Cube 6: Dining Room Furniture for Small Spaces
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 04.25.08
TreeHugger is always on the lookout for sleek ways to do more with less; it's a good thing any time you can, say, get six extra seats from a cube slightly larger than one cubic foot. That's the idea behind Japanese designer Naho Matsuno's Cube 6, an ingenious construction that fits six stools into a diminutive cube just bigger than a foot (35 cm) each way. Dinner party time? Bring out the cube! Party's over? Put the cube away; no need for a whole dining room to store a full set of full-size chairs.
Matsuno showed the design in the Salone Satellite at the recently-concluded Milan Furniture Fair; like Cube Style's Dining Set, it'd go great with the amazing BEDUP, the bed that retracts into the ceiling, and any other compact living solution that helps you live large in a small space. It isn't quite a whole apartment in a box or a whole apartment's worth of stuff in 43 square feet, but it's a pretty great way to add tons of possibilities to small space without adding tons of stuff. See how it works, and see the three-stool version, below the fold. ::Naho Matsuno via ::dezeen
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"This is a great idea. I gets lots of questions from loft and small apartment dwellers ..." [read]
The brainchild of designer Patrick Turner, Thout Design's portfolio features a thoughtful collection of clever, space-saving, clutter-clearing designs with a sense of humor. Take "Forked Up," pictured above; part of the UtiliTILE series that frees up valuable kitchen space, it's useful tile for storing your utensils in a fun and space-efficient way. It makes setting the table is as easy as pulling out as many utensils as you need; magnets ensure that the utensils stay up there until you need them.
The rest of the UtiliTILE series is dedicated to the idea that it's nice to have shelves for all the things that otherwise clutter your space, but it's even nicer to have shelves that disappear when they aren't in use. It's a compact, modular, flexible system that offers an easy, elegant way to save space and do more with less. Hit the jump to see more. 
Here’s a new shop paradigm for you: Shop according to the revealed ingredients of every object. Because those ingredients sure look yummy with a range of products made from sustainable wood, cork, bamboo, organic and recycled materials. Monica Potvin in Barcelona and Anu Suominen in Finland have joined forces and created ‘a new version shop presenting a collection of objects for living made as sustainable as possible’. 
Who says recycling isn't fun? 
Table for two? This suave, utterly cute little table is an ingenious space saver, with two chairs that fold right in to the tabletop and base. In the same vein as 
How smart is this? Perfect for small spaces and a truly clever design, Hans Olsen designed this dining set in 1953 for Frem Røjle Møblefabrik, and it "serves as the quintessential model for the holistic integration of form and function. The design is certainly as progressive and relevant today as it was 60 years ago," according to the 
While TreeHugger knows that using what you've got 'til it's gone is the greenest way to go, but we all have to replace our old faithful with new favorites eventually. When that time comes, we want you to know some of the good green ways to go. On this list: dining tables.
Used as homework workstation, family gathering place and console for gourmet display and dinner parties galore, your dining table has to work hard, so having one that's durable, versatile and comfortable is important. Apartment dwellers might want to look for the smaller footprints, while families can use more surface area of larger models for more function. No matter what you need, watch out for formaldehyde, polyurethane and other toxic glues and finishes -- which you won't find on this list -- and keep your eyes peeled for wood from sustainable sources, and green alternatives to trees, like bamboo. Choosing a new dining table won't happen every day, so making it count and making it green are important; some of our favorites are below.
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West Coast Green – when they billed it as the biggest green building conference on this coast, they weren’t lying. It was huge and the lineup of speakers was excellent. There were roughly 4 tracks a day with at least 40 different sessions going on at the same time so there was no way to come even close to seeing everything. It was amazing!...
Brooklyn-based designer Sarah Cihat scours garage sales and thrift shops, looking for ceramics that she can give a second life to. She takes the discarded dishware and reglazes it, turning old and frumpy cast-offs into fun, funky, artful dishes. Fond of the silhouette, most of her work features animals, people and things like anchors and skull-n-crossbones in colorful contrast the ceramics' new glaze; says the designer, "Each piece represents a rejection of more brand new products filling shelves and storage closets. Rehabilitated Dishware is a subtle statement of the importance of recycling and the renewed value of unwanted things."
