Put the words "
flat" and "
pack" together, and TreeHugger usually needs a towel to contain the drooling; there are few things we like more than the ability to change dimensions, create structure from wafer-thin materials and make efficient use of materials in manufacturing and space when shipping. With that in mind, we submit for your consideration: the Zweifach Shelf.
Designed by Simon Schappi and oddly reminiscent of Kindergarten, each double cubbie starts as three separate, flat pieces; spend a few minutes folding and fitting, and a modular shelf is born. This is one of our favorite things about this design: you can build only as much storage as you need; the modular, stackable system lets you expand and contract your storage as the volume of your stuff fluctuates. Empty a box or two out? No need to waste space with empty storage; just break down one of the boxes. Perfect for a small apartment dweller, frequent mover or anyone who doesn't want to kill extra space with storage you don't need.
::The Formsons via
::swissmiss...
The holiday season is almost upon us and that means its time for men and women to test their strength carrying 5, 10, dare we say 20 shopping bags at a time as they rush from store to store to car and back again. Ever wonder, where do all of those bags come from, and more importantly, is there anything environmental about them? Well, I had a chance to sit down with Dave Bock, owner of Earth Pack, the maker of many of the shopping bags you see today. Treehugger mentioned them previously in this packaging
QandA. What follows is a fascinating look at the pros and cons of retail packaging and the finding that there are no easy solutions when it comes to retail bags.
Like many small business ideas, this was a fictitious school project that was also an unfulfilled market. Bock grew up as a surfer and was always interested in design, and in the 80’s he noticed that there was a shortage of retail bags at surf shops due to the petroleum shortage. The idea for Earth Pack was then formed and Bock began to design and develop a bag and then rode around via bike power to different surf shops in San Diego offering his bags. ...
When I get my shiny new laptop I am going to put it in one of these- a homemade laptop sleeve from the greatest invention of the twentieth century, duct tape. I mean, computers and airplanes are important but if you can't hold them together, what good are they? Over at instructibles, zoundspandang shows us how, saying
"I got tired of looking at the scratches and dents my MacBook suffered every time i tried to take it somewhere without throwing it in my rather large backpack. I needed something slim yet good looking. Something rugged yet inexpensive. I turned to my two best friends cardboard and duct tape! In this instructable I'll show you exactly how to make one of your own." He finished it with smart racing stripes. A neat project that even I can probably do without cutting myself.
::Instructables via
::Lifehacker
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Take Out is a storage solution/furniture whose name reveals its function: each of the drawers is a portable briefcase that you can just pull out and take with you. It'd be especially useful for things that you can use all over the place, like toys and tools. The idea makes a lot of sense; you don't need a chest of drawers when you're out and about, and you don't need portable briefcases when you're home. We aren't crazy about the materials -- the outer shell is made from MDF and the briefcases are plastic -- but the idea is solid and green on its own, and materials would be easy to modify. Below the fold: a picture of the piece in action.
::Klaus Aalto via
::Freshome...
TreeHugger loves to ride our bicycles, but doesn't like to let them get in the way when not in use. Inspired by
The Leonardo that we saw earlier today, here are some of our picks for ways to keep your bike handy but get it out of the way.
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1) The cute and curious Cycloc is essentially a plastic bucket that has two opposing "lips" that use your bicycle’s own weight to hold it in place. The void in the middle of the Cycloc keeps your gloves, pants clips, etc, close to hand, while holes in the cylinder allow you to fix a cable lock as well.
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2) Got lots of bikes? Something like the Cyclepod might be what you need. It provides eight secure spaces for parking your bikes, storing the bikes upright, and the front wheel and frame can both be locked in place. More good news: Cyclepod is made from 95% recycled aluminum.
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3) The New York Times helped us out with a conglomeration of handy bike storage options, along with an accompanying slideshow, to show how easy it is to get your bike off the ground. No more “I get sweaty” or “the roads are too dangerous, have you seen what drivers do out there?” excuses for not riding! Two more picks, below the fold...
