t this point the term sustainability isn’t even sustainable. Greenwashing, leaf logos. It’s getting tired, fast. Designers and brand managers can only do so much before the PR and advertising teams take over and produce a commercial or ad that ends up backfiring once people start researching the company. And why is that by the way? Why do companies think their customers or the general public don’t have the internet?

Even beyond the clear signals coming from consumers for green products and company practices, there’s still a clear advantage for big businesses to invest in the emerging field.  Imagine a competitor paying a third of what you do for energy because they utilize solar and you use oil. You begin to see why the term sustainable needs to be taken seriously by companies, not consumers. It turns out in the end it’s not so much about recycling as it is about your business going extinct.

L. Hunter Lovins has been at the forefront of the business case for sustainability for as long as I’ve been interested in the topic. She’s co-author of Natural Capitalism and the Founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions, both of which share a common theme of looking at the value for value concepts of nature itself as a business model. It’s an interesting concept, and Lovins is the perfect guide not only due to her knowledge and experience, but to her slightly sarcastic and blunt way of explaining things.

The video above is quite long, but totally worth it. And even though it’s a bit older, everything in it seems to become more relevant every time I watch it. From global warming to Germany’s electric grid to China eating our lunch, everything we as designers, business owners, and humans need to know about the future of American business is covered in this genius presentation.

stumbled across the book Paper in Architecture by Shigeru Ban and was really impressed with his use of paper tubes as a building material. The recycled paper that goes into what is essentially a reinforced cardboard tube is quite an impressive alternative to wood and other common raw materials. Nevertheless, there were a few obstacles in the way of his initial use of the concept, mainly passing Japan’s strict building code (a problem he would face again later in Germany).

Once in use, Ban found an additional benefit to the concept in that the tubing itself could be manufactured anywhere instead of relying on transportation. This led to designing various disaster relief shelter structures that required little effort to manufacture and employ.

Traditionally, one of the main problems with previously designed relief shelters is that they used metal for the framing and metal can be sold or stolen, therefore defeating the purpose and possibly making things worse for the victims using them. Ban’s designs alleviate this basic problem and have since been used for relief projects ranging from the Kobe earthquake to Rwanda. His paper framed tents and temporary structures from churches to town halls have all met with much success.

Ban’s commitment to humanitarian efforts and sustainable design are a credit to his industry. Far too often we only see the cutting edge in architecture applied to million dollar projects — the results of which we all enjoy for their obvious qualities, but at this point in time, the concept of the common good is a subject all fields of design could stand to focus on a little closer. After all,  good design can solve any problem as Shigeru Ban has clearly shown us.

Learning from Nature How to Create Flow Without Friction (photo via Biomimicry Institute)

Learning from Lotus Plants How to Clean without Cleaners (photo via Biomimicry Institute)

iomimicry, as I would describe it, is the goal of reproducing nature’s solutions to problems. Problems like, how do I stay alive? And how can I live better? How can I take advantage of the Internet (at that time, it was just birds, bees and wind)? Nature has an amazing set of skills when it comes to problem solving and biomimicry is about adapting those natural solutions to our many man-made problems.

Solar power is an obvious use of biomimicry, but it can be taken much further. A certain flower, orchids I believe, have a built in system for cleaning its petals. Its design on a micro level allows rainwater to more efficiently remove dirt and other unwanted particles as it moves to the ground, leaving the leaves sparkling clean. There’s a biomimicry-based business opportunity right there. Got a city? Got rain?

So as both consumers and companies become more familiar with the concept of sustainability, we as designers, engineers, entrepreneurs and hippies need to take a closer look at the possibilities within sustainability. The Biomimicry Guild or perhaps the Biomimicry Institute might just be the perfect place to learn more. My own city of Portland, Oregon is even in on the forefront, utilizing fungi no less. And no, I don’t mean magic mushrooms. Portland based Brightworks is on top of things apparently, even helping neighborhoods to become EcoDistricts. Fast Company has the full story here.

