New Chair Sustainable from Start to Finish

Designer’s Abbott Miller and Brian Raby created an ingenious new chair for the Design for a Living World exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. All exhibits had to use materials from endangered eco-systems. Miller and Raby’s chair is constructed from FSC certified jatoba wood found in Bolivia. Three chairs can be made from each sheet of this sustainably grown ply wood. Along with the beautiful aesthetics, what makes this a great design is that the pieces lie flat when unassembled for smaller packing. This cuts down on packaging waste, and the gas and space needed to ship it. The chair is designed in a way that when it arrives it is put together with out the need of any adhesives. Simply use a rubber mallet to put this beautiful piece together.

Repurposed Furniture by Scrapile

Being a part of the design industry, one of my main concerns is the amount of waste that is constantly going in to landfills. There is a lot of attention on new products that are environmentally friendly, moreover it is extremely important to try to preserve and reuse what has already been created. On my quest to find innovative re purposed products, I came across the duo that is Scrapile.

Scrapile was co founded in 2003 by Carlos Salgado and Bart Bettencourt. These designers take scrap pieces that are headed to the landfill from New York's woodworking industry, and turn them in to one of kind pieces of art. Because they use scraps, each piece is unique. The use of many different woods gives a very distinct striping affect that ties the entire line together. Not only are scrap wood pieces used to create the designs, non toxic adhesives and organic oils are used to finish them off. Scrapile is a great example of how something useful, current, and beautiful can be created by re purposing something that already exists. So before you throw away a broken or unused piece, think how you may be able to give it a new life.

Solar Powered Bus Shelters

Lundberg Design has won a competition put on by Clear Channel, and MTA to create a new bus shelter model for the city of San Francisco. The original design called for photovoltaic cells that were housed in a glass canopy. 3-Form, agreed to create the wave like roof panels that were designed to replicate the hills of the city. Instead of glass, the company created a polycarbonate that was made up of 40% pre consumer recycled material. 3-Form will be manufacturing 1,100 of the shelters for the city within the next five years.

Shown in the picture below are the organic photovoltaic panels. These Power Plastic Strips are created by Konarka and grab enough of the sun's energy to not only power the shelters, moreover to put power back on the city's grid.

3-Form makes many low impact architectural products. The 3 major lines are Varia Ecoresin, 100 Percent, and Chroma. All of these lines are SCS, and Greenguard certified. Varia Ecoresin is manufactured with a minimum of 40% post consumer recycled material. The 100 percent line, as its name suggests is made of 100% post consumer recycled material. It is recyclable and is made from materials such has milk and detergent bottles. The Chroma consists of resin panels that can continuously be re-surfaced, and re-colored. Below are some interior installations of 3-Form products.

The Tides Oyster Bar

3-Form Glass

3-Form Storm Conference Room

Weiss Residence

Dirtt Showroom

Dirtt Show Room

Sustainable Counter Tops

While researching alternative counter tops for a kitchen remodel, I came across a great product called Eco Top by Klip Tech. The surface is made from a blend of bamboo fiber, and FSC certified post consumer recycled paper. It is also bound with a 100% water based system. Along with being sustainable, Eco Top is very durable. It can take heat up to 360 degrees, and can be sanded or cut without breaking or cracking.
Although it will last decades, if you ever decide to replace it, it can be used for bio fuel production. Eco Top won the 2009 Bloom award, and was named by Sustainable Industries Magazine one of the top 10 Green building products of 2008. Eco Top comes in a variety of colors that make it easily blend with many different design styles. Below are some installation examples. For more information go to www.kliptech.com/ecotop

Designing With Cork

P3 wall panels by notNeutral

By now most people have heard of cork flooring, or are realizing that it has more uses than just that of a mundane note board. Cork is a very green material, and because of this many new uses for the product are being played with. Cork is actually the bark of the Cork oak tree. It is harvested on a nine year cycle. The bark grows back, making it a renewable resource. Cork also has a cushion quality that makes it quiet, resilient, and soft to walk on. These attributes also make it a natural insulator, and create good acoustical properties. With so many great qualities and uses, more artistic applications are being created. Below are some great examples.

These pictures are showing some of the pieces in the Vitra Cork Family Stool collection

The following two chairs are from Tretiak

This is the Lucky table lamp from designer Serena&Lilly. I love this piece not only because it is cork, moreover it is more transitional in style, and would be easy to incorporate in to any interior.

Wall treatment by Globus Cork

Domino Magazine

Card Board Furniture

Hello all, welcome to my first blog post. In honor of earth week I thought I would start off with Eco-friendly furniture. I love card board furniture. It is very durable, inexpensive, readily available, and recyclable. Here are some of my favorites.

This piece is called the "Wiggle" chair. Who better to start off with than the master himself, Frank Gehry.

This is an amazing piece from a company called Bloxes. Below you can see how they are put together. The pieces can be made in to many different applications including wall dividers.

Leo Kempf coffee tables.

These pendants were created by Giles Miller and are from Farm Design Ltd.

This inexpensive collapsible chair is called the Pause Stool. It is my newest love from cb2.

Here is my own attempt. This is a piece I made a few years ago for a school project. This one is child size but I am thinking about making a full size rocking chair version. Stay tuned for another favorite material of mine...cork!