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There are many reasons, rationales, justifications, excuses, etc, why many of us don’t ride bikes—leaping instead into our cars when mobility is required. They range from “I get sweaty”, through to “the roads are too dangerous, have you seen what drivers do out there?” But the other day the New York Times helped strip away one of the other pretexts for avoiding pedal power: “but I’ve no where to store a bike.” NYT’s Personal Shopper went and ferreted out some funky storage options that will get a bike out from under your feet. See their lil slideshow for some cool tips. Via
::New York Times...
Combining design and engineering experience that includes Indy 500 winning racecars, composite aircraft, consumer products, and industrial equipment, Scott Bennett's
Housefish now specializes in modern, contemporary furniture. Their newest product, called
Key, is debuting at
CO-Design, a show currently running (through August 25, 2007) at the P Design Gallery in Denver, Colorado, and we like it. We like it a lot. The modular pieces, which flat-pack for shipping, starts with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified maple veneer plywood, which gets a low-VOC finish before being built into one of three configurations: a low, stackable piece, plus one each with short and tall legs to take it off the floor and up to waist height. Check out pics of all three after the jump, as well as more details about some cool modifications coming to the design down the line.
::Housefish via
::designklub...
It's a lot easier to have less stuff and use less space when everything has its place. You always know where everything is, don't have to go rooting around in that random drawer in the kitchen for something you know you have, and won't end up with duplicate kitchen shears or other easily misplace-able items. Such is the idea behind the clever
Shed/Shelf by
Studio Gorm: just about anything (and almost everything) one person needs for a studio or small apartment can fit neatly inside, from plates, wine glasses and other kitchen utensils to shoes, clothes and jackets and even a bench and a reading lamp. When in use, they can be out and handy; when you're not busy with them, things can be tucked away in a compact, mobile (notice the casters) package. Not only handy for storage, it offers an interesting critique/commentary on stuff and the notion of what we really all "need" to live. Get up close and personal with more pics after the jump; plus, is that a turbine-powered lightbulb?
::Studio Gorm via
::Pan-Dan...
How green is your
garden shed? This was the question that the young British Designer,
Sy Willmer, asked himself during the final year of his MA design program at
Göteborg University in Sweden. Taking the traditional garden shed motif found in many Northern European countries, known as a Friggebod in Swedish, Willmer looked at how this generic structure is typically used. From practical storage and work places, to quiet refuges and from humble huts to extravagant architectural garden monuments. This research lead to a design project which evaluated the need for a flexible solution to an ecologically sound 21st century shed. The result is a modular design which Willmer describes as being "placed in the middle to upper end of the current shed market; more than a utility hut but not a bespoke design of building." The main feature of the design is the slanted green roof, the benefits of which include increased insulation, purifying the run off rainwater and encouraging local biodiversity....
Bonnie Alter mentioned the UK eco-garden suppliers
Hen+Hammock last December for their gorgeous bird feeder Christmas decorations. Now that the Spring season has sprung and people are looking to get their green fingers working again The Observer Magazine has directed us towards Hen+Hammock's latest sustainable garden products. We love their organic garden salad seeds, the beautiful cotton, bamboo + wood parasol, the recycled rubber planters and the reused hessian coffee sacks which, they say, can be used for garden waste, potatoes and, of course, sack races!
Via: Observer Magazine :: Hen + Hammock :: Hen+Hammock Blog...
The other day we took some flak for showing a design students concept of a
folding bike. And while we agree it can be frustrating seeing ideas, not actual products, we firmly believe supporting fledgling designers who show a bent towards eco-design can only be a positive thing. A thought echoed by South African designer Ryan Frank, commenting on the state of furniture in the current issue of the UK’s New Consumer magazine, “You can see the design graduates coming up now using reclaimed, recycled and sustainable materials,’ says Frank. ‘They have a better education about such issues now and know they’re important. But consumers will have to be more demanding if the benefits of eco-friendly furniture are going to be seen beyond just small batch production.” However, David Colwell, founder of eco-furniture company
Trannon says, “Conceptual sustainable furniture is important to get the message across, [...] but it could be so much better.” He suggests that designers should also be striving for works which are sustainable, sexy and inviting, give long service, and “minimise the desire for a rapid turnover of styles.” In short, classics. Though he does concede the high price of designer eco-furniture is holding back its broader uptake. A concern we are well familiar with here at TH. [In a related New Consumer piece you can read of
Kresse Wesling, a young Canadian, selling furniture made from salvaged fire hose. A stool goes for £600 (~$1175 USD).]The first article explores further the issues in taking eco-furniture mainstream.
