My Grandparents on their wedding day

I’m writing this in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. and all others who stand up for what they believe.

My father’s parents weren’t particularly “green”.  Although they were fairly frugal, as so many of their generation were, they loved to keep their thermostat set at about 72° F (22.2° C) all year long.  The A/C was on constantly in the summer, and the heater blasted away day and night in the winter.  They wore polyester clothes, drank a Coke every day at lunch, drove huge gas guzzling cars (again with the A/C blasting), and generally didn’t think much more about the environment than that there should be one.  So how did they teach me anything about sustainable design?

The short answer is, nothing – and everything.  The long answer is this…

In 1963, at the height of the civil rights era, my grandparents stood their ground and did the right thing.  They aren’t famous, and you’re not likely to read about them in a textbook.  They quietly went about their lives afterwards, and didn’t discuss it much unless asked, but what they did was inspiring.

My grandfather was the minister to a large, affluent church in Jackson, Mississippi at the time.  He had been there for some time, and was well liked, but racial tensions in the South were high, and he had been told not to discuss or preach about civil rights.  Although he was very active with an interracial ministers group, and worked with a nearby “negro” college, he kept his sermons about civil rights subtle.  My grandmother also felt strongly about civil rights, and joined an interracial prayer group, which was an illegal and dangerous thing to do at the time.  They were in correspondence with Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife, amongst other civil rights activists.  Still, their actions ran mostly under the radar, and life remained fairly comfortable for them.

That all changed the Sunday two young, African American women came to worship at the church.  Theirs was a coordinated effort, happening at several churches. A gentle, but pointed, attempt to integrate the communities.  As my grandfather preached his sermon, unbeknownst to him, the women were turned away and told they could not worship there.  When my grandfather found out later, he was incensed, as was my grandmother.  The next Sunday, my grandfather gave a fiery sermon, letting his congregation know that the church was God’s house, and no one should be turned away, especially for the color of their skin.  Although many in the congregation agreed with him, a powerful and vocal group did not.  My grandfather was given the opportunity to, essentially, renounce his position on civil rights and agree not to bring it up again.  He refused, and shortly thereafter, he acquired the distinction of being the only minister in Jackson, MI to be fired for standing up for civil rights.   He and my grandmother were left without income, home (it belonged to the church), or much in the way of prospects.  For awhile, things were quite difficult for them.

What my grandparents didn’t know at that bleak time was the enormous gift they had just given to a granddaughter who was still years from making her appearance on this earth.  Everything I needed to know about “doing the right thing” I learned from what they did.  Their actions taught me about strength of character, and how important it is to do things that, at the time, aren’t convenient, easy, or popular, but still, at their core, very necessary.

I have faced my share of quizzical faces, shaken heads, and downright naysayers in my 8 years of working in sustainable design, but nothing I will do will ever approach the bravery my grandparents showed.   Yet their actions made it possible for me to take that leap of faith, skip the high paying “decorator’ career track, and do what I truly believed in.

I miss you Poppy and Grandmommy.  Thank you so much.  I hope you would be proud of me.

Rachel

P.S.  Please read this post from Treehugger to see another take on the connections between sustainability and the civil rights movement.  Bonus video of MLK’s full “I Have a Dream” speech.

Did you read the whole thing?  Good, because I think The Bloggess has touched on something really important.

Namely, we have to indulge ourselves from time to time with something that is true to our nature, no matter how ridiculous or silly others may find it to be.  For me it was painting my nails a bright, sparkly blue – just in time to have my photo session for new publicity shots.  Three hours of me, posing like a (not terribly good) model, all with a celestial blue manicure.  I almost talked myself out of it beforehand, reasoning that it might look a bit to silly for someone of my age (which my son always tells me is 29 – bless his wonderful soul!), and instead I should stick to a more conservative “arty” color like beige or gray.  But then I realized that silly is really who I am, so why hide it?

Really, why should any of us hide it?  Why should any of us live with beige nails if we feel like having blue ones instead.  Or buy a beige sofa because a red one just seems like such a commitment, even though it’s always been your dream?

And that’s the trick to all of this when it comes to our homes.  It has to be your dream – an expression of who you are deep down.  Although the purchase can be impulsive, the desire has to live inside you for a long time.  That is how you know you won’t regret it, because it is who you really are.

So what is your “red sofa”?  What is the thing you really wish you had the guts to do, but haven’t taken that leap of faith yet?

