TreeHugger

Design Students Build Prosthetic Arm: Core77's Allan Chochinov Shows How

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:23:44 -0500

Core77, "a gathering point for designers and enthusiasts alike". Clogger Allan Chochinov also teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York, in a course called "MFA Designer As Author" where they look at the issues of design and-

Our focus is on authorship in the broadest sense: Beginning with a viable concept we encourage students to write, edit, film, compos]]>...

The Dutch Master Bike (Super Duper Limited Edition) by Core77

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:36:31 -0500

Photo: Core77 The Secret Ingredient is Love Our friends at Core77 know beautiful design, but they're really surpassed themselves with the Dutch Master super-duper-limited edition bike. The goal is to celebrate New York bike culture, and an heritage of local manufacturing. Only 25 Dutch Master bikes have been made, all hand built by in Brooklyn by KT Higgins. More details and photos below.]]>...

100 Abandoned Houses: Photographs of Detroit

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:36:59 -0500

New York Times tells us about 100abandonedhouses.com, a website with stunning photographs of abandoned houses in Detroit, shot with an old Hasselblad.]]>...

350 Square Foot Apartment is "The Bohemian Dream"

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:32:29 -0500

Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times TreeHugger loves the idea of small spaces; the New York Times shows a particularly lovely apartment in Greenwich Village that packs a lot into just 350 square feet. They write:

As floor plans go, there isn’t much: one medium-size room; a galley kitchen tucked behind a wall; a bathroom; and, in lieu of a bedroom, a sleeping loft up a ladder from the living area, under the sloping roof.

But what a difference design makes.]]>...

84 Recycled PET Bottles to Make ECOALF Cabin Trolley

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:03:54 -0500

ECOALF is the new fabric developed by the Spanish company fun&basics, made from recycled PET bottles. It is a high quality textile: flexible, tension resistant, long lasting, waterproof and lightweight. The first bags made from ECOALF are a toilet bag, a small bag, a cabin trolley and a large, wheeled luggage bag. The fun thing about them is the visualisation of the recycled bottles. Each bag tells you exactly how many 75cl PET plastic bottles were needed to make it. ]]>...

Architectural Pavilions Grace London's Parks and Squares

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:19:03 -0500

Image from the Guardian Each summer for the past nine years, the Serpentine Gallery commissions a different architecture firm to design a pavilion on the adjacent park lands. It serves as an inspirational place to hang out, hear lectures and have a drink. This year's is designed by Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of the Japanese architecture practice SANAA. They describe it as "floating aluminum, drifting freely between the trees like smoke." ]]>...

Shed of the Year Competition Winner Announced

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:00:35 -0500

Readersheds. I get to help choose the best of this very British obsession, the garden shed. Thousands of people vote, then a panel of judges picks the best of the lot from the readers choices. I was asked to be on the jury again this year, and admit that the winner was not my top choice. But it does have some very nice touches. ]]>...

Wool, Organic Cotton Coffins Encase You in Downy Softness For All Eternity

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:21:26 -0500

Photo credit: Getty Images In today's Department of We Can't Make This Stuff Up (by way of the Beeb): A U.K. textile firm better known for making military uniforms has launched a range of woolen and organic cotton caskets made locally in West Yorkshire. ]]>...

Removing Highways Can Reduce Traffic Jams

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:08:36 -0500

Infrastructurist look at four major urban highways that were demolished, creating lovely waterfronts and parks. There is the Cheonggyecheon highway in Seoul, Harbour Drive in Portland, the Embarcadero Freeway and the Central Freeway in San Francisco. In every case , the city was a lot prettier. What is surprising their claim that the traffic actually now moves better than it did before. ]]>...

Would You Take a Shower With Tyvek?

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 07:52:29 -0500

Photo via Grain. An off-gassing shower curtain with its 108 volatile organic compounds, is an affront to your health and your senses. So it's natural to want to applaud the efforts of four designers, grouped together at a fledgling design firm called Grain, as they attempt to create an alternative to PVC-based plastic shower curtains. Yet swapping out the PVC plastic for the wonders of Replay is finally taking the scaffolding down and reopening the doors of its store in Via De’ Pecori, Florence. Fueled by a desire to "go beyond the traditional concept of a shop as a mere container," according to a press release, the Italian denim label's revamped 2,690 square-foot digs have undergone a massive eco-friendly makeover.]]>...

