Remember being a kid and sitting down with your trusty box of crayons and a nice big inviting expanse of white paper?  All that great, creative possibility at your fingertips?  Yeah…

The owners of Dutch company WallArt must remember, too, because they’re given designers a grown-up version of that moment: 3D embossed wall panels in friendly do-something-awesome-with-me white.  Check out these brilliant examples from their Projects page while I tell you about the product itself.

It starts with sugar.  Rather, it starts with bagasse, the fibrous residue left over when sugarcane is shredded to extract the sweet stuff we put in our coffee every morning.

Sugarcane can be harvested up to three times a year, according to WallArt, so is one of the world’s most renewable resources.  The total annual harvest worldwide tops 1.2 billion metric tons, which could therefore theoretically produce 400 million tons of bagasse.   Like much agricultural waste, it’s normally thrown into a landfill or (worse) burned, but there are better things to do with it.

Pulp and bleach the fiber, which may be combined with other fibrous cellulosic material, add water & oil resistant agents, then mold and press it into smooth, lightweight 50 cm x 50 cm panels.  Tap the imagination.  Play.

These embossed wall panels come in 16 different patterns.  With them designers can form a repeating pattern which not only toys with light and shadow but leaves the field wide open for creative expression with color.  It’s a very tactile product that turns any wall into a sculpture.

The raw material for the panels is 100% recycled, compostable, and therefore 100% biodegradable.  However, because of its Class C fire rating the company recommends after installation use of a Class A fire proof coating/fire retardant paint.

A single WallArt commercial package contains 12 panels, which together covers about three square meters of wall space.  The product is easy to install – and the company website includes a through installation help section to assist in the process.

I’ll leave you with one last image, my favorite: a delicate treatment of the “Pitches” pattern from the Dutch interior design magazine, Ariadne At Home.  Go take a look.

~ Emerald

Images courtesy of WallArt.

The glass panels are clean, contemplative, luminous… and evocative of spring?

Well, yes, all that.  There are a many sustainable glass products out there, but this creation by Coverings Etc. is impressive in a quiet, well-grounded, Zen kind of way.

Seen close up, Bio-glass evokes carpets of emerald moss, the dark, bare beauty of trees after an autumn rain, the shimmer of ice and snow.  As part of a project, it’s sumptuous, striking, and restful all at the same time.  Take a look here. Read the rest of this entry »

Off to the Emerald City we go…

Whether ancient…

or modern, a bright green wall really pops. Read the rest of this entry »

“Demolish another building, it just gives us more to work with!”

John Stein is into demolitions, but not in the way one might think.  The founder and president of California-based Kirei USA has a knack for finding the possibilities inherent in the unwanted.

This vision shows clearly in every Kirei product, including the newest line, Windfall.  These engineered panels are produced in partnership with Windfall Lumber, which takes Douglas & Hemlock Fir from deconstructed buildings in the Pacific Northwest and brings the reclaimed wood to fresh, new life.

“It’s great to reuse demolition material that would otherwise take up space in the landfill,” says Mr. Stein.  “Having it become beautiful wood panels is even better.  This is old-growth wood that just can’t be found any more, and we get to bring it to designers.”

Windfall is manufactured in the United States using low-VOC adhesives.  The reclaimed wood is milled into strips of differing width, which are then randomly stacked to form the panels and cut to size.  Panels are available either solid or 3-ply with a NUAF/FSC-certified core.  They may come unfinished, with a clear coat that shows off the natural grain, or stained and prefinished in Anthracite, Mocha, Ivory, and Leather colors.  The result adds to any interior.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the depths of winter the primal side of us emerges in a longing for nourishing food, cheerful company, comfort, and the security of warmth.  In the past all this often came together before the fireplace.  What better than to snuggle up and watch the flames flicker and dance, as the fire turns one’s home into a snug little burrow?

Today, however, the sheer energy-inefficiency of a traditional fireplace can make it a less-than-desirable fixture in one’s household.  Yet the allure of captive flame remains.  So, how to satisfy that ancient longing?

Why, bypass the fireplace, of course.

Enter Wall Flame I & II, the sleek brain-children of Michael Rösing, managing director of Radius Design, in Brühl, Germany.  Gone is the large, surrounding containment structure, gone the flue, gone the chimney.  In short, gone is the fireplace itself, and in its place is left a simplicity of flame. Read the rest of this entry »

There are modular homes and modular walls and modular floors…  but have you seen a modular plant?  No?  I hadn’t either.

But the clever folks at DIRTT Environmental Solutions looked into their imaginations and saw a vertical garden: rows and ranks of pretty, VOC-absorbing plants marching up any given wall.  Then Sustainable Industries looked at Breathe and named it one of the Top Ten Building Products of 2011.

So what is this thing? Read the rest of this entry »

Image courtesy of D Sharon Pruitt

Each New Year is an opportunity to turn over a new leaf.

For me, we are just three days into 2012 and I am already in love with it!   This year is lined up to be an amazing one, if I can just rise to the challenges and possibilities awaiting me.  New work, new focus, new places to be and experience.  Wow!

But I’m not what this post is about.  What I really want to use this time for is to find out a little more about YOU, so I thought it might be fun to ask you a few questions this week (along with the usual posting about great new design).   Here is the first one…

Which word or phrase best describes to you the concept of designing with consideration for the environment?

Thanks for visiting and Happy New Year!

Rachel

This little jewel is already creating buzz, but, in case you haven’t seen the Plantini yet, be prepared to be charmed.

Okay, so I’m a sucker for the Victorianesque.  But isn’t it exquisite?  Thanks to the collaboration of Glasgow architectural model makers Finch & Fouracre and the folks at Another Studio for Design in London, U.K., one needn’t have a grand estate in order to own a beautiful Victorian hothouse… in miniature, that is. Read the rest of this entry »

Funky.  Crazy.  Creative.

The work of Corque Design is all of these and more.

This Portuguese company offers an interesting range of furniture & accessories, all crafted with cork taken from the Sobreiro (cork oak indigenous to the southern regions of Portugal).  Unlike wood, the harvesting of cork does not involve felling but merely the periodic gleaning of bark from the trees, which are left to continue growing in good health.  In addition to being a renewable resource, cork is recyclable, non-toxic and durable.  The bark is extracted manually, which involves no damage to the living tree, while the proceeding manufacturing process involves little waste and a low usage of resources.

But what really sets Corque Design apart from many environmentally-conscious companies is the sheer whimsy and versatility of its product line. Designers have lots of room to play.

Read the rest of this entry »

The little wooden robot sits there, head cocked, arms outstretched, vacant drilled eyes staring into space.  Its expression is puzzled and innocent.  It looks like it wants a hug.  It’s cute.

Sometimes, in the earnest seriousness of striving to live green, we forget our sense of humor.  Marjolaine Poulin of M Design hasn’t forgotten… and she loves nothing better than to make other people smile, hence the little army of wooden robots marching out of her workshop in El Salvador.

Marjolaine (“Mao”) has taken scrap wood & discarded furniture and raised them both into art.

A native of Quebec, Canada, Mao splits her time between Montreal and El Salvador, always looking for inspiration.  Her introduction to woodworking came in 2004 in Guatemala, where she learned classical bamboo carpentry from a Taiwanese master.  Shortly afterward she began crafting her own designs hoping to promote bamboo’s many advantages as a building material in Central America.

Read the rest of this entry »