Her work is available from a 
TreeHugger never tires of finding examples of companies and designers that have discovered that there is a better way to do things. Safer, healthier materials, designs that will last for generations and manufacturing that considers the planet and its people are all hallmarks of this "better way" and the latest example we've found is Austria-based 
Finally, fun & sexy eco design is available not just in New York and London but has made it to Barcelona. 
We wish to say congratulations to 
Sebastiano Oddi, graduating student at the University of Brighton, cooked up the idea of the Edible Plate: 
What happens when a product designer/carpenter gets together with a forester? –Sustainable furniture. Since 2003 René Müller and Nina Griesshammer work under their company's name 
That lil’ ole 
Released into the wild a few month back was the Confetti range from Zak Designs. Very sharp looking homewares made from recycled melamine. Melamine is very durable plastic with a tight crystalline structure that for the most part resists the staining, delaminating, and pitting that is common to other plastics. I have a bowl that has been on every overnight outdoor trip I’ve made in the past 24 years. And it still looks like new. It is quite a tricky thing to recycle brittle, thermoset plastics like Melamine (and the ABS found in most computers and peripherals), so hats off to Zak Designs, for their patent pending process. But we find their press release of earlier this year somewhat disingenuous, when they state, “As a global company, Zak Designs has always maintained a strong commitment to the Earth and the environment.” Particularly given that was the sole environmental statement we could find on their entire website. And nowhere do they indicate if the recycled content is post-industrial or post-consumer. Maybe it is just their production waste reprocessed. We do like showcasing greener products here, but also welcome a greater degree of transparency from companies claiming a ‘a strong commitment to the environment.’ Oddly the range is not on their web, but 
This would be a good time for commiserating with friends over lunch with a glass of wine. How to keep the Chardonnay cool while waiting for them to arrive? A terracotta wine cooler works nicely. As you might guess from the picture, this is ancient technology. Drench the un-glazed clay vessel in water, insert the wine bottle, and place the set-up cooler in a shady place for a bit. If you want to prevent the white wine from getting nasty-hot, just the evaporative cooling does the job nicely. Tips: - Use a wine bottle that was pre-chilled in the frig and the cooler sustains the chill. Styles vary immensely, but the function is identical as long as most of the surface is unpainted and unglazed. Ten bucks seems to be a minimum price. Pictured is a "Traditional Hexagonal-shaped Terracotta Wine Cooler with Saucer" from UK based 
The child of the 
If you’re looking to jazz up your workspace or home this winter, we say focus on the walls. We guarantee your room will feel instantly decorated. 
Milkweed & Doublebutter are the design & fabrication studios of David Larabee and Dexter Thornton. New on the scene, the studios' opening reception was just a couple weeks back, on November 17, and the first line of furniture mixes an assortment of materials with modern shapes and clean lines. We're fans of Elephant, the dining table (pictured above), which features a bamboo ply top, though the collection also mixes in medium-density fiberboard, native hardwoods and PaperStone, a post consumer paper product. Also featured in the collection are a bed, side chairs & stools, dressers, credenzas and shelving and tables of various sizes and shapes. The furniture is available from 
This gives new meaning to the term "dining table"- it eats the leftovers. Lift the lid in the centre and dump them in, and the worm composter takes over- "A living ecosystem of worms, sowbugs and bacteria are invited to this table. They are a part of the digestive system that starts with a person discarding food leftovers and shredded paper into the portal at the top. The bacteria and sowbugs begin breaking down the waste and the worms soon join in to further digest it into a rich compost that sprinkles out of the bottom of the fabric bag that hangs beneath the table. This compost is used as a fertilizer for plants, such as those at the base of the table." So you don't miss any of the action, an infrared camera sends images to the LCD screen imbedded in the tabletop. Reduces waste in two ways- composting it and who wants to eat after watching the screen? ...
