TreeHugger has seen some pretty funky green speakers in our day, including some made with a hemp cone, some crafted from bamboo and some made from reclaimed whiskey barrels. A new entrant to this rockin' group is "Corkspeaker", a project of the-home-project * design studio based in Berlin. They've put together these desktop speakers using recycled cork as the "box", which is not only a cool sustainable implementation of the material, but a really smart way to use cork. As a natural sound and vibration dampener, cork is a great choice for this music-related application; its unique behavior when working with resonance offers some interesting possibilities for sound design. Some of the-home-project *'s other pieces were recently on exhibition at HauteGREEN (check out our Sneak Peek series for more designs that were at the show), but we like the speakers, too, though they appear to be a work-in-progress prototype right at the moment. Check out their website for more info on the firm; we hope to hear more (yup, pun intended) about the cork speakers soon. ::the-home-project *

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