These beautiful fixtures are from Liquid Light.  The creations of Venice, CA based artist Tanya Clarke, they are formed from salvaged plumbing fixtures, hand formed glass drops, and LED lights.

Although lovely as sculpture in their own right, these fixtures really come into their own when you flip the switch.

Intended as a visual reminder of how precious a commodity water is, and our need to protect it as a natural resource, these fixtures glow with an environmental consciousness.

In addition, Liquid Light donates 5% of the purchase price for each fixture to the Polaris Institute, an organization involved in social change and global water issues.

The set of three fixtures above would look amazing over a bathtub, don’t you think?  Of course, they would look equally at home in the midst of a collection of modern art.

By the way, I originally saw these fixtures on Steampunk Home, which is a great site for those, like myself, who enjoy adding a little industrial edge to their interiors.

I think it’s a bit sad that Marquez never saw these pieces.  They seemed as though they stepped right out of his imagination…

“On Wednesday night, as they did every Wednesday, the parents went to the movies. The boys, lords and masters of the house, closed the doors and windows and broke the glowing bulb in one of the living room lamps. A jet of golden light as cool as water began to pour out of the broken bulb, and they let it run to a depth of almost three feet. Then they turned off the electricity, took out the rowboat, and navigated at will among the islands in the house.

This fabulous adventure was the result of a frivolous remark I made while taking part in a seminar on the poetry of household objects. Toto asked me why the light went on with just a touch of a switch, and I did not have the courage to think about it twice.

“Light is like water,” I answered. “You turn the tap and out it comes.”" – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

they usually look like this. Hmmm…  not the most inspiring look for a room, is it?

Now this is a bit more like it!  Designed by European firm Tell Me First, these Art Glass Radiators are fully customizable with any image you provide.

The image is enclosed in glass, which then provides an effective screen for the thin line radiator concealed behind it.

They also make a clear glass floor and wall mounted radiator, which looks like it would work beautifully in a bathroom.

Since radiators are still pretty rare in Southern California (although my 1925 Spanish Revival house looks like it was originally plumbed for them), I don’t have enough knowledge to say whether these are a great solution or not.  If any of my Europe based readers have seen these, I’d love to get you opinion in the comments below!

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.

Here is a synopsis of the first episode of the show, titled “Folding Houses” -

This episode is set at the Cleantech House in Beverly, Mass., a showcase of the latest in energy-saving design. Host Kevin O’Connor visits Blu-Homes, a Waltham, Mass., company that’s trying to deliver on the promise of prefab housing by making buildings that fold up for shipping. Licensed contractor and host Amy Matthews goes to Las Vegas, Nev., to see a Department of Energy project that brings a 1960s home up to net-zero modern standards. Kevin explains energy-recovery ventilators and Amy discovers Accoya, a treated wood that lasts for 50 years without needing paint or stain. Kevin goes to the NuCedar factory in Chicopee, Mass., to sees how PVC siding is made. At the International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas, Amy is off to see a P-trap sink drain that never clogs.

Sounds pretty cool.  I’m familiar with the treated Accoya wood, which is a pretty nifty product, and I’m really curious to find out more about the folding pre-fab houses.  Unfortunately, the DIY Channel is a premium channel on our system, and we’ve never bothered to upgrade since we don’t watch a ton of TV (Yeah, I know that’s kinda green living of us, but in truth, it’s as much about being too busy with work as it is anything more noble).  In any case, if you have a chance to watch it, please let us know what you think in the comments below.  Meanwhile, I’ll see if I can catch up with it some other way.

image via Shelterrific

Here are some really CUTE pillows from recycled materials, by Alexandra Ferguson. (Shelteriffic)

West Elm’s new line of FSC certified office furniture, designed by students at Pratt. (Inhabitat)

A lovely new kitchen, made of reclaimed materials, that looks absolutely classic. (re-nest)

GE has unveiled their latest technology in super efficient OLED lighting. (Inhabitat)

