My favourite thing at ICFF 2008 was the gorgeous
Stilvoll adjustable standup desk; beautifully made of sustainably harvested woods, built to last forever and adjust from desk to standup height. It was also the very first thing I ever filmed, and I did a terrible job, eliciting comments like:
Was the cameraman smitten with the demonstrator? Saw much of his lovely face, but little of the stunning desk he was presenting...
I thought I owed them a remake....
We do love multifunctional furniture, but usually the functions are prosaic and practical. Not at the Test Collective. which has produced a coffee table that you can take outside (or I suppose leave inside) and use as a sk8tr ramp. It is made from bamboo, with steel edges to grind your board on. No doubt it will shortly have some colourful gouges and scratching to enliven it. ...
Some good things come out of recessions; Designer and woodworker Andrew Moe retrenched and rethought what he was doing, and introduced a new line of more economical furniture. Andrew's work is made from reclaimed lumber, so "the need to harvest living trees is erased." The new line uses less of it, too; it is stripped down, minimalist, almost Shaker-like....
We couldn't get to BKLYN DESIGNS this year, (why do they schedule it a week before ICFF, it makes coverage impossible for anyone but New Yorkers?), but Inhabitat did a terrific job of
covering it like a blanket, and gave the Best of Show award to the Ecosystems Bada Table; I concur. This amazing transformer changes from a loveseat to a dining table in seconds; watch the animated GIF below the fold.
...
Images from ECObyCosentino
Cosentino, 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.
...
Except it isn't really a trestle table, but serves the same function: to provide an easy way to turn a slab into a table. Nicola Enrico Stäubli (known to TreeHugger readers for his terrific
Foldschool) comes up with an idea that competes with Phillippe Nigro's recently shown
Universal Base in the challenge to design a cheap, flexible and strong trestle replacement.
...
TreeHugger readers don't appear to share my fascination with mass customization, the idea that you can order exactly what YOU want, made to your specifications, instead of having to take what Mr. Big Box offers. One recent extreme example was
[me]&gogi cereal, which most commenters considered un-TreeHugger. They might say the same about M-Shape's custom table that you can build on your Nokia cell phone. Why would one want to do such a thing?
...
Transformer furniture lets people get more out of small spaces, and you are going to be a neat minimalist if you have to clean off your desk before you go to bed every night.
...
West Coast Green 2008 showed off innovative green ways to build homes and structures. But it didn't stop there. Also featured at the convention were eco-friendly ways to decorate.
NaturesCast is one such way, utilizing dry leaves and twigs harvested from forests around Compostela, Province of Cebu, The Philippines.
More photos of the beautiful creations after the jump....
To give the headline context, here's
Haworth's Profile
The market
Haworth, Inc, a Michigan-based distributor of commercial "workspace solutions", covers is diverse, including walls, floors utilities, systems, seating, lighting, desks/casegoods, storage, and tables. They boast a LEED Gold Chicago Merc showroom, have published
goals and metrics for improving, and offer a
2007 pdf report on Sustainability
What is business like without cardboard?
Haworth recently finished a 2-month test of shipping chairs and tables wrapped in protective blankets instead of cardboard containers. By using 'straps, bars and plywood tiers, the company fit an average of about 65 percent more products into its trailers, reducing the number of loads needed and eliminating cardboard waste.' The packaging apparatus is re-usable of course.
Probably means more labor by dock workers and customers you say? Sure but there are economic advantages for supplier and customer. Haworth does not need to pay for and build space to store cardboard; and "customers said they appreciated avoiding the labor of unpacking boxes and disposing of cardboard waste." ...
Kelly LaPlante's eco-friendly DIFFA installation/photo by Natalie Sojka
The design industry is not typically known for its desire to reduce, reuse and recycle. Clients who can actually afford interior designers to “do” their homes have a reputation for an “out with the old, in with the new” mentality that keeps these designers in business.
Read on to find out how sustainably-minded designer Kelly La Plante’s latest show installation took that mentality and turned it on its ear…...
On Thursday night, April 10th, the warmest New York has yet seen in April, a well-heeled crowd outfitted in suits and festive party dresses crowded into Astor Center on 4th street for A Night of Eco-Chic Entertaining, presented by the online magazine about entertaining,
Notesonaparty.com. The party was intended to show how it is possible to be both sustainable and chic in the party-hosting realm, and featured a number of participating green brands, from
Frutzzo, the "first company in America to market antioxidant-rich pomegranate juice blends" in recyclable bottles, to
Organic Bouquet, which creates flower arrangements with only flowers grown using sustainable practices....
DesignBoost Finnish designer Eero Koivisto is the creator of these brightly playful end tables, made out a single material (laquered steel) that Koivisto says makes them not only built to last but also fully recyclable. Koivisto came up with the idea for the tables after his first Amazon rainforest fly-over, and the five obliquely positioned legs of the tables are meant to represent the every-which-way growth pattern of trees in a dense forest canopy.
Those legs give the tables a vulnerable, almost coltish look, but they are actually sturdy and easily arranged in a cluster (they can slightly overlap). The Amazonas tables are sold in sets of three, and in three slightly different shades of green. For each set of tables sold, about 10 Euros goes to the Swedish NGO
Children's Rainforest. Made by
Offect (Sweden) and available through
Architonic....
