Name Name
titledescript
You wouldn't know it from looking at the elegant craftsmanship of the decks, but Loyal Dean longboards were basically an afterthought. The company is the brainchild of childhood buds Greg “Loyal” Perry and Dino “Dean” Pierone, who run a custom door company in Los Angeles. A couple years back, Pierone decided to use some the scrap wood in their shop to make a......read more
It's always a score when you discover that a stunning bit of design has tight eco credentials to boot. Such is the case with the colorful outdoor furniture creations of Loll Designs. The Duluth, Minnesota company crafts stylish and durable outdoor chairs, tables, benches, and accessories from post-consumer, industrial high-density polyethylene. What the hell is that, you ask? It's the same......read more
Michael Jantzen has been doing creative things in sustainable architecture for over thirty years, well before "prefab" and "net-zero" and became building design buzzwords. The Los Angeles based architect, who was Buckminster Fuller protege in the 70s, cements his well-earned reputation with the M-House, a labyrinthine building powered by alternative energy sources like the sun and......read more
It's shocking to learn to that more than 27 million tons of dead unmarketable fish are caught and thrown back into the sea each and every year. The SafetyNet is a technological advancement designed to drastically reduce unwanted "by-catch" and save the lives of juvenile and endangered fish that get tangled in traditional trawling nets. The SafetyNet concept, envisioned by Dan Watson,......read more
Clover Chadwick, owner of Dandelion Ranch here in Los Angeles, describes her approach to floral design as "natural, organic, balanced, with lots of movement." It's a design philosophy rooted in her experiences studying agriculture and working in a Napa eatery, where fresh, seasonal ingredients were the order of the day. Chadwick's creations involve wild, native plants that are outside the realm......read more
Natural, fast-growing rattan is enjoying a sort of renaissance in the design world. Unfortunately, conventional rattan harvesting practices tends to harm tropical forests where it grows. Enter WWF's Sustainable Rattan Project, an EU-funded program for sustainable production and processing of rattan in the Mekong region of Southeast Asia. "Forests with such a wide variety of flora and......read more
The Deepwater Horizon drilling disaster was caused by a faulty design of the blowout preventer and a piece of trapped pipe, says an official report published by the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Department of the Interior. According to the 551-page report, "The primary cause of failure was identified as the blind shear rams failing to fully close and seal due to a portion of drill pipe trapped......read more
This compact glass form, designed by Toronto's gh3 architects, sits on a granite plinth at the edge of Stoney Lake, Ontario. With a transparent, north-facing facade that's continuously bathed in diffuse light, the structure is perfectly suited for its intended use as a photographer's studio. From the outset, ecological considerations factored into the design. The granite’s......read more
Our friends at Loomstate featured this revolutionary bit of green building on their Act Natural blog. The trailblazing piece of architecture is the family home of Push Design's Anthony Brenner, whose daughter has extreme chemical sensitivities that limited what construction materials could be used. Located in Asheville, NC, the walls of the home are filled with hempcrete, a hemp-based,......read more
Belgians love their beer (hey, we love their beer too) so you know there's no shortage of plastic beer crates in the country. What to do with them all? If you're Brussels architecture firm SHSH, you design a massive pavilion using 33,000 of them. Built to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1958 Universal World Exhibition in Brussels, the Bonheur Provisoire was dedicated to public......read more