It takes 5,000 cocoons to provide enough silk for one kimono!  And this guy is raising the caterpillars, spinning the silk, and weaving it all by himself. (BoingBoing)

The first U.S. Certified Passive House, in Louisiana of all places. (Treehugger)

And finally, the most adorable ad, made on a whim by an 11 year old girl, for Harmony Art organic cotton fabrics.  Seriously, somebody hire this girl! (The Journey is the Prize)

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Not unlike skylights, daylight tubes are designed to bring sunlight through the roof and into the interior environment.  They differ however, in being able to concentrate light, thus utilizing a smaller amount of ceiling space for the same amount of illumination.  Their design also prevents UVA/UVB light from entering, virtually eliminating solar radiation and heat gain.

The new sun tunnel design by Velux takes this concept a step further by providing an additional diffuser which hangs below, allowing daylight to be bounced around a greater area and with softer effect.   Because this is full spectrum light, interior spaces look brighter, and more cheerful.  Studies have also shown a strong link between exposure to daylight and a persons sense of well-being and overall health, making the Sun Tunnel an even more worthy addition to any interior project.

Velux, and Ross Lovegrove (seen above) were recently awarded the Red Dot Design Award – Best of the Best 2010 for their Sun Tunnel design.

I hope their success with this design will encourage Velux to add even more products that combine great design with sustainable living.

The U.S. based company Air Dye has managed to do exactly that, by creating a new technology that can dye fabric without using a single drop of water!  This is an amazing advancement, and one we desperately need in the textile industry.  There is one problem though – other than getting the word out and encouraging fabric companies to give it a try…

The Air Dye system can only be used on synthetic fibers, such as polyester, nylon and acrylic.  That being said, with synthetic fabrics so prevalent in the interior design industry, the water and energy savings alone make looking for the Air Dye label a new must for designers.  And what are those savings you ask.  Well, according to Air Dye’s website:

“Synthetic textile-dyeing consumes 2.4 trillion gallons of water a year, enough to fill 3,700,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. AirDye reduces water use up to 95 percent, (Percentage include the production of raw materials used in our process).

Our one-step process cuts the energy consumption of dyeing by up to 86 percent.  That’s more than 2.8 trillion megajoules per year — enough to power more than 12 percent of the homes in the United States for a year.”

So who is using this new technology? So far in the interior design world,  Hunter Douglas Hospitality and FLOR carpet tiles have both signed on, and I’m sure many other companies will follow.  Particularly because the technology adds little, if any, to the cost of dyeing the fabric.  In addition, it is possible to do things such as print a different design on each side of a single piece of cloth, making for great possibilities in reversible draperies and other applications.

Imagine if all the plastic water bottles in the world (around 200 billion a year) were recycled into polyester fabric, and then dyed using Air Dye technology?   What a great step forward that would be.

Thank you so much to our guest blogger this week, Susan of Susan Serra & Associates.  Due to her MANY other commitments, she was only able to offer us two posts, but they are great ones!  You can see them here, and here.  We hope to have her back at some time in the future, so she can tell us more about greening the kitchen!

On a more somber note…

Image via Treehugger - SFI certified clear cut; Steve Ringman, Seattle Times

Treehugger writes about the ongoing debate about whether the USGBC should accept SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) lumber as well as the more stringently regulated FSC certified wood.  I’m going to write my two cents worth on this next week, but for now please feel free to read my post about why FSC certification matters on HomePortfolio.com.

Next up, the death of the incandescent bulb at Toshiba, a challenge from Green Your Decor and Sylvania, and a toilet that, um, separates your, um… oh just read it!

Image via Inhabitat

According to Inhabitat, Toshiba will no longer be manufacturing incandescent bulbs.  What a bright idea!

green your decor is throwing down the energy gauntlet (and having a giveaway at the same time)!