TreeHugger approves of objects that expand, fold out or otherwise transform to increase their usability in our lives; the more we can get out of the stuff we interact with every day, the fewer things and less space we need, right? Dining tables are certainly on this list, as most of us don't need seating for eight every night, but what do you do when it's dinner party time?
If
an inflatable table doesn't do it for you, we like the looks of the Braun Woodline table. It starts as a small round table for four, and, through a slick drawer mechanism, expands to seat eight or more -- there are three sizes that expand to seat up to 16, if you really like to party, as well as a square table option, if round isn't your style. The Woodline table, by French designer Philippe Braun (and
don't the French have all the fun?), is vaguely reminiscent of
DB Fletcher's Expanding Table, is available for sale;
contact them for details, and hit the jump to see more pics and a video of how it all works.
::Braun Woodline via
::TrendsNow (in French)...
TreeHugger loves folding and flat-packing chairs for their ability to
fold up (or even
hang up) to get out of the way, so we like the space-saving designs from
Philippe Malouin. The Hanger Chair, (pictured above) an elegant combination of coat hanger and folding chair, makes a lot of sense: not only is it good for hanging your jacket on when sitting in the chair, it can help keep your coats wrinkle-free and hanging in the closet when you aren't sitting on. Smart.
And what kind of space-saving table do you sit at in such a sleek chair? Why, an inflatable table that seats 10 and is strong enough to stand of, of course. Hit the jump to see what we mean.
...
Aside from offering a neat trick at your next dinner party, transformer furniture offers a great two-for-one deal; it allows us to live better in less space and use fewer resources doing so (which makes it a triple threat, I guess, if you count the dinner party thing). The latest example is this combo coffee/dining table available from Dwell in the UK.
Rather than a movable leg contraption, like we saw before with
the Flip Table, the table's top pops up and unfolds to double in surface area, creating dining space for six or eight from the coffee table's diminutive size (not unlike
Lee Sinclair's Convertable). Jump below the fold to see how it goes down, so to speak, and, while you're at it, check out pics of Dwell's coffee table that transforms into a laptop table. We're crossing our fingers that these'll be crossing the pond soon; for now, get more details at
::Dwell via
::Freshome...
Too often, our dining tables are relegated to dust-collecting duty when it isn't dinner time. Functioning in the same way beds do in our lives -- that is, totally necessary when we need them, but just occupying space when we don't -- few dining tables offer the functional equivalent of something like a futon that can become a couch when not in use for its other purpose as a bed. Fusion Tables hopes to change that, by combining dining and billiards into one table. Yep, a pool table that changes into an elegant dining table, and back again, in just a few seconds.
It might not be quite as smart as the
Ex Libris Bookshelf Table, but we bet it's more fun. Hit the jump to see more pics of it converting, and in classy dining mode.
::Fusion Tables via
::Freshome
See also
::BuyGreen: Dining Tables...
Bulb: A Space-Saving Dining Table Concept by Marta Antoszkiewicz
No, it's not invasion of the pod people, despite appearances otherwise. Like
the amazing Casulo, which hides an entire room's worth of furniture in a single box, this bulbous concept is actually a table and four chairs. When not in use, the chairs obscure the table, making it not only a brilliant space saver (and
using less space is greener than using more) but just dang cool.
Designed by Marta Antoszkiewicz, who also brought us the
IKEA-esque "Kitchenette" dining table with a similar space-efficient design, dreamed this playful concept up for kids, though it'd make a fun conversation piece and interesting dining experience just about anywhere.
More on Space Saving Dining Room Table and Chairs::Marta Antoszkiewicz via
::The Design Blog...
New parents will tell you that the rate at which their youngsters grow is both a blessing and a curse: great that there aren't more
diapers to change (unless they've gone
diaper-free); not so great that they outgrow all their stuff, faster than flipping the desk calendar, it seems. Designers Frank & Stanimira Rafaschieri have a solution for the latter: design that grows with your child.
We've seen this kind of thing before, with the
Stokke Tripp Trapp chair and
Nest high chair; the "Evolutionary Chair and Low Table" adds the extra bonus of a chair to the mix. The pieces stack to create any number of seating needs, including four chair heights and two tables, providing a place for kids aged 6 months to 5 or 6 years to put their feet up. The one-two punch of versatile growth and multi-tasking make this a pretty sleek, ultra-useful design. About the only thing it can't do is change all those diapers. Hit the jump to see all the possible iterations of the slick setup. ::Frank & Stanimira Rafaschieri via
::Yanko Design...
Apartment dwellers (and all those who think smaller is better) know that one of the keys to comfortable life in a small space is making it feel as spacious as possible; a few strategies for accomplishing this include
keeping the clutter down, using
individual items that serve multiple purposes and finding things that serve big purposes but have small footprints. Designer Marta Antoszkiewicz's "Kitchenette" collection falls into that last category; it's a cozy kitchen table whose chairs neatly slide away under the table when not in use. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Quite reminiscent of
Hans Olsen's Compact dining set (
IKEA makes one as well, we're told), "Kitchenette" is smaller and replaces the warmth of the wood in Olsen's mid-century style with spare, clean, modern lines and a pop of red color in the seats. Antoszkiewicz, a recent graduate of the Industrial Design program at Carleton University, is looking for a design position to put this and other cool ideas to work. Hit the jump for more pics and see more at
::Marta Antoszkiewicz and
::Coroflot via
::Yanko Design...
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 11. 5.09
