by: Reuters: Green Business News, 2012-06-14 14:26:09 UTC
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark and China will agree to boost commercial ties in energy efficiency, environmental protection and sustainable urban development during a visit this week by Chinese President Hu Jintao, Danish officials said on Thursday.
It's not just happy post-exam-crazed teenagers who use up all their energy on the first day of a music festival and spend the rest of the weekend a burnt-out husk.
Smartphones also run out of juice all too quickly, and when you're standing in a field at the Isle of Wight Festival watching singer Ed Sheeran, opportunities to recharge are few and far between -- and it's probably raining, to boot. Fortunately, the Vodafone Booster Brolly has all your problems covered.
Except for the bit about Ed Sheeran. No one can help you with that.
Designed in partnership with University College London, the Booster Brolly is a prototype parasol to keep your phone charged and your hair dry no matter what the British summertime can throw at at you.
I’ve mentioned some of the various living walls available for home interiors — Fyto Wall, Woolly Pockets, Minigarden, Ballavaz, Urbio, etc — and most of these require a modicum of wall structure and planning for light and water. Along these lines, The Wall Street Journal recently took on the topic of living walls and how various pockets, trays, and assemblies are being used inside for home decoration.
WSJ notes, in so many words, that the devil is in the details.
The wall garden pictured above was built with Woolly Pockets and filled with soil, ferns, and tropical plants. It was installed for about $1,000 by designer Jason Lempieri (working with designer Peter Smith), who tends the garden to make sure it’s adequately watered and maintained, according to WSJ.
Getting the right amount of water for indoor plans can be difficult. Automatic watering systems, if not monitored, could overwater, malfunction, or create an environment for mold growth, whereas manual watering is only as good as the person tending the overall longevity of the plants.
Nonetheless, given the risks, I think a healthy living wall is a great way to change up the design of an interior space. Research suggests that the right plant species could also help clean indoor air, too.
Noé Duchaufour Lawrance doesn’t want you to see nature in his work. He wants you to feel it. This week at Design Miami/Basel, the architect will introduce Naturoscopie, a collection of furniture that attempts to recreate the sensations associated with nature in a controlled environment.
The idea behind Naturoscopie isn’t to represent nature through an image. Instead of painting a landscape or photographing the sky, Duchaufour Lawrance has built series of machines that abstract the natural world--a sunset or a cloudy sky, for example--using high-tech materials and programmed electronics.
Duchaufour Lawrance explains that he wanted the work to go “beyond a literal transcription of nature.” A carbon-fiber light fixture, for example, affects sun filtering through a tree canopy with tiny mosaics of colored mirror and LEDs. A smoky plexiglass coffee table becomes the projection screen for a distorted, fuzzy photograph of the northern lights. A desk lamp made of white honeycomb plastic and shimmering LEDs casts shadows that mimic those of a passing cloud. The pieces are all synthetic, made from carbon fiber, plexiglass, and polyamid--which amplifies the strangeness of it all.
Artificial nature is not a particularly new idea, which is why it’s interesting to see it re-hashed through the lens of furniture design. Countless sci-fi books and films imagine deep-space travel scenarios, where sensory chambers reproduce the feeling of sun filtering through trees, or the smell of grass, to nature-starved astronauts. But the idea that we want to recreate memories of the natural world on our coffee tables and mirrors, while we’re still here on a functioning planet, is almost stranger than fiction.
[Images courtesy of Galerie BSL; Naturoscopie will be on view in Miami until June 17th. ]
I have often held a nice glass of red wine up into the light and said, "What a pretty color!" I just didn't take my thinking as far as Bioalloy has. The result of its idea -- creating textiles from fermented grapes -- is a dress that is essentially made of wine.
The Bioalloy project from the University of Western Australia is described as "an ongoing research endeavor into artistic cyborgian systems." Cool.
The textile used to create the dress is formed by microbes that grow into a "skin" on the surface of wine. This is layered onto a mold and allowed to dry. The resulting fabric is wearable, though not drinkable.
OK, so you're basically wearing wine scum. The Microbe fermented-fashion dress is both compelling and strange to behold. It looks a bit like a skinned-alive makeup job from "Hellraiser" or something Lady Gaga would wear to the Grammy awards.
Mark McGough, CEO of Ioxus, explains the whats, whys and hows of 'batteries on steroids,' and why the technology is poised to reshape the renewable energy industry.
by: Sustainable Design News, 2012-06-12 07:07:20 UTC The Shape of Green is the first book to outline a clear set of principles for the aesthetics of sustainable design. The book argues that beauty is inherent to sustainability, for how things look and feel is as important as how they're made.
In addition to examining what makes something attractive or emotionally pleasing, Hosey connects these questions with practical design challenges. Can the shape of a car make it more aerodynamic and more attractive at the same time? Could buildings be constructed of porous materials that simultaneously clean the air and soothe the skin? Can cities become verdant, productive landscapes instead of wastelands of concrete?
by: Environmental Leader, 2012-06-12 14:10:17 UTC Here’s the latest standards and compliance news affecting corporate environmental and energy executives. Today’s briefing includes eight items. The IEEE 1680 draft standards that will form the basis of EPEAT Imaging Equipment and Television environmental ratings – which will cover printers, copiers and TVs – have been approved by more than 75 percent of IEEE voters. The [...]
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-06-17 09:41:22 UTC
An example of integrating sustainability in design in consumer electronics.
*Packaging design*
Even tiny decisions can have a big impact. Ulla ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-06-14 19:40:06 UTC
Ori.Tami is an example of how design becomes "eco" when it creates versatile and multifunctional objects. Even when the material choices are non-sustainable ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-06-11 16:08:47 UTC
Invented not because of environmental friendliness but because of a need for diaper rash friendly diapers. The FuzziBunz are kind of front closing ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-06-10 12:07:30 UTC
Designing sustainable product is all about quality of design, fun and changing peoples behavior in a playful fun way. I think this chicken house with ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-06-06 19:27:45 UTC
A series of armchairs and ottomans. Since it first appearance, in 1969, the UP series has been an outstanding expression of design. The UP5 is the ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-06-05 21:23:25 UTC
The Environ biocomposite® product line is made from recycled newsprint, a soy-based resin and color additives. Environ biocomposite® is sold in 3'x6 ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-06-05 06:28:47 UTC
Economist Intelligence Unit Report on Sustainable Future
The research department of the weekly magazine regularly gives out the results of its research ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-06-03 15:25:09 UTC
Car manufacturers state they now produce more economical cars with lower emissions. Most of the cars produced today are still equiped with exact the ...
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