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.

So, if you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you might remember this…

My office before

and this… and finally this.  That was back in March of last year.  I’m sorry I left you hanging.  Still, I thought you might like to see the final result. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

“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 »

Often those who work with sustainable design find themselves working against some all-too-common misconceptions.  Namely: that environmental consciousness and luxury are incompatible, that “natural” means “limited palette,” that an Earth-friendly wall is dull.

With their line of wallcoverings, Weitzner Limited neatly puts all that nonsense to rest.

Although certainly luxurious in the sense of being well-crafted, Weitzner’s creations are also, by turns, whimsical, arresting, soothing, classical, or all of these at once.

“We like to challenge our client’s perception of what a wallcovering can be by creating innovative materials that evoke curiosity, calm and beauty,” touts the company website.  “Then we add environmental consciousness and performance (class A ratings) into the mix.”

Read the rest of this entry »

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… Read the rest of this entry »

While the name and the concept seem pure ’70s (if this bed’s a rockin’…),

the execution is most definitely not!   This is the Mood Rocking Bed by Shiner International, and it has style!

I just have to say, I don’t know whether it’s the pastoral setting, the pretty draping of the netting above, or simply that I need a nap, but that bed looks awfully tempting, don’t you think?

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

Todays’ post is brought to you by the letter h.

Kidding.  It’s a chair.  Shocking for a design blog to write about a chair, right?

But this isn’t just any chair.  It’s the Katra Chair by Aparte Studio of France, and it is made from a very interesting material. Read the rest of this entry »