Modular Love and More Highlights of CO-Design
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 07.24.07
Courtesy of designklub comes a duo of great designs from the CO-Design exhibition (which we also mentioned yesterday), running right now through July 25 in Denver and featuring the work of Colorado-based designers. First is "Modular Love," a bent-ply piece by designer Erin Mulrooney that uses just one shape (in six identical pieces) to transform from bench to single seat to love seat...cool! The second piece, from Art with Function (whom we first spotted at this year's HauteGREEN exhibition), is below the fold.
Taking a cue from a very literal translation of their name, Art with Function is debuting a new storage unit called "The Bottom Line" that has a deconstructed, almost subversive feel to it; this is not your mother's bookshelf, for sure. Made from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified plywood and screen printed cabinet doors, its odd angles and "explosive" looks give it a cool edge that would really highlight whatever you'd want to store in it. Could Denver be a new hotspot for sustainable design? ::CO-design via ::designklub
When is this site going to realize we aren't going to Eco-Sheik our way out of this?
Enough w/ the ultra-trendy high-end Eco-merchandise for the Elite Green which is linked here 5 times a day, every day.
It's REDUCE, reuse, recycle...In that order.
Where is REDUCE when you are buying a whole new set of green goods for your house?
CN- I'm admittedly a biased commenter, but the fact is, people do need furniture. While you're right that the best approach is probably to keep using antiques and heirloom pieces, there simply isn't enough supply to go around, and the good quality pieces are very expensive. Most of the furniture made in the last several decades just isn't made to last very long, or it's loaded with VOCs and formaldehyde, or coated in lead based paint. It's also made from materials (MDF and particleboard) that are nearly impossible to repair. As that stuff falls apart, it needs to be replaced.
Nobody is holding up furniture as "the way out" of anything- but it can be a part of the solution. Buying fewer pieces of high quality, sustainably built furniture instead of more pieces of poorly built furniture is not a bad thing.