Archive for the ‘Interior Design’ Category
July 1st, 2009
Dwell Prefab Home Collection Announced
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Dwell Magazine has partnered with some very well-known architects and builders to develop a signature line of prefab homes. The homes not only focus on sustainable design and building, but look amazing as well. Turkel Design in collaboration with Lindal Cedar Homes and then Marmol Radziner Prefab each designed three modern prefab homes to be featured as part of the Dwell Home Collection. Dwell’s recent selection of these particular prefab home designs indicates the quality of design, modern amenities and most importantly the integration of sustainable features to create a efficient and eco-friendly home. (more…)
Popularity: 2% [?]
April 10th, 2009
The Most Beautiful Green Home Building Construction Project Ever?
Written by Brian Liloia, courtesy of GreenBuildingElements.com
My jaw dropped when I first watched this video tour of a beautiful owner-built green building construction project in Oregon. This particular green building is made entirely out of cob, a mixture of clay, sand, and straw.
Meka Bunch of Wolf Creek, Oregon built this stunning cob house over a four year period. Complete with hand-sculpted furniture, shelves and nooks built directly into the walls, arched windows, and a killer custom staircase, his cob building is a divine artistic achievement.
Check out the video and photos of Meka’s cob cottage for yourself:
This couch is made of cob and features wood storage tucked underneath, right next to the stove.
The kitchen features many shelves and nooks built directly into the cob walls, and also includes a small compost chute. (Look for the tilted latch.)
The wood stove is surrounded by cob for thermal mass, and includes a warm nook with shelf to culture yogurt.
Gorgeous custom-made cob staircase.
The north porch of Meka’s cob cottage.
I must say that Meka’s cob house design is one of my favorite projects that I’ve seen. This is truly a beautiful hand-built green building.
For more information, visit the Artisan Builders Collective.
(Image credit: Artisan Builders Collective)
Popularity: 21% [?]
April 2nd, 2009
A Green Modular HOM Away from Home
For a few days last week, a rustic green cabin popped up in the middle of a metropolis. Behind the iconic Pacific Design Center and in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art in West Hollywood, designers and architects walked in and out of the HOM 1 manufactured home, taking a close look at the cork floors, FSC-certified walnut wood beds, and recycled glass-and-aluminum lamps.
HOM 1, the $235,000, 1000-square-foot, 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom modular home designed by KAA Design Group, was on display as part of WESTWEEK 2009: The Business of Design, a big annual symposium for the design world. Although the model drew a crowd in the city, the HOM 1’s intended as an escape home: “HOM is about living outdoors and in, with a close connection to nature,” declares the HOM website.
The modular home combines modern design with a rustic outdoorsy feel. Buy a HOM 1, and it’ll arrive 90% assembled as a single unit, fully equipped with the latest kitchen appliances, plumbing fixtures, and energy-efficient washer and dryer. According to HOM, the streamlined process of making this modular home means less wasted energy, construction waste, and transportation emissions.
Since HOM also makes eco-friendly furniture and accessories — all of which are designed to last a long, long time — you could get your HOM 1 fully furnished too. Then you can relax on your Wima Ottoman — made of FSC-certified ipe wood, turn on your Akira pendant lamp — made with 100% organic linen, FSC-certified walnut and recycled aluminum, creating the perfect relaxing setting for reading Thoreau’s Walden.
To see many other fine examples of green prefab homes, click here.
Popularity: 25% [?]
April 1st, 2009
Hot Green Flooring Options
If you’re tired of the same old bamboo flooring, some wonderful flooring materials have come out in the last year or so. These relatively new products are exciting, beautiful, environmentally friendly and are certain to bring warmth and style to your remodel or new home. Here are our suggestions for some beautiful new flooring materials.
KirKirei is well known for its interior finish materials, including the well-known Kirei Board, an engineered panel made from sorghum stalks that is used for wall panels and cabinetry. Kirei is now making tiles from leftover coconut shells that would otherwise be sent to the landfill or burned. Coconut shells have a rich, nutty brown color that make for a durable tile that can be cut and designed into these beautiful patterns. An FSC certified wood is used for the backing material and the tiles are coated with a low-VOC resin to help protect them. These handsome tiles can be used for floors, headboards, walls, cabinets and decorative pieces.
