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NeighborGoods: Your New Virtual Tool Shed

by Mike Chino, 11/06/09

sustainable design, green design, neighborgoods, borrowing service, lending, community, social networking

Practically every household in America has its own tool set, drill, and ladder… but why? Most people don’t use these things on a daily basis, and due to their hardworking heritage these items tend to last forever; when’s the last time you wore out a hammer? Enter NeighborGoods, a service that seeks to cut down on redundant consumption and save households the cost of buying their own toolshed by enabling networks of borrowers. Perfect for those times when you need a drill for a day, or a saw for a few hours — plus you’ll actually have a chance to meet your neighbors and benefit your community. NeighborGoods was recently launched publicly in Los Angeles, and we hope to see borrowing hubs popping up everywhere in the months to come.

+ NeighborGoods

Transport System Runs on Super-Strong Magnetic Fields

by Ariel Schwartz, 11/06/09

sustainable design, green design, green transportation, Novateq Guerrero SNL, magnetic train, magnetic transit system

Instead of moving goods on resource-intensive trains, Spain-based technology company Novateq Guerrero SNL wants to build out a different kind of transportation network–one that uses super-powerful magnets to propel vehicles. Novateq has already developed a prototype of its system, which uses Neodymium magnets, or rare-earth magnets, as a driving force. The magnets are 9 times more powerful than conventional models.

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Opportunity Green is This Weekend!

by Evelyn Lee, 11/05/09

sustainable design, green design, opportunity green, ucla, green design conference, sustainable businesses

If you’re interested in the intersection of business, design, and sustainability and will be in the Los Angeles area this weekend, we highly recommend checking out this year’s Opportunity Green conference! Inhabitat favorite designer Yves Behar will be on hand to talk about his FuseProject, Method’s Chief Greenskeeper Adam Lowry will be available to talk about delivering natural home products to the masses, and our very own Sarah Rich, representing Dwell, will be on the stage moderating a panel. Inhabitat readers receive a 30% discount by entering in the code Inhabitat30, so register today!

+ Opportunity Green

Manhole of the Future is Powered by Rainwater

by Ariel Schwartz, 11/05/09

sustainable design, green design, renewable energy, kinetic energy, manhole, directions, subway, bus

Instead of acting as one of the most bland parts of city landscapes, what if manholes served a purpose? That’s what designers Cheolyeon Jo and Youngsun Lee propose with their “Eco Sign“, an electronic manhole cover that gives directions to the closest train or bus stop.

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LED Sparks Create Energy Efficient Light Sculptures

LED Sparks Create Energy Efficient Light Sculptures

What if you could design your own lighting fixture in the time that it takes to unscrew a light bulb? That’s the premise behind Daniel Becker’s Spark system, a series of energy-efficient LED bulbs that can be linked together to form beautiful light sculptures.

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Puri Indah House: Poetic Sustainability in Jakarta, Indonesia

Puri Indah House: Poetic Sustainability in Jakarta, Indonesia

When Architect Adi Purnomo of Mamostudio set out to design a live, work, and exhibition space for a photographer/painter client, he knew that maximizing natural light would be a necessity. Purnomo also pushed his studio’s creative design process to maintain the temperature of the home’s interior spaces through passive means whenever possible. The resulting Puri Indah House features an intricate series of slanted walls that reflect sunlight throughout the day, while intermingled gardens and interior pools of water ensure that the house is shaded and kept cool.

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Garden Sheds Are an Explosion of Architectural Experimentation

Garden Sheds Are an Explosion of Architectural Experimentation

Mark Twain had a garden shed; he called it “the loveliest study you ever saw…octagonal with a peaked roof, each face filled with a spacious window…perched in complete isolation on the top of an elevation that commands leagues of valley and city and retreating ranges of distant blue hills. It is a cozy nest and just room in it for a sofa, table, and three or four chairs, and when the storms sweep down the remote valley and the lighting flashes behind the hills beyond and the rain beats upon the roof over my head—imagine the luxury of it.”

But in recent times, the humble garden shed has become an outlet for designers to experiment in small spaces that often slide under the radar of zoning bylaws, providing extra room for study, relaxation or just getting away from everyone else.

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Small Wind Turbine Flaps Wings Like a Bee

Small Wind Turbine Flaps Wings Like a Bee

The Birds and the Bees have inspired one startup to send forth a hovering turbine. Green Wavelength, “committed to finding ways of applying nature’s solutions to our man-made energy problems,” presented its xBee prototype to an entrepreneurial buzz at The Perfect Pitch 2009. This biomimetic windmill sports 19-ft. wings …

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Living Light Sculpture Maps Seoul’s Air Quality

Living Light Sculpture Maps Seoul’s Air Quality

Seoul, South Korea is filled with blinding light-up displays and headache-inducing neon screens. But residents of the city who want to see these displays put to good use need only take a trip to the World Cup Stadium’s Peace Park, which is where this beautiful Living Light sculpture blooms. The permanent outdoor pavilion and glass canopy projects up-to-the minnute information about local air quality, and locals can send it a text message to receive a report from anywhere.

