Our moderator was the ever charming Cathy Baranger (with me above), one of the founding members of the USGBC chapter in Orange County.

Our setting was the beautiful Room & Board store at South Coast Plaza Village.  Love those recycled aluminum Emeco chairs.  So sharp!

They really pulled out all the stops to accommodate us, including setting up a terrific room for our panel discussion.

There was the wonderfully casual setup for our panel (we used the blank wall above to project a PowerPoint presentation).

And then checkout what they did with the audience chairs,… they arranged them in shaded rows starting with white and ending in charcoal.  I love it when people think of little details like that.  Makes all the difference.

I spent a little time walking around and checking out some of their sustainable offerings.  Take a look at a few of the things I found…

Love the cheery, fresh green of these great recycled plastic chairs from Loll.

These Toka baskets are individually hand woven by women in Zambia, from the roots of the makenge bush.

Beautiful handscreened prints!  Titled the Tree Series Linden, they are a limited edition collaboration between KleinReid and iconic modernist, Eva Zeisel.

This handsome sectional is upholstered in fabric made of 60% recycled cotton.

Wish I had the wall space for this great, vintage British trolley sign!  I have no idea how they managed to score these, but kudos to the person who thought to make them into wall art.

Wow.  Just wow.  For this, I’d MAKE the wall space.  This is one of 42 street banners celebrating a 2008 exhibit at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco on contemporary Japanese fashion.  Banners for museums and events are always so beautiful.  What a great idea to re-use them for wall art!

All in all, it was a fun event, in a lovely, inspiring setting.  Room & Board store manager, John Fox, and his terrific staff made sure everything went smoothly.  All the wonderful USGBC people working on the event were patient with me as I struggled through my jet lag.  And of course, my fellow panelists were informative, engaging, and even pretty funny.  Thanks everyone!

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.

Those prim Victorians definitely wouldn’t have appreciated the sensuous curves of Onyx’s brilliant, and oh so modern, interpretation.

The Moebius is beautifully woven out of sustainable rattan and water hyacinth.  The twists and turns of an actual Möbius Strip are preserved to create the gentle curves of the back and seat.

The amazing framework of this chair can be appreciated best without the additional water hyacinth woven in.  In fact, the double armchair can be ordered this way as well, which is personally my favorite of the two versions.

Despite the lovely outdoorsy images, this chair is intended for indoor use only.  To find out more, including how to order, click here.

Anyway, wine is a multi-billion dollar, global industry, and anything that big generates a LOT of waste.  So I thought I would share some of my favorite sustainable goods made from the remnants of the wine making process…

Elegant curves define this beautiful folding chair from Whit McLeod.  Made from used oak wine barrels – many of them decades old – this chair is surprisingly comfortable and very chic.

Here on this Fontenay coffee table, it is easy to see how the type of wine, and the length of time a barrel is used, provide a rich variation in staining.

That beautiful variation is also evident in this richly patterned “barn door” by master furniture maker Cliff Spencer, also made of reclaimed oak from wine barrels.  I so wish I had a place in my house or studio to put one!

And of course, the oak can be used to create a stunning floor, like this custom one, also by Fortenay.

There are other great materials to be reused too.  For instance, wine corks make a terrific flooring, as these sweet round tiles cut from surplus wine corks show. And yes, that’s a picture of a shower floor.  Believe it or not, these tiles install just like regular ceramic tiles, with standard thin set and grout.  The only difference is the water based urethane you finish them with once they are installed.

Yemm & Hart has gone so far as to collect used wine corks, reprocessing them into 3′ x 3′ tiles, that can be applied to floors, walls or even as a surfacing material for furniture.

And of course, no post would be complete without things made from wine bottles.  Now, I could write an entire post on lovely vases, glasses and decorative items made from bottles, and maybe I will someday, but for now I wanted you to see a couple of more unusual applications.

Here are some marvelous color block pendant lamps by Jerry Kott.  Handcut from recycled wine bottles, and then reassembled, they would look striking suspended over a kitchen island, or a stylish wet bar.

Another piece I just love is this sideboard.  Designed and handcrafted by Blue Moon Bottles from recycled steel, glass and wine bottle punts (the bottom end of the bottle), it looks so pretty and yet truly useful at the same time.

To really appreciate how pretty the punts look in this table though, you have to see them with a little light coming through.  It reminds me a bit of the stained glass windows made from cut bottle bottoms that were at a Mexican restaurant I ate at as a kid.  They absolutely fascinated me.  Ah nostalgia… I have a sudden craving for cheese enchiladas now!

So, do you have a favorite piece of furniture, decorative piece, or building material you’ve seen made from the remnants of winemaking (and drinking!)?  Please feel free to share it in the comments below.

Meanwhile, just so you know, I’m on vacation.  Not a “throw all cares to the winds, sipping margaritas by the pool, can’t be reached by cell phone” type of vacation, but a little time off nonetheless. So I hope you won’t mind the brevity of my writing for the next several days.  I have some serious relaxing to do.  Maybe with a glass or two of wine in hand…

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!

Recycled paper, molded into a shade, then fully wired and ready to go!  Created and developed by Polish designer Ania Werner, the Make Your Lamp manages to be both sustainable AND affordable.