::New Consumer on Eco Furniture....
Much of the push to "re-engineer" business to "streamline for profits" over the last twenty years is captured in the buzz-phrase
Just In Time(JIT). If you were a a business owner, experts urged you to store as much as possible of your inventory in the trucks moving toward your customers from outsourced suppliers, minimizing your own payroll and warehousing costs. A product line manager discovered to have amassed a cache of actual inventory faced dismissal, and so on. As a result, trucks in North America and Europe are, in effect, the warehouse system. Hence, the recent argument that under NAFTA, that Mexican trucking companies should be allowed to bring goods in to the US without transferring. The glue that holds this logistical approach together is comprised of the Enterprise Software System, so-called Business to Business (B2B) linkup portals, and a lot of phone calling and fancy shipping contracts. A seldom acknowledged JIT casualty is the near end of the warehouse full of unsold crap merchandise, dumped via "clearance re-sellers". Those clearance malls along the expressways of America are now most likely getting their inventory JIT, as the retail stores in the mall do. One seldom discussed drawback of JIT is the swarm of half- or mostly-empty trucks driving from supplier to distributor or customers and back; or worse, completely empty trucks going half way across the country to get to the next load. With fuel so much more costly and highways slipping into gridlock, might businesses soon have to go back to classic product designs stored in venerable warehouses? Not quite yet. ...
There is recycling, there is repurposing, and there is good design; few items, even on design-obsessed TreeHugger, combine them all. That's why we love Cristina Covello's Tin Can Storage. According to the Canadian Design Resource, "Emerging with a band of talented designers from Sheridan [College], Cristina has been consistently producing clever and humble work and this shelving unit continues the pattern."
::The Canadian Design Resource...
Last week the Eugene-based bike trailer brand Burley, who we noted back
here, was financially rescued by a local businessman. While Michael Coughlin has brought the business back from the brink of complete closure, it has meant 39 of the 104 staff will not return to work. The company will now refocus it’s energies on its signature line of
bike trailers that help cyclists lug around kids and cargo. Apparently they make about 27,000 of these a year, with 3,000-4,000 currently on back order. The news item we read suggested that cheaper imports had made the bike trailer market exceedingly competitive. Another salient reminder of the benefits of buying local, and not just your groceries. Cheaper and cheaper prices do come at a cost. And that is often born by local communities as jobs go offshore to the lowest bidder of the day. Via
::News Review....
San Francisco-based
Ohio Design has all the right green credentials to get a TreeHugger thumbs up (reclaimed wood, recyclable steel, non-toxic finishes), and, while that's great, it isn't really what got our attention. Their designs are fabulous; subtle, modern and clean, providing equal parts functionality and artistic statement, but that's not what sold us, either. Give up? They use a technique they call PrintFurniture, where the natural wood pieces are graphically enhanced, and it's unlike anything we've ever seen before. Pictured above are three versions of their Sophia Credenza; the graphic overlay adds a whole new dimension and gives the piece a dynamic, artistic quality. Ohio Design has lots of other great designs, PrintFurniture and not, that we'll definitely be keeping an eye on.
::Ohio Design...
Not sure how well this would work in the real world, but we do like the thought process. The In-Lock is designed to create secure storage for your bike when camping, or anytime you run out of street signs and lamp posts to chain your trusted steed to. Twist the corkscrew into the ground (using the provide bar), slip a chain through the eye. (see 'how-to' image after the fold) The blades of the corkscrew are wide enough to resist pulling up through soil. There are numerous ways the lock could be thwarted by determined thieves, but against the casual, light-fingered person it would have some useful deterrent value. Regardless of actual effectiveness, we applaud any move to make cycling a more positive experience. In-Lock concept by
John Wrightson, via
Cool Hunter. ...