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Stunning Open Air Library Pops Up in East Germany

Stunning Open Air Library Pops Up in East Germany

What began as an assemblage of 1,000 empty beer cartons pulled together by residents in East Germany has now evolved into an incredible open air public library. Designed by Karo Architekten in collaboration with local residents, the grassroots project revitalizes a post-industrial district in Magdeburg, Germany by creating a cultural center and pop-up library where books are free to take and leave 24 hours a day. Opened this past June, the project introduces plenty of green space and reuses the facade of an old warehouse to beautiful effect.

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Europe Launches Satellite Able to Predict Floods and Droughts

Europe Launches Satellite Able to Predict Floods and Droughts

Global warming has dramatically increased the unpredictability of weather patterns, but what if we could more accurately pinpoint the future location and intensity of floods and droughts? That might be possible if all goes as planned with the Soil Moisture and Salinity (SMOS) probe, launched today by the European Space Agency. The $460 million probe, launched on a Russian rocket launcher from the Plesestk cosmodrome, will measure soil moisture, plant growth, and ocean salt levels across the globe.

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MOVIE REVIEW: The Yes Men Fix the World

MOVIE REVIEW: The Yes Men Fix the World

Spoiler alert: The Yes Men do actually fix the world– but only on paper. For years this two-man team has been pranking conferences, newscasts, and exhibitions by posing as representatives of the world’s biggest environmental transgressors. While speaking as DOW Chemical, they publicly apologized for the Bhopal disaster. While pretending to be from Halliburton, they demonstrated the Survivaball, a human disaster survival suit: prohibitively expensive and visually ridiculous. In a particularly complicated stunt, they created a fake version of the New York Times announcing everything from the end of the war in Iraq to the creation of a maximum wage law. They have provoked, embarrassed, ridiculed and shocked many captains of industry. Driven, ultimately, by the desire to address serious issues with humor and radical intervention, The Yes Men Fix the World in a documentary that pits itself against unchecked greed.

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Recycled Bowling Lane Furniture is Right up Our Alley

Recycled Bowling Lane Furniture is Right up Our Alley

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Bus Shelter Made From Salvaged School Buses

Bus Shelter Made From Salvaged School Buses

Decommissioned school buses get sent to the scrapyard every day, so sculptor Christopher Fennell created this brilliant yellow bus shelter to keep the spirit of these buses going round and round. Situated in Athens, Georgia, the shelter is composed of three iconic yellow school buses dating from the years ‘62, ‘72, and ‘77. To create it Chris carefully chose …

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Incredible LEGO Kitchen Renovation

Incredible LEGO Kitchen Renovation

A lot of us can recall spending hours upon hours of stacking colorful Legos into shapes and sizes that tickled our imagination as children. While some of us outgrew that phase, thankfully some of us didn’t forget the charm of the little Lego man’s smile or the amazingness contained within every little block. As Parisian designers Simon Pillard and Philippe Rosetti have proved with their chromatic Munchausen Lego Kitchen: you’re never to old to play with Legos!

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Regen’s Giant Solar-Powered iPod Dock Pumps Out the Tunes

Regen’s Giant Solar-Powered iPod Dock Pumps Out the Tunes

Earlier this week, Regen wowed us with their sleek, modular iPhone charger. Now the electronics company is back again with another impressive Apple-related product: the Reverb, an eye-catching 3-foot tall iPod dock that blasts out the equivalent of 60 watts of sound from a conventional speaker. And best of all, it’s solar-powered.

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Savior Bud Device Produces Drinking Water from Tree Leaves

Savior Bud Device Produces Drinking Water from Tree Leaves

Drinking water is all around us — if we know where to look. The Giving Tree-inspired Savior Bud designed by Seol Ah Sun and Kim Hyo Jin is a portable device that attaches to tree leaves and slowly collects water. After four hours, a full cup of water is ready for drinking.

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Habitat for Humanity and PG&E Support Green Neighborhood in Oakland, CA

Habitat for Humanity and PG&E Support Green Neighborhood in Oakland, CA

Recently we took the trip to Oakland, CA to visit a Habitat for Humanity East Bay Project of particular interest for its pairing of energy-efficient homes with families in need of housing. What was once a deemed by the EPA and the Department of Toxic Substances as a blighted property due to its history as a battery salvage yard has become a sunny neighborhood haven for children to play and families to grow together. It was no small feat remediating some 300,000 cubic yards of soil and bringing in clean fill, but with buildable real estate and housing scarce, the effort is sure to improve more than just the site itself as happy families move into homes that they have taken part in building.