The world is full of amazing innovators.  People who look at a problem and create a brand new solution.  People who find a way to make something we want cheaper so more of us can have one.  People who take us where we want to go.

Steve Jobs wasn’t one of them.

Steve Jobs was a much rarer person.  He was a visionary.  A person who took us places we didn’t even know we wanted to go until we got there. The kid in the crow’s nest, seeing farther into the horizon than anyone manning the decks below could.  He saw what was possible, and helped us to set our sails to get there.

The future of design, and indeed the future of mankind itself, will rest on encouraging those rare visionaries to take us to new places.  Let’s be sure to encourage those people who think a little outside the box, or maybe even a lot outside the box.  Sure they may get it wrong from time to time – everyone does – but when they get it right, when they see what’s ahead for us before we do, they can bring us to a new world full of possibilities.

RIP Steve Jobs.  You are missed.

I’ve seen this interesting looking willow wood bench, the Banca Familiar by designer Valentín Garal, on a few design blogs now, including at least one focused on sustainability. As attractive as the design is, and is well-intentioned as I believe the designer to be, there are some real design flaws with this concept.

Before I sound out my concerns, you should know just a little background on me. My very first paying job out of high school was working at a pet shop. A pet shop with lots of birds that I personally took care of.  I’m telling you this so you will believe me when I say you should NEVER house parakeets in a wooden cage. Those little suckers will chew on wood like a dog gnawing on a bone!

In addition, although people have been given plenty of space on this bench, the birdcage is a bit cramped from side to side. That means any small bird kept in the cage will likely be miserable when people sit next to it to give the birds “tender care”. In other words, this bench was definitely designed with people in mind and not the birds.

So what do you think? Am I being a bit too picky in picking apart this otherwise lovely looking design, or is the fact that the birdcage component is impractical render the entire idea unsustainable and unusable?

Oh, and so does FSC, as you can see in this wonderful video for FSC Canada done by Franke James.

Who cares about the Forest? from Franke James on Vimeo.

All images via Lonny Magazine

I have to say, the photography and interiors only get better as time goes by.  Love the pink and turquoise hues shown throughout the issue.  Wait, did I just say I love pink???  Ah well.

image by Patrick Cline

Although all the features are wonderful to look at, there was one article in particular I’d love everyone to read.  “Family Tradition” isn’t described as a “green design” how to, but it might as well have been.  In it designer Angele Parlange shows off her absolutely amazing New York apartment, and discusses how growing up in her family’s centuries old New Orleans home has given her a love for the eclectic aesthetic.

image by Patrick Cline

Isn’t it fun?  And this isn’t even the best image!

So why did this article in particular stand out?  Well, the longer I have worked in sustainable interior design, the more I want to shout from the rooftops that this kind of love for family history, antiques, and eclecticism is so important.  If we stop thinking that we must constantly replace the old with the new, then we can start to focus on responsibly sourced, well made goods when we actually do need to purchase something, instead of some cheap, poorly slapped together plywood thing from the local big box store.  Items made to last generations should be allowed to do exactly that, don’t you think?

Oh, and the article also has some great tips for adding history to your own home too.  So take a look and then see how you add your family traditions to your own digs!

It had that wonderful, musty smell of an old book, so I knew it would probably find it’s way into my library.  Indeed, when I cracked it open, I found it was published in 1948, AND it had some color plates too.  SOLD!

However, once I got home and had a chance to look through my new found treasure, I quickly realized that there was a reason why no one ever talks about wanting to do their home in a 1940′s style – there really isn’t one!  In fact, although the book has copious images where the “colonial” or “modern” features of a room are pointed out, most people today would be hard pressed to recognize any of the rooms as being specifically from the 40′s.

So how does that relate to sustainable interior design?

Whenever I talk about sustainability in design, I always bring up the fact that you can design a space using nothing but local, rapidly renewable, socially responsible materials, but if they are all ripped out in 10 to 20 years because they feel too dated, then how sustainable were they really?

One of the reasons I think the 1940′s had such a relatively generic look was because of World War II, and the necessity to make due with what you had, rather than tearing everything out and starting over.  New furniture needed to fit in with existing pieces, perhaps those passed down through generations.  Interiors were forced by circumstances to be eclectic, rather than “trendy”.  Even when a room was composed of nothing but modern furniture, there was still a softness to the lines that would allow an older piece to sidle in and stay a spell.