What we as designers, artists and developers take away from an investigation into biomimicry can initially seem fruitless. However, we all know that knowledge is power and given time, ideas grow. Definitely a little slower in the business community, but nevertheless, sustainable companies will soon make their mark, if they haven’t already, and soon enough, we will have a very real choice between designing for the future and designing for the past.

panish designer Jaime Hayon continually impresses me. His latest project, the Smart Grid Gallery, is a lovely showcase of objects inspired by solar and wind energy — just in time for Earth Day, which is happening today. Hayon teamed up with Enel, an Italian power company that produces, distributes and sells electricity and gas. Enel is known for implementing a smart grid system in Italy that was completed in 2005, the earliest and largest example to date. A smart grid, according to Wikipedia, “delivers electricity from suppliers to consumers using two-way digital technology to control appliances at consumers’ homes to save energy, reduce cost and increase reliability and transparency.” Like the internet, smart grids are like networks that allow exchange of information.

Hayon’s little “imaginary world connects various forms of renewable energy” and is described in more detail below:

The pavilion is a luminous grid that constantly transforms, creating an aseptic environment but one that is dynamic and enveloping at the same time. The furnishings inside, heterogeneous in terms of form and function, represent the different energy sources and their concatenation: luminous elements power a table whose top is made with photovoltaic panels (solar energy) that, in turn, is connected by colored wires to a cabinet completely covered with small propellers (wind energy) and rotating vases (nuclear energy), all moving with self-produced energy. In the development of the details of each single work, with great creativity and a very high level of productive quality, Jaime Hayon wants to make the most complex technology more human and comprehensible.

Battery switch station design ca. 2008

Charge spot with demo charge plug

Demo Plug ca. 2008

Welcome screen

Better Place charge spots in the snow

Renault Fluence ZE Concept

The Renault Fluence ZE interior

t’s been a long time coming for the electric car, and as Europe rushes to solidify their plan of action for the move away from oil, many nations’ eyes are fixed on Denmark. Better Place, a California start-up, has teamed up with Denmark’s major power company to create the first major electric grid to support electric cars. This is a huge venture, and not without its risks, but Better Place has secured 350 million to start the project and everything’s a go at this point. Money however, might not be the major obstacle in the way of success for this project.

As if we needed another example of how design can change the world, the main roadblock (pun intended) is the lack of unity in a standard system of getting the electricity to the cars in a fashion that resembles the soon-to-be old fashioned gas station. Are battery swapping stations more feasible than pump-style plugs? What if a Russian car drives to France? Will the plug fit the socket? Do you have Russian car batteries in Germany? With car companies, power plants and even governments weighing in on the subject, it’s the lack of global unity here that’s going to factor heavily on the creation of a cohesive plan of action.

Denmark is already getting 19% of their electricity from wind power and the proposed electric grid will tie in with it. The electricity you would charge your car with would come from it, but even better, your car becomes a storage chamber and once plugged in at night can feed the excess back to the main grid — even at a profit to you possibly. Of course the kinks need to get worked out, but essentially you’d have a system where thousands of cars could store the excess power generated from wind power and feed it back into the main grid at night in order to replenish the necessary levels needed  during peak usage, thus reducing the cost of transportation practically down to the cost of running the powering stations. Huge tax credits and free parking are also in the works for potential buyers of electric cars to kick start interest.

Back in the US, the hybrid car seems to be more important to manufacturers than we might have previously thought judging by the North American International Auto Show. And I have to say, everything there looked a lot better than the awful box on wheels designs coming out of Europe right now. I mean, come on. If you’re going to make something that small and unsafe, at least make it look cool. America however, is still at the hybrid stage for the most part, but at least can still be  packaged in somewhat of a decent looking car. And yes, as far as design is concerned, Japan shreds everyone, of course.