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Fabulous Flatpack Furniture

Fabulous Flatpack Furniture

Over at TreeHugger we are saps for furniture that can slide under your door; flatpack isn’t just made by IKEA. Designers like Eric Ku are doing it with humor, inventing a flatpack alphabet – his Flatpack Chair is pretty self-explanatory. In Japan, Keiji Ashizawa channels Marcel Breuer with a steel flatpack cantilever chair that slides under the door. Read on for more examples of cutting-edge flatpack furniture.

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THE OFFICIAL ECOUTERRE LAUNCH PARTY IS TOMORROW!

THE OFFICIAL ECOUTERRE LAUNCH PARTY IS TOMORROW!

CALLING ALL NEW YORK ECO-FASHION CONNOISSEURS!

In about 24 hours, you could be nibbling on delectable vegan morsels by Rabbit Mafia, sipping refreshing organic drinks courtesy of 44 North Vodka, shopping the racks of sustainable fashion at KAIGHT NYC (15% off everything for one night only), and discussing the future of eco-fashion at …

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REMINDER: Join Our LIVE Chat with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom TODAY at 12pm PST!

REMINDER: Join Our LIVE Chat with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom TODAY at 12pm PST!

CALLING EVERYONE LOOKING TO GREEN THEIR CITY!

In less 4 hours, we’re going to be jumpstarting our LIVE conversation at City Hall with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and we want YOU to be there! This will be the exciting finale to our Green Talks series where we’ve been inviting you to discuss the hard-hitting green issues that matter most to …

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Pavegen: Energy Generating Pavement Hits the Streets

Pavegen: Energy Generating Pavement Hits the Streets

Any one point on a busy street can receive up to 50,000 steps a day, so imagine if you could take all that foot traffic and turn it into something useful – like energy! A new product designed by Laurence Kemball-Cook, the director of Pavegen Systems Ltd., can do just that. With a minuscule flex of 5mm, the energy generating pavement is able to absorb the kinetic energy produced by every footstep, creating 2.1 watts of electricity per hour.

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Join our Webinar With SF Mayor Gavin Newsom TOMORROW at 12pm PST!

Join our Webinar With SF Mayor Gavin Newsom TOMORROW at 12pm PST!

CALLING ALL SAN FRANCISCANS & everyone looking to green their city!

We’re thrilled to announce that we’re going to be interviewing San Francisco mayor GAVIN NEWSOM TOMORROW at 12pm PST, and we’re inviting YOU to join in the conversation! Mayor Newsom has spearheaded an impressive amount of eco initiatives in San Francisco and he’s also a forerunner in the race to be …

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3Prong Power Upgrades Any Prius to Plug-in Status

3Prong Power Upgrades Any Prius to Plug-in Status

Toyota is leasing 500 prototype plug-in hybrid Prius’s to lucky recipients in the U.S, Europe, and Japan next year, but what about all the other Prius owners who want to provide some plug-in juice to their cars? Enter 3Prong Power, a Berkeley, California startup that offers plug-in hybrid conversions for first, second and third generation Prius’s as well as the Ford Escape Hybrid.

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Fluid: Amphibious Pavilion For 2012 World Expo That Can Sail Away

Fluid: Amphibious Pavilion For 2012 World Expo That Can Sail Away

Fluid, one of the most eye-catching designs for the much-anticipated 2012 World Expo in Yeosu, South Korea, is a whale-like pavilion designed by Melbourne-based Peddle Thorpe Architects (PTA). Their organic floating exhibition space is designed around the concept of adaptability, making the structure useful for many scenarios, even long after the World Expo has concluded. With it’s environmentally aware design, Fluid has a minimal impact on the surrounding coastal ecosystem and has another extremely cool feature – after it’s duties in Yeosu are complete, the whole building can unlatch from its site and be sailed to other cities as a giant, amphibious floating exhibition!

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Hangeliers: Clothes Hanger Chandeliers by Organelle Design

Hangeliers: Clothes Hanger Chandeliers by Organelle Design

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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Ridgeblade Wind Turbine Silences NIMBYs

Ridgeblade Wind Turbine Silences NIMBYs

Rooftop solar panels are unlikely to elicit complaints from neighbors–they’re silent and relatively unobtrusive. But loud rooftop wind turbines? That’s where the virtually NIMBY-proof Ridgeblade turbine comes in. The turbine, designed by a former Rolls Royce turbine engineer at UK-based The Power Collective, boasts a sleek profile that is both powerful and visually pleasing.