Kirei has been on the green design scene for awhile now (we first mentioned it
here) but we have yet to see it implemented in such an elegant piece of furniture. Iannone : Sanderson's Signature 2.0 Console is a showstopper; we really like the way the decorative graphic kirei inlay offsets the modern, minimal design. Looks perfect for anyone with a lonely wall that could use some storage as well. For anyone who needs a refresher on kirei, it's produced through a process of washing, weaving, and then compressing bamboo-like stalks of sorghum, which is often a byproduct of alcohol and molasses production. Definitely resource-efficient, definitely sexy; the only thing we aren't crazy about is the price (US$1,699), which might just be worth it for such a responsible, eye-catching design.
::Iannone : Sanderson available at
::2modern.com via
::2modern Design Talk...
Last week at
Vinçon’s, the Zig-Zag caught our eye. It’s a bottle rack that at first seems just grey but when you get to know it better you realise it’s actually green. That’s because it’s made from Syntrewood, a 100% recycled and recyclable material that’s not only ecological but also low-cost. Syntrewood is a product of the Spanish company
Lasentiu, who use discarded material from urban plastic waste collection (the yellow containers here in Spain) that would otherwise end up as landfill or be burnt. So with 85-90% of Polyolefin (from bottle caps, bags or detergent bottles) and 10-15% paper, board, fabric, PET and aluminium such as from Tetra-bricks, Lasentiu created Syntrewood, a plastic material free from PVC that is ‘water-repellent, unchangeable to environmental conditions and non toxic’. Apart from the simple V-shaped modular bottle rack Zig-Zag that fits different sizes of bottles horizontally, Lasentiu have also designed a series of chairs, component seats, stackable boxes, drawer units and other storage systems that allow for easily assembly and your own distribution. Maybe it is too grey for your living room but will do nicely in any workshop, cellar or garden shed.
::Lasentiu...
For our next act we’d like to welcome to the ever growing TreeHugger stage, the TreeHugger product label. Yes that’s right it is not just about reading or
watching that smooth flat computer screen anymore, TreeHugger is getting physical, you can hold us in your hands and stroke us! We love reviewing all the amazing eco-design work that’s going on out there in the big wide world, but there is no doubt that we are extremely tough critics and when a product is only halfway there TH writers and readers are not afraid to say it. So
Graham Hill, Lord of the TreeHugger Manor, decided it would be a good challenge to design a range of TreeHugger products which conform to our own very exacting standards, i.e. 100% eco-products, or as close as we can possibly get. Graham enlisted the talents of
Petz Scholtus, as his trusty eco-designer sidekick, and they hit the ground running. The first product out of the Hill/Scholtus/TreeHugger design stable is the amazingly tactile StuffBump! StuffBump? Yes
StuffBump - a fantastic and fun storage system which, using a clever die cut pattern, allows a flat piece of material to be opened up and stuffed with small belongings, thus becoming a bump. ...
Eco online stores are all the rage right now, there seems to be a new one popping up every week!
The Natural Store and
Coco's Shoppe are just two we've written about recently. But hey we’re not complaining, the more the better we say, there’s plenty of room for everybody on this world wide web of ours. The key to a successful online store is that it is easy to use and has it’s own distinctive style.
Eco Home is successful in both these aims, using strong colours and sharp images to create an attractive and fun ‘shop window’. The Eco Home Store was recently launched by Jane and Ali who say, ‘We wanted to create a sustainable business that made sustainability fun, neither of us is a lentil chomping weirdy-beardy, but normal everyday people who enjoy life, our friends and home.’ ...
We'll be working on better category archives soon. In the meantime, take a look at the
if you really want to dig around, or use the search box at the top of the page.
on 06.18.09
To give the headline context, here's Haworth's Profile
Twenty-one boxes filled with 7,000 unique seed samples from more than 36 African nations were shipped to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a facility being built on a remote island in the Arctic Circle as a repository of last resort for humanity’s agricultural heritage...
