The DIY Channel’s new show, “This New House” premieres tonight, July 29th, at 8PM/7C.  If the trailer for the series is any indication, it should be chock full of innovative, high tech products, many of them geared towards energy savings and other aspects of green living.

One of the projects highlighted in the first three episodes is the Cleantech Teaching Center, a state of the art showcase home located in Beverly, MA.  This house features an entirely LED lighting system, rainwater recovery system, geothermal energy, and solar photovoltaic panels.  Sustainable materials were used throughout the interior, including Trend USA’s lovely Trend Q recycled glass tile.  Cleantech Homes, LLC has applied for LEED PLatinum status for the home. Read the rest of this entry »

While we didn’t get Treehugger’s Best Of Green Architecture and Design Blog (this year), we would like to say a big congratulations to winner Mocoloco!  I read Mocoloco all the time, and I have to say the award is well deserved!  In fact, everyone in that category was deserving, in one way or another, and I was honored that we were even just a part of it all!

Congratulations are also in order for the winner of the Best of Green award for Best Furniture Line – our friends at Way Basics!  We’ve covered them before in a post on getting organized, but we also get to run into each other at local green events from time to time, and I’ve been a fan since their beginning.

Most of all, I want to say THANK YOU to all the readers who voted for us!  You’re the reason we’re here.

Now this looks like fun!

The Sustainable Furnishings Council and World Market Center Las Vegas are proud to once again bring you One Good Chair Design Competition.

“Beauty rests on necessities. The line of beauty is the result of perfect economy. The cell of the bee is built at that angle which gives the most strength with the least wax. The bone in the quill of the bird gives the most alar strength with the least weight… There is not a particle to spare in natural structures.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Intro

The world of green design is pulled in two directions, for the aim of sustainability has been described alternately as “doing more with less” and “celebrating abundance.” The third annual One Good Chair competition challenges designers to do both.

This year’s theme, “Minimum/Maximum,” embraces the idea that smart design can both preserve natural resources and amplify human delight. We’re not asking you to “balance” or “compromise” these two apparently different aims—we’re pushing you to go as far as you can in both directions at once. Trade-offs are for sissies. How little material can you use to make the most of a chair? How little packaging can you use to reach the most people? Can you design a chair that is almost nothing and almost everything at the same time?

So I’m sitting there checking the emails this morning, without even having consumed my morning cuppa joe, and what pops up in our inbox?  A “congratulations” from Treehugger.com.  We’ve been nominated for a Best of Green Award!  Wow!  Who needs caffeine now?

So, I know it’s shades of every Academy Award nominee interview you’ve read over the last month or so, but honestly, we’re just happy to be nominated!  However, if you feel so inclined, and you love this blog, and you hope to see us do even more and cooler things with the blog – VOTE!  And tell all your friends!  Everyone who finds out about this blog and starts to read it is another person we can bring into the dialog about sustainable design.

Thanks!!!

We got a lovely email on Sunday from Jen Leheny in Australia letting us know that our blog had been written up in their local newspaper, The Canberra Times, as one “…of the most interesting and inspiring home and design blogs from around the world.”  Gee, we’re blushing!

Jen graciously allowed us to borrow her scan of the newspaper article.  She is an accomplished writer in her own right, and I highly encourage you to take a look at her blog www.jenleheny.com, as well as all the other great blogs listed.

As we all know, last week was a tragic one for the people of Haiti, doubtless the most devastating they have ever faced.  And we have looked on from afar with a sense of true sadness, and a driving need to do something, ANYTHING, to help.  The outpouring of donations and aid has been enormous.  But Haiti was desperately poor before this happened, and once the camera images  no longer show up on the evening news to pull our heartstrings, they will likely be that way again.  Unless we hand them lifelines to a different future.  I’d like to tell you about two of those lifelines and how you can help. Read the rest of this entry »

Cabbage Chair, prototype. Oki Sato, Photo: Masayuki Hayash

If you’re going to be in New York between May 14th, 2010 and January 9th, 2011, you must go to see “National Design Triennial – Why Design Now?” , at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum.

Read the rest of this entry »

Area Declic has announced their second annual international interior design competition – “A Green Place to Sit”.

“A double challenge for ONLY FOR WOMEN’s second edition, the International Design Award dedicated exclusively for female designers: searching for new products to enter the contract market and promoting a thinking about sustainability. This is the meaning of the title, which talks green as nature and green as green issue. Area Declic wishes to investigate into these themes all around 2010. With the help of women designers.”

Deadline to enter is March 3, 2010, so get your design engines revved ladies!  For information on rules and how to enter, click here.

via flor.com

This is such a fun idea, it’s a wonder FLOR didn’t think of it sooner.

Now’s your chance to create the FLOR you’ve always dreamed of.

Let your imagination run wild – with FLOR’s design system of 19.7-inch squares the options are limitless. All you have to do is choose your FLOR and let the designing begin. Mix and match colors, patterns and textures to create a rug, runner or wall-to-wall design that fits your décor and your personality. Who knows, you may just get your FLOR design for free or see it on FLOR.com.

The designing on takes place using their online design tools.  Entries must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. CT Monday, December 7, 2009, so you don’t have a lot of time!  Click here for contest details.

And hey – if your design gets picked PLEASE let us know!  We’ll be sure to post all about it here!

Join us!

From finding the best no-VOC paints, to the latest in LED lighting technology, we aim to be an invaluable information resource for the design professional, as well as the general public. We’ll be taking time to explore in depth issues such as organic vs. conventional cotton, and whether bamboo is truly “green”. We’ll review the latest design books and sources, and have guest posts by experts on green design materials and trends. By cutting through the greenwashing and clarifying what counts, we hope to make sustainable design accessible to all.

At no time in our history have interior designers had a more significant opportunity to bring about a wholesale change in the way we live. Let’s make the most of it!