And finally, as seen on Interior Design Magazine’s Design Green blog, the NoMix toilet.  Yep, being concerned about the environment started out with separating plastic from glass recyclables, now in several European countries it’s something else they are planning to separate.  Very environmentally sound idea, but do you think other areas of the world would also accept it?  I’m thinking particularly of the U.S., where people are still unsure about what duel flush toilets do, much less something that has a built in strainer.

And on that note, I wish you all a wonderful weekend!

Some homes just blow and other just suck.

After reading your Home Performance Energy Audit Report you found your home was built too tight. Meaning, there are not enough holes in the home and there is not enough fresh air entering.

The goal of any general contractor should be to build the tightest house possible to stop air infiltration and provide the most durable and sustainable product for his or her client. On existing or traditional homes, built before energy code, it is difficult and costly to tighten a home to the point that it is too tight. (I didn’t say it can’t be done.)

The problem with a home built too tight is that now the materials, plants, showers and other things off-gassing and releasing moisture in the air have nowhere to go. This can greatly affect your health and the durability of a home. There are lawsuits currently in place because of the VOC’s found in tight Katrina FEMA trailers that were making the occupants sick. So congratulations on your new home Mr. and Mrs. Smith! I hope you don’t mind breathing toxic levels of formaldehyde and you don’t have a carbon monoxide leak.

Now you may have thought I was bashing green building materials in my earlier posts. Not the case. Recycled countertops, zero VOC products, and materials that don’t off-gas are important, but only part of the solution. They do play a large role in a healthy home, especially if the home is built tight, but still only part of the solution. A whole-house approach has to be taken to understand how the building is operating like a system and that one change in the structure can greatly affect the next.

If your home is built too tight there is a solution. In fact the new California code recently changed to address this (only for new homes). The solution is to control the amount and source of the air before it enters the building. This way it can as be filtered first. This can be done in a variety of ways, but the most common is a Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV) or Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV). They attach to your forced air unit and are climate specific in which type should be used. There are stand alone systems that can be installed if you have an existing home and want to do some preventative measures for IAQ.

It is better to have your home blow than suck. No pun intended. Wouldn’t you rather have your house blowing the air out of the small holes from a source you control then sucking the air from the interstitial cavities in which only the bravest contractor will venture.

A home has to have good indoor air quality and be energy efficient to be green. As previously discussed, air movement plays a large role in any home. There are many signs of air movement. Some are obvious, for example we can feel a draft and we can smell unusual odors. Some are not so easy to detect unless you know what to look for, such as dust at electrical outlets, dust where the wall meets the baseboard, dust on the carpet under a closed door, dirty insulation in the attic or crawlspace, and dirty heating and cooling registers. Air carries dust, allergens, and contaminants from outside (hopefully you don’t live on a busy street), your crawlspace and your attic. All of these holes in your home can effect how comfortable you may feel, how much you spend on heating and cooling, and your health.

Don’t worry, if you’re not sure where the holes are in your home, there are trained professionals that can help.

An Energy Star Home Performance Contractor can perform an energy audit on your home and provide you with a report and solutions to your problems. One of the primary tools a Home Performance contractor uses in testing for air movement is a blower door, smoke device, and infrared camera.

The blower door works by sucking or blowing air into your home. The blower door measures how much air is passing through the fan and through the holes in your home. If you remember our balloon example, this would be the same as measuring the amount of air that is leaking through the pin holes. As the blower door is operating a HP Contractor will walk around with a device that creates non-toxic smoke and visually detect for air leakage.

Once the Home Performance Energy Audit is complete the contractor will crunch numbers to measure how leaky or tight your home is. He or she will also calculate the correct amount of air changes for your home and provide a solution to tighten the building.

Typically, an existing home built prior to 1978 is about 2 to 3 times as leaky as it should be. Most often, a HP contractor will correct the problem by air sealing all the holes in the attic, the ductwork, wall cavities, and crawlspace.

So what happens if your house is too tight, meaning there are not enough holes? Should you be worried? You betcha. Stay tuned for tomorrows post.