But getting back to the purpose of it all, Denmark, no matter what their future cars might end up looking like, could be the prototype for the future. Germany and its solar power program is another prime example of a green success story that other nations are taking note of. In America, it’s ironically the Chevy Volt that might tip us over into a viable solar and wind power system–ironic because in the late 30s, GM bought and dismantled the existing electric streetcar system in order to sell gasoline engine driven buses and were basically caught red handed. However, even I have to root for the Volt’s success. So however late to the game America and other nations are, here’s hoping Denmark can set yet another example of utilizing a sustainable energy source.

n 2006, an eleven-mile wide, ten-foot tall blue fence was built around Hackney Wick and Stratford in East London. The thick layers of plywood were painted with a special kind of high gloss, water resistant blue. Andy Beckett from The Guardian called it “the colour of the future.” That future is a temporary city-within-a-city; the playground for the 2012 Olympic park. The blue security barrier was installed for public safety reasons during demolition, and has recently been taken down and replaced with a wire mesh fence. One might be left to wonder, what happened to all those miles of futuristic blue?

StudioSuperniche, a collective of architects and designers based in London saw this as an opportunity to develop the Olympic Legacy Toolkit, which they described as:

The beginning of a catalogue of temporary structures to be fabricated out of the blue plywood designed to facilitate local occupation of the site post-Games, activate the vacant plots and allow communities to reclaim the vast empty landscape as their own.

Focusing on the niche user-groups of London’s Lower Lea Valley – from bird-watchers to market stall-holders, allotment keepers to model boaters – this collection of urban furniture will populate the site in the wake of the Games, offering a provisional set of tools to stimulate an evolutionary model of local participatory development.

Their designs are wonderful, and it makes me sad that the structures are only temporary. Plywood is plywood, though. Isn’t the ping pong table just awesome? The idea of finding secondary usage for things that might otherwise end up as landfill is not only super sustainable, but a beautiful art form in itself. Looking forward to more from this lovely London collective.

t’s well documented that humans have caused a tremendous amount of wildlife destruction, everything from tampering with natural water systems to causing off-shore oil leaks. Many of these issues are covered in Our Vanishing Wilderness, a landmark series that I encourage everyone to watch (not just for the 70s vibe & music, which I admit, is pretty awesome) but to get a history lesson on important environmental issues that we’re still faced with four decades later. There are eight episodes in total, and as far as I know, they can only be watched via the PBS website.

Background:

40 years ago, a small crew of filmmakers set out to document some of the more pressing issues involving wildlife in America. They made eight half-hour films around the country–it ended up being the first environmental tv series in the US. Shot in 1969, the issues weren’t new, but hadn’t been handled much yet on television–the medium had yet to embrace the environmental movement.

‘Our Vanishing Wilderness’ was a landmark program for National Educational Television and public broadcasting (pre-PBS). The material in it pre-dates the first Earth Day, but definitely reflects the nation’s growing interest at the time in pollution and environmental issues.

Some of the material is dated, and often speculative. The series has an obvious bias, but it’s simultaneously quaint and incisive, and particularly of its era. The footage of animals in the wild is spectacular; the tone of the program unflinching. It was a necessary step in the development of environmental media, and it took another few decades for the next tv series on the issues to arrive.

uthor Paul Collins once saw Tom Kelly’s house many years ago. It was built of 51,000 beer bottles in the year 1901. Collins recounted, “Dipsomania is a boon for such builders: a similar honeycomb-like structure of bottles and mortar, built by a pharmacist in Hillsville, Virginia in the 1940s, was nicknamed The House of a Thousand Headaches for all the hangovers it held.” That made me laugh. So yeah, people build stuff out of bottles, that we know, but few know of one particularly laudable endeavor undertaken by Heineken Breweries: the WOBO (World Bottle).

It has been exactly half a decade since its epiphanic inception, an idea that was mass-produced three years after Alfred Heineken walked the beaches of Curaçao in 1960. Bottles had accumulated in the sand as ineffectual discards, many of which were produced by Heineken. The island had no economic means of recycling nor returning the bottles to their makers. In Holland, the average bottle was used 30 times before being discarded. In Curaçao, bottles were used once and thrown out.

As the story goes, there usually exists a lack of affordable housing in lower-class societies. Alfred, the compassionate chairman, envisioned a solution to the problem and asked Dutch architect John Habraken to design the WOBO, a “brick that holds beer.” Martin Pawley noted in his book Garbage Housing that the WOBO was “the first mass production container ever designed from the outset for secondary use as a building component.”

