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Exotic seasonings often steal the limelight from plain ol' salt and pepper, but it is the latter two that act as the bedrock of good flavor. Portuguese cork house Materia teamed with Japan's Nendo studio to create "Par," a salt-and-pepper shaker pair in agglomerated cork and glass. Par works to keep salt and pepper in check, with the cork piece acting as a stand that keeps the contents......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......read more
Electric Avenue: The race for electric car dominance is underway, and GM is emerging as the early front-runner. According to CNN Money, since production began last November, U.S. sales of the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid are three times that of the all-electric Nissan Leaf. On the strength of those numbers, GM is planning to roll out the Volt to all 50 states by the end of the year. Material......read more
Foraged Food Porn: Thanks to Cold Splinters, we just discovered our new favorite food blog. Whole Larder Love comes correct with "thrilling yarns of cooking, hunting, fishing, and harvesting" from Ballarat, Australia. Beauty photos! Re Up Gang: Looking to build green? The Design for Reuse Knowledge Exchange is the online encyclopedia of materials reuse. Good resource. Eco Brick and Mortar:......read more
If you're into smart, simple household objects, you'll find a happy place in London's Jasper Morrison shop, which carries a well curated array of functional design products. This Cork Door Wedge is a fine example. Designed by Portuguese-born, London-based designer Hugo Passos, the wedge is handmade using highly renewable Portuguese cork, adding a natural vibe to a useful everyday object.......read more
Suzanne Jacobs for Grist Hold on to your food scraps, people! Anaerobic digestion is very in right now, and you know what that means — your self-righteous compost bins might not be the only game in town anymore when it comes to reducing food waste. What’s anaerobic digestion, you ask? Simple — let a bunch of bacteria feast on your unwanted food (or any organic matter, really)......read more
Studio Swine, the cross-disciplinary design duo made up of Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves, has released a video to document its Can City project. While in Sao Paulo, the pair built a mobile foundry that smelts aluminum cans using waste vegetable oil as fuel. With the ability to make both moulds and finished pieces on-site, Can City turns the street into a local factory. In Sao Paulo, over......read more
Founded in 2009 by Kristen Wentrcek, Brooklyn's Wintercheck Factory produces American-made, design-focused products at affordable price points. Fromt he brand's furniture collection comes the Felt Top Table, a beautifully rustic coffee table made using reclaimed pieces from South Carolina. The original pieces featured linoleum tops, which Wintercheck covers with a dense, structural 1/8" F-3 felt.......read more