While EcoDomo’s line of leather tiles is certainly not new, we thought them worthy of mentioning here on LIL. EcoDomo’s expansive line of tiles includes eight different colors, four different textures and a variety of shapes and sizes. The tiles are made from at least 65% post-industrial recycled leather, which has been ground up into fibers and reprocessed with natural binders like natural rubber and acacia wood bark. The leather pulp is then sheet extruded from a machine with coloring and texture. Tiles are very easy to install much like cork or vinyl, naturally sound absorbent and very luxurious looking. These tiles are not recommended for bathrooms or other rooms exposed to water and they should also be waxed occasionally to retain their natural shine.
Expanko is a well-known manufacturer of cork flooring and has recently come out with a few new styles for their Traditional Cork Flooring. Cork is sustainably harvested from the bark of cork trees every nine years, leaving the tree healthy and alive to regrow its bark. To make their flooring even more sustainable, Expanko uses 100% post-industrial cork for its traditional flooring line. Their newest styles include colored cork tiles rather than the traditional browns and also two new cork patterns designed by Italian Artisans. These new and nontraditional looking cork floors bring a fresh new look to a already great flooring choice. The style shown here is the Spinato Veneer.
EnviroMODE is a new line of recycled porcelain floor and counter top material made by EnviroGLAS. This colorful, resin-filled material is made from toilets and sinks that are crushed then formed into tiles and counter tops. Resin colors include red, blue, tan, black, gray and white. EnviroMODE is naturally heat and scratch resistant, has no VOCs and does not require a seal, which makes for a very low-maintenance and healthy material.
Showercork is yet another new cork flooring option that uses recycled cork material to create a rich mosaic tile. Sustainable Flooring uses post-industrial wine stoppers, cuts them into thin rounds and sets them onto a special backing material, which can easily be installed much like traditional mosaic tile sheets using glue and grout. A water-based polyurethane coating can then applied for water-resistance.
Mulberry is another post-industrial material sprouting up as for interior materials. The Mulberry tree and it’s leaves are used throughout China as food for silkworms. Each year silk worms devour the leaves off the tree, which stops the tree from growing anymore. To encourage new growth, the branches of the mulberry are trimmed, leaving a lot of leftover mulberry limbs behind, which can be processed into engineered composite wood similar to Kirei Boards. Mulberry makes for very interesting patterns and can even be naturally dyed for use as flooring, wall panels and cabinets. A number of companies have this product, but we like Engineered Timber Resources best.
To see many other excellent green flooring options, click here.
via Re-Nest and This Old House
Popularity: 13% [?]
March 24th, 2009
Cardboard Furniture: From Cheap to Artsy to DIY
Most cardboard has a pretty high recycled content — and can be easily re-recycled or composted to boot. Plus, cardboard’s also an inexpensive material that’s light and, usually, flat — characteristics that make cardboard furniture affordable (usually, at least) to make and ship. All these qualities are making cardboard — something we often think of as a low quality, one-use, disposable product — a popular material for serious eco furniture designers!
Cardboard’s an especially popular material for children’s furniture — perhaps because easy-to-recycle cardboard makes sense to use for pint-sized chairs and little cradles kids will quickly outgrow. Green Lullaby’s Eco-Cradle (above), for example, is an all-cardboard cradle made with over 60% recycled pulp! Eco-Cradle ships flat and can be assembled quickly without tools — and can also be disassembled and re-flattened to be easily stored away for the next baby. The Eco-Cradle’s available for $99.50 at Olive and Bean Boutique.
Another cardboard baby bed option’s the customizable cardboard cot by Album di Famiglia (above). However, this boxy cot’s very pricey! Parents will have to spend $220 Euros plus UPS shipping to the U.S. at the Little Fashion Gallery to get this cot.
Lots of other kid furniture’s available at Cardboardesign, a company that offers a basic kids’ drawing table ($58) and chair (2 for $45) — but then thinks outside the cardboard box to create everything from an all-cardboard lemonade stand to a rocket to a play castle too (above). The kids can certainly enjoy playing with and using these toys and furniture, but half the fun seems to be in the assembling and decorating of these cardboard structures. Each product comes with assembly instructions — and a packaway flat box for storage.