But the best part?…You can paint it any color you want!  Lipstick red, lemon yellow, lime green – it’s all up to you.  Polka dots if you’re feeling really ambitious.  You can even cut into the shade if you want.

Every lamp has its own, unique serial number, and comes ready to paint.

Made by hand in Poland, these lamps can be shipped worldwide.  They would make a fantastic project for kids, students, DIY enthusiasts, or just folks wanting to find a lamp in a VERY particular color.  How the Make Your Lamp turns out is completely up to you!

Dr. Steingraber’s story is one of crisis, survival, realization and action.  A story that revolves around cancer.  Her cancer.  A story that involves her taking her knowledge of science and using it to enlighten us as to why so many – so very many – of us are getting it.

She told us of growing right next to the Illinois River, and never fishing because the fish were too toxic to eat.  She told a tale of going to Sudan to study the environmental and human crisis along their rivers, only to be asked by a Sudanese man why she was worried about their river and not her own back home.

She talked about research into the causes of cancer, and explained that, although genetics play a role, our genes can’t really be changed.  However, the environment plays an equal or even greater role in the likelihood of our getting cancer, and that we CAN change.

As though to punctuate her speech, and remind us that the earth can still be healed, nature provided a stunning rainbow.  Happily, the rain that followed was considerate, and waited for her to finish before chasing us to our cars.

I left the lecture feeling an intense mixture of anger, frustration, hope and inspiration.  As I sit here next to my 8 year old son, typing away on this post, I wonder what his future will be, and if I can save him from the consequences of previous generations destructive, if often unwitting, mistakes.

To learn more about Dr. Steingraber’s amazing story, as well as everything you probably didn’t want to know about how badly we are soiling our own nest, you should read her book, “Living Downstream“, and see the beautiful, haunting documentary of the same name.

In the enjoyable, well paced “Made by Hand”, author Mark Frauenfelder, of Make Magazine fame, tells lively DIY tales of chickens, honey, math and espresso.

Oh, and there is a bit in there about cigar box banjos too.

I’ve followed Mark via Make and BoingBoing for several years, and have always found his take on the DIY way of life to be funny and candid.  Much of what he writes about, even the part about the trials and tribulations of building a better hen house, is relevant to what is happening within the larger green design community.  After all, making things ourselves, out of materials close at hand, is surely more sustainable than purchasing a mass produced item from overseas.

With his honest confessions of failure, and spiritual descriptions of success, Frauenfelder gives us inspiration to live a simpler, more connected life.  But reader beware – you just might find yourself googling for instructions to make that cigar box banjo by the time you put down the book.

I was killing time, wandering around while my son tried to convince a very overstuffed koi fish to take one more piece of fish chow, when I ran across a lovely sight…

A loom!  Now, I’m not a weaver, but I did once take a class, and I find the whole process fascinating.  As I stood in front of this loom and stared at the work in progress, I wondered what on earth the yarn was made of.  I couldn’t figure it out.  Was it jute?  No, not rough enough.  Was it wool?  No, no fibers sticking out.  Well, what the heck was it??

After dragging my family back over to the loom, textile artist Susan Lei, whose lovely work this is, was kind enough to ease my curiosity.  This strange, mysterious yarn was,… mulberry paper!

Through an painstaking process of carefully cutting rolls of Japanese mulberry paper into long strips, winding them up into a cotton thread wrapped yarn, and then hand dyeing them in tea to attain a warm, aged color, she was able to make a beautiful, natural fiber for her latest work.

As we stood and talked, my son became completely fascinated with the working of the loom, including the foot peddles Susan Lei used to lift and lower the warp threads.  He had a barrage of questions for her about how everything worked, and in the end, I had to practically drag him away.  That loom might as well have been a Wii game system.

It got me to thinking about how distanced we have all become from the way everyday things are made, much less works of textile art such as this.  Many people, perhaps most in fact, don’t even know what the terms warp and weft (woof) mean, even though without weaving, we would all still be running around in animal skins.Musings on our cultural disconnects aside, I wanted to take a moment to show you just how lovely Susan Lei’s work is.  The piece on her loom is the very beginning of a kimono she is creating for a show at CSULB.  The kimono takes its motif from a tree, hence the beautiful knotholes and leaves.  I hope I get an opportunity to see the finished piece, as I’m sure it will be breathtaking.

Susan herself is also lovely, but I’m afraid the one image I took of her managed to be one of those “oops you blinked” moments, and if she’s like me, she would probably not appreciate it being made public. So you’ll just have to imagine a tall, slender, talented woman in a beautiful blue kimono, standing by her loom, enticing adults and children alike into learning the warp and woof of life.

Now, I’m not usually a big fan of shocking pink, but this rug is just the sort of cheerful detail that can make a room.  Using technology to cut crisp, whimsical designs out of thick wool felt, Selina Rose has taken an ancient material and given it a new, playful edge.

For her 2010 collection, UK based designer Selina Rose has continued her exploration of striking colors and nature inspired designs in new rugs, throws, pillows and even coasters.  The wool felt’s bright colors come from environmentally friendly dyes, making them safe as well as sustainable.

I love the clever butterfly cutouts on these pillows.  They really seem to invite you to peek beneath the wings to see what’s hidden there.So if you need a little cheer around you home, or are just curious to see more of her lovely designs, click here.  All of the products are designed and produced in the UK, but can be shipped worldwide.