Name Name
titledescript
Here is a welcome product for people (like us) whose attempts to grow herbs indoors have been met with unequivocal failure. The Grow Bottle, from Potting Shed Creations' newest collection of smart and sustainable gardening products, makes year-round indoor herb farming clean and easy. Made from an upcycled wine bottle, the Grow Bottle is a hydroponic herb garden designed for simple reuse. When......read more
Oregon-based eyewear innovators Shwood hooked up with the HUF skate team in pursuit of Shwood's latest design experiment: shades made from broken skateboard decks. The results, shaped entirely in Shwood's woodshop, are a one-of-a-kind pair of sustainable sunglasses, crafted purely out of curiosity. We'd love to see these hit the market. From Shwood: A simple experiment with nature. Born from......read more
Here's an interesting floor piece from Toronto's DesignRepublic that's sure to warm up any room. Looking like a collection of round stones, the Pebble Rug is actually made of extra material left over from fuzzy toy animal production. After a long day, who wouldn't want to lay down on a carpet of cuddly teddy bear arms? The Pebble Rug is available in four colors:......read more
On Chicago's west side, derelict and empty buildings are a regular aspect of the landscape. And when the buildings get demolished, the building materials are largely sent to landfills. Rebuilding Exchange, a Chicago nonprofit launched three years ago, intervenes in this waste stream to keep construction and demolition materials out of the landfill. According to their website, the outfit has......read more
Yanko Design hips us to these fantastic lamps from designer Alex Kovatchev. Looking a lot like industrial-style modern lighting, Wash Lamps are actually made from a washing machine drum (the part you put your clothes in). The holes in the barrel that send water through the machine work to send light around the room. Pretty nifty!...read more
Okay, so we know that biking is the most eco-friendly mode of transport. But what's the most eco-friendly form of bike? Starling & Hero have your answer. The South African startup restores is building a business on restoring old, beat-up bikes into beautiful cruisers and racers. Starling & Hero founder Emile Kotze scours thrift stores, garage sales, and friends' basements for......read more
Summer means traveling, so it's time to start getting prepped for hitting the road. Start with an organizer that keeps all your travel vitals safe and secure. Poketo's Upcycled Leather Passport Case is the nicest looking solution we've seen. Made from 100% vintage sofa leather, each two-tone passport case comes in a one-of-a-kind colorway. A large exterior pocket puts your ticket and boarding......read more
As 2011 ends and we find some time for reflection, I am thinking a lot about the issue of material consumption and sustainability. Many of my students believe that a key answer to the crisis of planetary sustainability is for individuals to reduce their material consumption. When they say this, they are not thinking of the planet's poorest people, but the planet's richest people. There is a case......read more
London-based creative studio Agency of Design sweeps the table with these new Energy Trumps cards, spotted on Inhabitat. The deck of 45 cards acts as a visual tool for understanding the environmental properties of different materials. Equally relevant for both designers and consumers, the cards present key environmental info for each material, including embodied energy, embodied water,......read more
In this Eat LACMA episode, we hang out with art collective Didier Hess, the founders of LA-based design group Materials & Applications. The architects and designers by training — and uncategorizable visionaries in practice — designed and built a totally eco-friendly hydroponic tilapia farm (complete with a water pump powered by solar panels) on the LACMA grounds. Dubbed by the museum and......read more
