compost, environmental, Green Building 101, IPE, LEED-H, materials and resources, mcdonough, pavement, Plyboo, recycled, Waste