Roy G Biv said:
"To me, this represents the short-termism of so much environmental fundraising.
Yes, using Palin allows groups to more effectively milk the..." [read]
nuvi said:
"I wonder if these could be used to clean algal blooms, then we can make some fuel out of it...." [read]
matt said:
"heres the deal. Being a pet is not natural. The animal was meant to live in the wild. But people have domesticated them over hundreds of years. The..." [read]
joe said:
"As dumb as it gets.
Instead of promoting the environment they are trying to promote the Fraud King Oumgabama.
Really Really Stupid.</..." [read]
grant said:
"Hum, interesting that they used a helicopter to film this stunt that comments on global warming. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty confident ..." [read]
scott said:
"I sure am glad we gave $14 trillion dollars to bankers instead of using it to subsidize products like these.
Products that liberate rather..." [read]
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.
It is always great fun to participate in the Shed of the Year competition, run by Uncle Wilco at 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.
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.
Photographer 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.
Digital Switch: Please Recycle Your Old Television
Last November, John wrote about the potential dangers of a surge of toxic e-waste caused by the switch to digital TV (this affects people who get their signal over the air and don't have a digital converter box). Back then, the digital switch date was supposed to be February, but it was extended by lawmakers because people were not ready. Well, ready or not, today is the date. What will this mean for electronic-waste and the environment?
When one designs a boat, trailer, mobile home or RV, it can be fabulous test-beds for designers to show how one can live with less space, how to squeeze every cubic inch out. They also have to deal with many restrictions in weight, shape and dimension. They can also challenge our assumption that we have to live in a fixed location, when one might have a smaller footprint if we lived in smaller spaces and were not so tied down.
The "two-storey campingcar" built by three Japanese students is full of clever ideas, and a great demonstration of how to get more out of less.
We have noted before that in Paris, apartments are often quite small; they often don't have room for a private kid's bedroom. H20 Architectes dealt with the problem of accommodating children with this structure that puts an elevated bed on top of a play and storage area.
The Smallest House in Great Britain, photo by ChicagoGeek
When was the last time you really thought about how much space you really need to be comfortable? 250... 500... 1,000... 2,000... 3,000 square feet. While many people are concerned about their lifestyle, what they eat, what they drive, some never even consider the wasteful space accompanied by their home....
Brown bags - sewing machine - voila! Pretty envelopes (by Cassandra of SunlitOrchard)
Blank envelopes are just that - blank and bland. Thankfully, they don't have to be, as these cool, crafty and smart ideas for transforming found materials into one-of-a-kind envelopes prove (thanks to Jackie of Crafting a Green World for finding these). Old grocery bags, magazine catalogues, nature books, maps - really, the proverbial sky is the limit. Giving envelopes a unique, personal touch is something you can easily do at home too for thank you cards, invitations and packaging for your small business, as these imaginative projects after the fold show.
...
Graphic from USGBC
The USGBC, and their insanely popular rating system LEED, have been on the frontlines of the green building movement for quite a while. Everyone has taken a shot at them at least once. There’s all the talk about how the credits are weighted incorrectly, or that a LEED rated building doesn’t always mean it’s a green building. For all the shortcomings of the older system, the USGBC, better or worse, has been a major contributor to putting GREEN into the lexicon of every developer, real estate owner and building professional in the United States (and other countries). Their new approach to rating the greenness of a building is overcoming some of those pesky complaints. Actually, with the release of newest version of LEED, all those naysayers may get left in the dust!...
CoteMaison in France published a lovely 40m2 (431 SF) apartment that houses a family of four and a big dog in style. It has a kids room that any kid would love in a raised section so that a bed can slide under for the parents, wonderful use of space and some neat detailing. It was picked up by Apartment Therapy, where the fun begins: some commenters called it cruelty to children.
...
Last week, Construmat, the leading construction fair held in Barcelona, Spain, every two years, attracted some 153,000 visitors. Amongst the most interesting works exhibited was the Casa Barcelona,an innovative, social and sustainable housing proposal....
We recently pondered, of all we accumulate in a modern life, what 'stuff' is really important? We suggested that a life lived with less clutter might be more fulfilling and less strain on natural resources. But there is an interesting flip side to this notion. That it could also be argued that one can be equally ‘green’ by actually amassing heaps of stuff. Let me elaborate....
In the last fifty years the interiors of our houses and offices have revolved around technology, be it the land line phone, the television or the computer. As these all shrink, morph, combine and go wireless, it becomes much easier to develop multifunction transformer furniture that lets us live with less stuff in less space.
Nine years ago, before LCD monitors or decent notebook computers were affordable, I worked on the designs of transformer furniture that never got into production; it really needed smaller, lighter electronics to work. It was also in the days before Sketchup, when it was still faster to knock out a model in foamcore than it was to do it in CAD. Looking back, they look pretty funny, but perhaps the ideas might work better now. We look back at early Transformers, and some very silly models.
...
Cleaning up with Banksy's graffiti. Photo via Flickr: by Give Peace a Chance
Don’t need any more tips about greening your house, apartment, loft, garage, or tent?
How about easy, cheap ways to fix everything from floors to frying pans and dealing with furballs? Haley’s Hints Green Edition suggests 1,000 unlikely solutions for stuff like removing mud stains with potatoes. With summer coming there are ingenious ideas for the garden, pest control, and camping. Nontoxic and clever, this guide shows lots of ways that items in your cupboard do unexpected tricks.
