Aside from the rare up-cycled or open design project at this past week’s Salone del Mobile in Milan, there were very few radically new concepts and a lot of kinda-pretty-but-useless stuff. Very few designers targeted the environment in radical new ways, and almost none contributed significant inventions. One booth, however, had two promising new materials […]
Category Archives: energy
fibrous furnishings
Also posted in environment, fabrication, furniture, materials, product design, upcycling
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opportunity carbon cost
Another beautiful product (soon to be released) from KithKin‘s “Some Rights Reserved” open-source design collection is Matthew Appleton’s “Afterlife” poster – it builds on the growing trend of product dissections for good by depicting the relative geometric footprint of a printer’s many parts as compared to a pencil. The project claims to show how complex […]
Also posted in 2d, environment, materials, possessed products, product design, traceability
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Clear Conscience
Philippe Starck is showing his concept for a transparent home-sized electricity-generating windmill at the Interni Green Energy Design exhibit at the Statale in Milano for the next two weeks. It is a small prototype windmill that is designed to function in urban settings, and it has even been designed to be transparent so as not […]
Also posted in environment, materials, product design
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personal climate
Saul Griffith has made available his notes and slides for a powerpoint entitled ‘The Game Plan‘ detailing the necessary steps to be taken as individuals and society to reverse climate change. He begins with a logical framework (including an introduction to energy measurement) to talk about climate change based on the temperature increase we are […]
Also posted in environment, visualization
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non-service
for a while now hotels have provided the option to opt out of fresh towels – but tonight i got to tokyo’s grand prince takanawa hotel, which has gone one step further: you can opt out of room cleaning altogether and you get an incentive in the form of $10 a day you can use […]
Also posted in environment, marketing
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greener than thou
photo mary lou jepsen invented the display that made the OLPC so power-efficient, and she presents the case for the green design of the laptop as the result of a concerted effort to address the needs of developing countries. where there is little electricity and limited tooling, the laptop had to be durable, power-efficient and […]
Also posted in fabrication, open objects, product design, universal design
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all-natural electronics
noah vawter’s Synth From Nothin’ tries to answer the question ‘if i was stranded on a desert island, how could i make a synthesizer?’ at the same time the research project tries to discover whether it’s possible to make electronics without the semiconductor industry, and in turn whether electronics can be all-natural and sustainable. from […]
Also posted in art, environment, materials, product design
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renewable packaging
i just picked up this balinesian sea salt packaged in a coconut at whole foods because i couldn’t resist the packaging design (or lack thereof). never mind the idea of shipping salt, let alone from bali. the coconut packaging has three distinct advantages over the plastic, metal foil and paper that the other foods are […]
Also posted in environment, fabrication, livingbreathing, marketing, materials, open objects, product design, traceability, upcycling
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