The WOBO’s interlocking design was three years in the making, made to work like brick and mortar construction. Habraken explained that one of the construction challenges “was to find a way in which corners and openings could be made without cutting bottles.” A test run of 100,000 WOBOs were produced in 1963 in two sizes (500 & 350 mm) with the smaller bottle acting similarly to a half brick. A thousand bottles bonded with cement mortar could build a 10″ x 10″ shack, and construction would be simple because the instructions could be printed right on the beer label.

In 1965, a prototype glass shed (above) was built near Alfred Heineken’s villa in in Noordwijk, Netherlands. Sadly, it is the first and only WOBO house in existence. The WOBO did not impress the company’s marketing department and the whole thing eventually fell to the wayside. How could Heineken market itself as a premium beer if it would end up lining the walls of a poor person’s home? Other questions soon followed: What if a bottle fell loose and hit a passerby, or worse yet, an entire bottle house collapsed? Who would be responsible? Perhaps Mr. Heineken was too ahead of his time, however, the WOBO still remains an amazing example of forward thinking in utilitarian and humanitarian design.

Sources: Wikipedia; Cabinet; & Inhabitat

arlier this year, high fashion house Hermès and iconic Monaco yacht brand Wally unveiled a revolutionary mega yacht named WHY, an acronym for Wally Hermès Yachts. This 58 metre-long, 38 metre-wide motor yacht is supposed to redefine the art of living on the sea with a low environmental impact. The resulting form and function is quite impressive: photovoltaic panels on the glass hull sides, a massive roof opening that operates like Venetian blinds, a 25 metre-long forward end swimming pool (with thermo regulated water, obviously), and a massive promenade on deck.

While altogether super rad, I’m not quite sold on the interior. My main critique is that the spiral staircase looks too Guggenheim-y of the Nora Roberts variety, you know, the kind of stairs that would be staged with chintzy romance and roses. I had expected a more minimal straight-flight design. I’m sure all the discriminating billionaires out there would customize everything to their own needs though, equipped with the necessities of diamonds and ponies. My only question is, where is the helipad?

In terms of sustainability, WHY requires less power at cruising speed than a boat of equal size. Its diesel-electric propulsion is the most efficient motorization today, and the surface of the photovoltaic panels, almost 900 square metres, covers most of the boat’s auxiliary system needs. If I were to spend mad scrilla on a WHY yacht, I wouldn’t feel so bad knowing that I’m saving up to 200 tons of diesel per year. Maybe in a few years, the Colorcubic headquarters will be cruising at a lovely twelve knots, saving diesel while redefining the art of working on the sea. I won’t hold my breath.

decided to revisit Interstuhl, one of our favorite furniture design companies, touching on what we’ve considered to be the absolute pinnacle of industrial design perfection. Honestly though, what can I say that Christy hasn’t already covered previously?

In this particular post, I want to curate specifically, the White Silver Chair from Interstuhl. This mark of beauty and elegance. An absolute masterpiece. I’m almost afraid to mention the price tag (a hefty $5,000.00+ for just one of these chairs… easily). Now you’re probably asking yourself, “why would anyone EVER pay that much for a chair?” Well, beside the obvious fact that no other chair can hold a candle to this (except for maybe the Eames Lounge chair), take into consideration that these chairs are made to order, they’re ergonomic, and they’re made with the absolute best materials. The white one specifically, (my gem, goddess, temptress) is made with a white-silver coat over brushed aluminum. They’re also 98% recyclable, so in a moment of insanity, you decide you don’t want this chair anymore (and I’m not around to take it off your hands), you can rest assured knowing that it can be disassembled and kicked to the curb to be picked up for recycling. The orange seating also comes standard with this one particularly, but if you don’t fancy the orange seating, you can swap it for their other custom colored seating options.

Well, I think it’s time to wrap this up, as I’m beginning to cry over the realization that I may never own one of these stunning beauties. But… If I ever come into a hefty sum of money, I’ll most certainly be purchasing a couple. Specifically this model.