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Join our Webcast With Mayor Gavin Newsom Next Wednesday at 12pm PST!

Join our Webcast With Mayor Gavin Newsom Next Wednesday at 12pm PST!

CALLING ALL SAN FRANCISCANS & those of you who want to green your cities!
We’re interviewing San Francisco mayor GAVIN NEWSOM next Wednesday the 28th at 12pm PST, and we’re inviting YOU to join us next for this live webcast conversation with the country’s greenest mayor! Join us to find out more about groundbreaking energy projects, mandatory composting, and how San Francisco got to be the greenest city in the U.S!

SIGN UP HERE TO JOIN THE CONVERSATION >

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Sun Powered LUMENHAUS has a Shifting Solar Facade

Sun Powered LUMENHAUS has a Shifting Solar Facade

The 2009 Solar Decathlon may have come to a close, but we wanted to shine a little more light on one of our favorite projects, Virginia Tech’s LUMENHAUS. Ranked 4th in this year’s Architecture category, the LUMENHAUS is named for its “power of light” attributes and architectural references to the BauHaus movement, and was particularly inspired by Mies Van Der Rohe’s Farnsworth House. Like its historic reference, it is comprised of all glass walls, maximizing exposure to natural daylight. The house features an automated “Eclipse System” of highly insulated translucent panels that filters the light using independent sliding layers, creating an ever-changing pattern throughout the day.

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Icelandic Prefabricated Home To Remember Summer Days By

Icelandic Prefabricated Home To Remember Summer Days By

As the winter winds begin to blow, we’d thought we say one last goodbye to the things of summer by featuring Icelandic architectural firm Glama-Kim Architects’ modern, modular, eco-friendly summerhouses situated in the Western part of Iceland, in the town of Stykkishólmur. Project architect Olafur Mathiesen led the design, which boasts spectacular views of the surrounding landscape, as well as the use of readily available materials combined with the ease of construction and simplicity of design.

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San Francisco Implements Nation’s First Mandatory Composting Law

San Francisco Implements Nation’s First Mandatory Composting Law

San Francisco already diverts over 72% of its waste from landfills thanks to rigorous recycling efforts, and now the city is set to cut down on trash even more with the country’s first mandatory composting law, which took effect yesterday. Residents and businesses now have six weeks to start composting food waste, plant trimmings, and other items. Needless to say we’re thrilled by this initiative, and we invite everyone to join us as we chat with Mayor Gavin Newsom about it next Wednesday in our final Green Talks webcast!

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Yamaha Unveils Slick EC-f Electric Motorcycle

Yamaha Unveils Slick EC-f Electric Motorcycle

We’ve see plenty of great green concept cars at this week’s Tokyo Motor Show, but Yamaha might take the prize for the best-looking two-wheeler with its new EC-f electric motorcycle. Designed to make motorcycling attractive to riders of all ages and experience levels, the vehicle features  a lightweight aluminum frame, a long-lasting lithium ion battery, and a 0.6 kWh electric motor.

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Fountainhead Reposited: Water Island is an Exercise in Filtration

Fountainhead Reposited: Water Island is an Exercise in Filtration

Synch your workout with a little river detox, then rehydrate with a cup of the fresh water you just filtered. This people-powered water purification island, designed by Jakub Szczesny as part of the Synchronicity architecture and art festival in Warsaw, Poland, hooks up basic exercise machines to kinetically pump polluted water through four filters into overhead tanks …

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Water Pumping Plant Renovated Into Gorgeous Living Space

Water Pumping Plant Renovated Into Gorgeous Living Space

Berlin is a burgeoning modern city with a compelling history, a diverse culture, abundant art, and distinctive architecture that rivals the likes of Paris, London and New York. But if there is one thing that can set the city apart from its pricey peers, it’s the unbelievably inexpensive property. Not unlike many of the uber-creative expatriates that have taken up residence there, two enterprising artists, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, decided it was time to purchase and renovate a place of their own. So what can $700,000 get you in a city like Berlin? An apartment? A loft? Maybe a small house? How about a massive water pumping station!

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Join Our Live Webinar with Boston Bike Czar Nicole Freedman TOMORROW at 3:30pm EST!

Join Our Live Webinar with Boston Bike Czar Nicole Freedman TOMORROW at 3:30pm EST!

Our Green Talks series of interviews with green thought-leaders has been a smash success so far – garnering hundreds of registrants and viewers from all over the globe, and we’re super excited about the next one, which is happening TOMORROW at 3:30pm est! with Boston’s Bike “Czar” Nicole Freedman. We’re beyond thrilled to announce this interview with Nicole, as she is the driving force behind the first citywide bike-sharing system in the United States! …

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