Portland’s Renovo Bikes is quietly building a reputation for their super functional, slick-looking wooden bike frames. The lightweight, smooth-riding Pandurance Road Bike, from the company’s Panda bamboo series, is made from, you guessed it, bamboo, one of our planet’s most sustainable woods. Renovo's Panda series is green with no apologies for performance. As a material for making......read more
Adorbs alert! Discovery assembled an "awwww"-inspiring slide show of endangered baby animals. Are fixies over? We have no idea, but this bamboo joint from Germany's Arndt Menke-Zumbragel tells us no. Lance Armstrong is down too. The world's most famous cyclist called it a "killer wooden bike" on his Twitter. Can't disagree. Check out those rear forks! ......read more
At the tender age of 25, Mexican industrial design student Diego Cardenas is doing big things in the realm of bamboo bicycle design. Inspired by photos of other bamboo bike creations — including the first commercial design, unveiled at a London trade fair in 1894 — Cardenas felt he could do better. Judging from these pics, he may be right. After attending a bamboo workshop in Europe,......read more
Sustainable designers Kenneth Cobonpue and Albrecht Birkner have joined forces to shape what's being touted as the world's first biodegradable car. The Phoenix is a superlight roadster built from rapidly renewable bamboo and rattan, along with steel and nylon. Borrowing design principles from Mother Nature herself, the exterior structure is built like a leaf and the interior is a single woven......read more
Wit the popularlty of New York City's High Line, other cities are looking for ways to incorporate elevated green spaces into public infrastructure. Recently a Los Angeles developer announced plans for "High Line West" in Hollywood. With "Urban Air," LA-based designer and SHFT compadre Stephen Glassman introduces a new twist on the aerial garden rage. The plan involves converting LA billboards......read more
Picture a giant, spiky tumbleweed from another planet and you get an idea what Massoud Hassani's Mine Kafon looks like. The project to bring cheap and easy-to-build mine detonators to Afghan minefields has just surpassed its Kickstarter goal of 100,000 GBP (approximately 161,000 USD). Hassani, a graduate of Design Academy Eindhoven who grew up in Kabul, Afghanistan, created the Mine......read more
Located on Koh Kood, an island in the Gulf of Thailand, the Children's Activity and Learning Centre was designed by Dutch firm 24H>Architecture as part of Soneva Kiri Resort. In a design inspired by the anatomy of a manta ray, the building is a vertiable paradise for visiting kids, providing them with a space to eat, learn, discover, and play -- while raising their ecological awareness.......read more
The Profile House, designed by Black Line One X Architecture Studio (BLOXAS), is an expressive homage to the industrial character of Brunswick East, a neighborhood in Melbourne's inner north. Seeking an addition to their Californian Bungalow, the clients emphasized the sustainable performance of their future home. They also wanted a space with a feeling of openness, lightness, and visual......read more