10 Overlooked Low-Tech Ways of Keeping Your Home Cool

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:39:55 -0500

Ontario Archives Summer is here and the air is full of the the sound of whining air conditioners, all seriously sucking kilowatts. Yet much of that air conditioning load could be reduced or the air conditioning season shortened if we did simple things, many of them common before air conditioning was common in North America. Here are some low-tech tips for keeping cool. The best ideas are those that keep the heat out of your home in the first place, rather than paying to pump it out after it gets in.]]>...

Beautiful Objects from Brazilian Native Communities through Imaginario Pernambucano

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:30:25 -0500

Photos: Pagina 12 and Museu do objeto brasileiro. Imaginario Pernambucano is one more project in which the skills of artisan people from native communities are empowered with the help of design. An extended practice in South America, we've seen this done on initiatives like Oficina Nomade and Iwan Baan Wang Shu's Mountain-Like Ningbo History Museum Made of Recycled Bricks At first glance, the brand new Ningbo Historic Museum looks like it has been there for centuries, left behind by natural forces. But in a nod to local building practices and to the archeological finds it contains, the museum's facade is constructed of recycled brick from the area, a ravaged patch of former farmland turned development district on the outskirts of the booming southern city of Ningbo. ]]>...

Theater Space Built From 28 Shipping Containers

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:50:06 -0500

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Creative Recycling: The Standard's Floor of 50,000 Pennies

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:59:13 -0500

Lloyd Alter After I toured the Standard Hotel, straddling the new High Line Park in New York, I could not show photos of the floor in the new café because it was not yet opened. I learned from NOTCOT that the embargo is over and offer my own picture of the floor (and my shoes) above.]]>...

The Greenest, Coolest Stadium: Toyo Ito On His Sun-Powered Stunner

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:30:59 -0500

Exclusive: The Architect Behind the Solar-Powered Stadium As if the U.S. wasn't going to look bad enough at this month's World Games, with sports like tug of war, netball , orienteering and Latin dance: the host city of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, will be debuting

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:18:43 -0500

Descriptions and images from Make it Right: Hitoshi Abe is Chair and Professor of UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design. More... Brad Pitt's "Make It Right" Foundation has released a new set of duplex designs for New Orleans, by yet another round of big name architects from around the world. The designs had to be flexible, with "interchangeable floor plans that allow the families to change the size and configuration of the two homes as their family size, needs or economic situation changes." As in the first round, ]]>...

Packaging Design at Its Worst (Slideshow)

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:25:22 -0500

Photo credit: scrapthispack @ Flickr Packaging design can take some pretty weird forms -- individually-wrapped everything, super-over-packaging in the name of safety -- and when it's bad, it's really bad. From individually-wrapped bananas (and prunes!) to plastic inside of cardboard inside of more plastic, here's a photo tour of the worst of the worst when it comes to packaging design. ...

Loyal Loot Bowls from Canadian Logs

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:42:27 -0500

Image from loyal loot These bright and shiny Canadian wooden bowls must be all the rage: last month the Guardian wrote them up and this week Cool Hunting has them. Each bowl is created from various and different Canadian trees that have fallen or been cut down for other reasons. They are hand-crafted into bowls of all different sizes and finished with water based paint and high gloss finish. So gorgeous! ]]>...

Prefab on Water, MetroShip Introduces Sustainable Houseboats

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 08:00:00 -0500

photo: MetroShip Larger boats can have a tremedous impact on the planet, so former prefab construction powerhouse David Ballinger has turned his attention to the water. His new design attempts to combat the conventional wisdom regarding houseboats. MetroShip is a sleek, more sustainable reinterpretation of those clunking houseboats of yesteryear.]]>...

DIY Chair Concept Uses Wood, Cardboard and...Zipties

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:40:00 -0500

Images via viktor matic IKEA with their single Allen wrench and image-based instructions would have nothing on a concept kit chair called "zipit" by viktor matic.]]>...

Living in Glass Houses: Vodafone's Solar Powered Mobile Home

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:28:24 -0500

La Casa Móvil. Designers Waskman design studio, with creative space Culdesac, squeezed a lot into not much space. No doubt the glass wall makes it feel bigger, albeit without much privacy.]]>...

Oh No Mommy! Will the Greenies Take Fireworks Away From Us?