Like any interior designer, I’m attracted to the newest, coolest, trendiest thing, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.  But I think we do miss the point of sustainability if we don’t acknowledge the need for our designs to last beyond today.

What do you think?

Image via Interior Design Magazine

All the more so because it was the winning entry, by Savannah College of Art & Design student Ryland Quillen, for the Project UDesign “eco-friendly” furniture contest, sponsored in part by Century Furniture, a company that has taken many measures to make their products more sustainable, including FSC certified frames and low-VOC finishes.  I think it’s wonderful that, not only did this student receive a $1,000 prize, but more importantly, he will have his chair added to Century Furniture’s line, and receive a substantial commission off every unit sold.  That is a terrific accomplishment, and a great way to kick start a new career.

All that being said, I wish the other cosponsors of the contest weren’t Cargill’s brand of “soy foam” (a product that is really no more sustainable than regular foam), and Toray’s Ultrasuede.  Wouldn’t it be lovely to see a chair like this made in a truly sustainable fashion?  With bio-degradable, “stuffing”, free of chemical fire retardents?  And what about natural fiber fabrics?   Maybe next year…

For a really in depth analysis of why soy foam and Ultrasuede are poor choices for sustainable design, please read this excellent article by O Ecotextiles.  They say it better than I ever could – and with a lot more scientific data!

image via Archinect

But India’s richest man, multi-billionaire Mukesh Ambani, did.   He shares this 37,000 square foot “home” with his wife, three children and his mother.  Oh, and a staff of 600!

Now, the obvious gripes would be about the buildings “aesthetic”, or the incredibly wasteful use of space, or just the lavishness of so much money used for one family when so many go hungry within sight of this building.  But rich people will always spend ridiculous sums of money on themselves, and lavish homes eventually become public property, because there are only so many people on earth that have the income to maintain them.

My gripe has to do with why someone, in a country with such a rich heritage of art, culture and craft, wouldn’t employ thousands of local craftsman to create a work of lasting architectural beauty, instead of this generically ugly high rise. Think of the boon to the local economy, the patronage of the arts, the gift to the country’s future that this home could have been.

What do you think?  If you spent a billion dollars on a “house”, where would you put the money?

Another lesson learned?  We in the sustainable design community need to stop promoting what we do like it was orthopedic shoes.  You know what I mean.  “This product is so much better for you”.  “If you don’t want to be hobbling around in 20 years, you need to do what we say.”  “Yes, it may be a bit more expensive, and not very stylish, but it’s the right thing to do”.   I say phooey…

and it’s thanks to Michael Kors, and this pair of kick-ass, black gladiator sandals.

You see, I packed two pairs of shoes for my trip.  One was a sensible, comfortable pair of leather flats, the perfect thing for dashing around the streets and subways of New York.  The second was the aforementioned pair of platform sandals with a 3″ heel.  So guess which ones I wore when it came time to meet with the lovely ladies of HomePortfolio.com to tour the showrooms of the NYDC?   Yep, the sandals.  And why?  Because when it came right down to it, I wanted to look good more than feel good – and I have the blisters to prove it.

So Wednesday night I sat (thank heavens for my poor aching feet) on a panel of designers discussing green design, at the Cliff Young showroom.  Moderated by the lovely, and ever so patient Lindsey Weidhorn from HGTV, we designers preached and pontificated on what we thought green design was and why it was important.  By the end of it I found myself feeling tired, and not a little frustrated.  It’s not that the information wasn’t worthwhile.  It’s that yet again, we emphasized that green design was better for you, and that designers needed to do it, because in the end, they were going to have to anyway (a point I actually disagreed with in my head, but kept to myself – it was a panel discussion after all, and not a debate).  At the end I thought, “why are we still saying the same things we were saying 3-4 years ago, and why aren’t designers really listening?”

Then it hit me.  Interior designers see green design as being like a pair of orthopedic shoes.  Safe, healthy, and incredibly boring.  Besides which, designers have enough to deal with without having to narrow their choices down to (what they think is) almost nothing when they are designing a space for a client.  Who wants to try to find a pair of sensible shoes to go with a sexy evening dress?

So I’m changing my tune, from a folk music ditty on orthopedic shoes, into a rock n’ roll rant on sexy sandals.  I don’t just want you to be politely interested in sustainable design, I want you to practically beg for it.   Now that would be a revolution!