...
Images from ECObyCosentinoCosentino, one of the world’s largest natural stone importers, announces the launch of ECO™, a new line of countertops. The material is composed of 75% recycled-content including mirrors salvaged from houses, building and factories; glass from windows and bottles; granulated glass from consumer recycling practices; porcelain from china, tiles, sinks, toilets and decorative elements; and industrial furnace residuals from factories in the form of crystallized ashes.
...
There isn't a lot of room inside a shipping container to accommodate different functions, so Italian designers Studio X Design Group came up with a way of sliding elements in and out according to the needs of the moment. ...
"modular dwelling system that can be retrofitted to existing spaces. Designed to be an adjustable yet tailored solution, the ROOM consists of three elements: the Pod, the Media Station and the Satellite."
3 types of lightbulbs. Photo: Flickr, CC
20% -- Currently, about 20% of the world's electricity is used for lighting.
75% -- About 1/4 of that is for residential uses, and the rest is for commercial/industrial/governmental buildings.
5% -- A typical incandescent bulb converts only about 5% of the electricity it uses into light, and it needs to be replaced approximately every 1,000 hours....
Daniel Burnham said "Make no little plans", but he lived in Chicago where the rents are cheap, not New York, London or Tokyo. In those and other expensive cities, people trade space for location and live in very small spaces indeed. It takes clever design and some degree of compromise, but people seem to manage and even thrive. As Maxwell at Apartment Therapy says,
"A calm, healthy, beautiful home is a necessary foundation for happiness and success in the world. Creating this home doesn't require large amounts of money or space."
Photo via DesignBoom; credit Kfir Schwalb and Orit Magia
The Lightpot is a new design by Kfir Schwalb and Orit Magia that uses LED lighting to grow herbs and small plants anywhere, and grows along with the plants....
The SHED by Chuck Witmer, Silver Spring, Maryland, with permission
Why have garden sheds become so popular in recent years? It is true that they are an economical way of gaining more space without having to spend a lot of money renovating, and a lot more people are working from home and need a quiet spot. But I think it is also because they permit a kind of architectural experimentation that people don't get to do in their house- you can take a few more risks when it is a separate space and the building codes don't apply.
...
Susanne Watzeck & Jörg Sturm designed this in 1996 as the "first unit of a space system in which the individual functions living, cooking, washing, sleeping, working are accommodated in separate units."
However, years later with garden sheds and small spaces being all the rage, it stands on its own quite nicely. ...
Once upon a time you didn't worry if your luggage could fit in the overhead bin. This makeup trunk folds out into a dressing table; It could just as easily have been designed for a travelling office. ...
Boingboing points us to this incredible video where unemployed and homeless Japanese geeks move into cubicles in an internet café, paying about $500 a month for the privilege, including, I suppose, all the internet you can use....
G10 Design have come up with the Hammokum, an interesting idea for a sort of hammock balcony that clips on to the facade of your apartment. The designers start with a very TreeHugger principle: "Remember: the least you have the freer you are!"...
We'll be working on better category archives soon. In the meantime, take a look at the weekly archive if you really want to dig around, or use the search box at the top of the page.
on 07. 9.09
The Smallest House in Great Britain, photo by 
Brown bags - sewing machine - voila! Pretty envelopes (by 
Graphic from USGBC
The 
Last week, 
We recently pondered, of all we accumulate in a modern life, 
In the last fifty years the interiors of our houses and offices have revolved around technology, be it the land line phone, the television or the computer. As these all shrink, morph, combine and go wireless, it becomes much easier to develop multifunction transformer furniture that lets us live with less stuff in less space.
Nine years ago, before LCD monitors or decent notebook computers were affordable, I worked on the designs of transformer furniture that never got into production; it really needed smaller, lighter electronics to work. It was also in the days before Sketchup, when it was still faster to knock out a model in foamcore than it was to do it in CAD. Looking back, they look pretty funny, but perhaps the ideas might work better now. We look back at early Transformers, and some very silly models.
Cleaning up with Banksy's graffiti. Photo via Flickr: by 
Images from ECObyCosentino
There isn't a lot of room inside a shipping container to accommodate different functions, so Italian designers 
We have previously shown the 
3 types of lightbulbs. Photo: 
Daniel Burnham said "Make no little plans", but he lived in Chicago where the rents are cheap, not New York, London or Tokyo. In those and other expensive cities, people trade space for location and live in very small spaces indeed. It takes clever design and some degree of compromise, but people seem to manage and even thrive. As Maxwell at Apartment Therapy says,
Photo via 
Images: Mitsumasa Fujitsuka
It is in a lovely little 800 square foot house in Tokyo by
The SHED by 
Susanne Watzeck & Jörg Sturm designed this in 1996 as the "first unit of a space system in which the individual functions living, cooking, washing, sleeping, working are accommodated in separate units."
However, years later with garden sheds and small spaces being all the rage, it stands on its own quite nicely. ...
Once upon a time you didn't worry if your luggage could fit in the overhead bin. This makeup trunk folds out into a dressing table; It could just as easily have been designed for a travelling office. ...
G10 Design have come up with the Hammokum, an interesting idea for a sort of hammock balcony that clips on to the facade of your apartment. The designers start with a very TreeHugger principle: "Remember: the least you have the freer you are!"...