Cardboardesign also makes furniture for adults! The light, easily assembled, flat-packed tables and chairs are especially popular with eco-companies with booths at expos and conferences, since the furniture travels easy. I see them being great for bake sales or other community events. Why lug big heavy tables and chairs around when you can easily get the same setup from a flat cardboard box?
Those cardboard pieces can apparently withstand 600 lbs of weight according to Cardboardesign’s website, but even more sturdy looking shelves, chairs, and desks — like the one above — are also available from the company.
For those willing to shop for their furniture from afar, ReturDesign Studio in Sweden offers a very large variety of furniture, ranging from basic tables and chairs to beautiful sofas (above), functional display units, and gorgeous lamps. According to CNET, ReturDesign gets many customers from U.S.! To be one of them though, you’ll need deal with currency exchanges and international shipping.
Big spenders can browse Frank Gehry designs, made by Vitra. These high end seats are gorgeous show pieces — and will put you back $480 - $985 a piece at All Modern.
Not willing to fork over that kind of cash for — cardboard? Then try your hand at making your own cardboard furniture. Foldschool has free patterns and detailed instructions for making a stool, chair, or rocker for kids!
Up for a bigger challenge? Check out this Instructables post on how to design your own cardboard furniture. These instructions were taken from a video — How Things Are Made: Cardboard Furniture — featuring Eric Guiomar of the Les Cartonnistes, a collective of French cardboard furniture makers! (via Apartment Therapy)
For more cardboard inspirations, read about the offices of Nothing, a commercial creative agency, and Beast, an ad agency (via Treehugger). Both offices were designed entirely by cardboard!
Photos via Olive and Bean Boutique, Little Fashion Gallery, Cardboardesign, ReturDesign Studio, and Foldschool
Popularity: 16% [?]
March 10th, 2009
Green Home Contest Winners: Serious Low Impact Livers!
As you may recall, we launched a Green Home Contest a while back, which comes with a truly outstanding prize provided by Joie de Vivre Hotels, the leading green hotel chain. Well we have our winners! We are inspired and awed by Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne, who truly embrace the Low Impact Living lifestyle in their home. We all have a ton to learn from them. Erik and Kelly win a fabulous 3-night stay at the very environmentally-friendly Hotel Carlton in San Francisco– and boy do they deserve it!
Erik and Kelly own a small bungalow in Los Angeles. Not only do they live in a very sustainable home, the also do their own farming and raise chickens at home! The two of them live in a 1,000 square foot house, which they have outfitted with numerous green features. Here’s their impressive list:
- Low-flow showerheads, toilets and sink aerators
- 95+% CFLs indoors
- Drip irrigation and no grass
- Rain shutoff on irrigation system AND smart irrigation controller
- Shade trees planted
- Compost vegetable wastes at home
- Rain barrels & rain gardens to capture runoff
- Programmable thermostat
- Graywater system(shhh…don’t ask to see the permits)
- Purchase green power from their utility
In addition to these very efficient green-home features, Erik and Kelly also keep their carbon footprint low by driving and flying very little. Erik is a committed biker. He bike commutes and rarely uses a car. His wife, Kelly, owns an older Acura but only drives it 4,000 miles per year (which is much lower than the 10-12K miles/year American average!). They also only make one airplane flight each year– don’t forget that the emissions from air travel are a major contributor to global warming. So Erik and Kelly really have low non-home carbon footprints, which is excellent.
What is even better is that this amazing green duo also publishes an outstanding blog– the cleverly titled Homegrown Evolution. They write about such engaging topics as urban gardening, raising chickens, making beer, and much more. Definitely spend some time on their blog– it’s a great read. And I’m also excited to check out their book– The Urban Homestead, which is “your guide to self-sufficient living in the heart of the city.” They say they are now working on a second book. This is one productive pair!
We respectfully tip our hats to Kelly and Erik, and we hope they have a wonderful time in San Francisco. Thank you to all who entered the contest– we’re very moved by the work you are doing to live more sustainable lives. The planet needs you!
Popularity: 18% [?]