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:35:09 -0500

Photo: Flickr, CC Obligatory Post About Green Fireworks for the 4th of July Fireworks are fun - who doesn't like explosions? - and a good excuse to get together with family and friends, but they're also not very clean. In Beijing, China, the smoke from fireworks during the new year celebrations tripled pollution levels overnight, and the toxic metals used to get the bright colorful sparks fall back to Earth, contaminating soil an]]>...

Never Search For an Outlet Again with Outlet Wall

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:58:14 -0500

David Friedman appears to have solved the problem of never having enough places to plug things in. It also really tells a tale about consumption; he should stick a big meter in the middle of it. ]]>...

LEED Offices are Really Green, Elegant and Surprisingly Conventional

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:41:19 -0500

Photos by Eric Laignel via Envision and Metropolis The LEED Program is managed by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) and has become big business, so they needed bigger offices. The renovation of an existing building was designed by a team led by Kendall Wilson of Envision Design, who cut their green teeth doing the offices for Greenpeace ten years ago. It is clean and sleek, but doesn't jump out at you as overtly green; as Suzanne LaBarre writes in Metropolis:

It doesn’t feel green. The Eero Saarinen Womb chairs in the lobby, the sparkling terrazzo floors under your feet, the crisp]]>...

Rush on Australian Energy Rebates Create New Green Jobs

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:18:56 -0500

Energy Efficient Homes Package designed to get ceiling insulation into the roofs of 2.9 million Australian homes, by 2012. Even in sunny Australia winter heat loss and summer heat gain through a residential ceiling is calculated to be between 25% and 35%, so there may be some truth in the government’s hyperbole. As you might expect, given that they are giving home owner-occupiers a $1,600 AUD insulation rebate and $1,000 to landlords or tenants for rental propert]]>...

Whither the McMansion? Opinions from the Wall Street Journal and the Atlantic

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:16:07 -0500

Brownstoner Last week, the debate was When it Comes to Green Building, Does Size Matter?; this week, it is Whither the McMansion.. June Fletcher in The Wall Street Journal thinks they will come back when the economy does:

But don't write the obituary for McMansions just yet. Although mass-produced behemoths more than 3,000-square-feet in size have only been common (and commonly cri]]>...

BugHouse Turns Old Records Into New Tables, Needles Into Chandeliers

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:54:47 -0500

PSFK points us to the work of Bughouse Art+Design, where Jeff and Rebecca "love making things and finding different materials to expand the vocabulary of the way we all live and see." ]]>...

ZEBRA Recycled Bicycle Path Divider, Safe for Cyclists and the Environment

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:46:23 -0500

bike lanes should be separated from traffic. To make sure traffic also respects those bike lanes, Spanish designer Curro Claret (whose Hat]]>...

The Toaster Project: Art Student Builds a Toaster From Scratch

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:38:53 -0500

Step 1. Acquiring Iron Ore from Thomas Thwaites on Vimeo.

Thomas Thwaites is ]]>...

Alternating Tread Stair Built in House for $20K

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:42:55 -0500

Justin at StairPorn found this elegant one in a surprising place: A house built at the Rural Studio of Auburn University, where four students designed and built a house with $ 10,000 worth of materials and $10,000 worth of labour. Ryan Stephenson, Joey Fante, Kait Caldwell, Aimee O’Carroll built the Loft House in the 2007-2008 season. Joey Fante writes in ArchDaily:]]>...

Off-Grid House Made Of Recycled Steel Goes Anywhere

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:35:44 -0500

Photo courtesy of Michael Jantzen The Homestead House is an off-grid prefab concept made from recycled steel by designer Michael Jantzen. The house makes use of prefabricated, commercially available steel which makes it both low in cost and extremely modular. In fact, it makes the size and shape of the structure completely customizable - not to mention really tough! ]]>...

Built on Stilts: Max Pritchard's Bridge House

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:10:11 -0500

Photo by Sam Noonan via Architectural Record Houses don't have to sit on standard foundations; it can be a lot less damaging to the terrain if you put them up in the air. Australian architect Max Pritchard built a lovely 1184 square foot house as a bridge over a stream. There is much to love besides just the treading lightly; it is small and tightly designed, has sophisticated solar and water management, and is a primary residence. The architect tells Ingrid Spencer in the Architectural Record: ]]>...

Transformer Furniture: Marie Antoinette's Library Ladder

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:57:19 -0500

Petit Trianon, to do her own social networking. I loved this library ladder/ stairway that appears to fold up into an ottoman. That is clever design. While we usually promote transformer furniture as a way of using less space, it can also hide utilitarian functions in plain view.]]>...