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.

And as Windfall gives stylish new life to reclaimed wood, so the other Kirei lines bring new purpose to certain types of agricultural waste.  Kirei Board, Kirei Coco Tiles, and Kirei Wheatboard use reclaimed agricultural fiber from plants commonly grown for food around the world.

After harvest, waste from sorghum (an edible grass), coconut, and wheat plants is usually thrown into landfills or burned.  Now much of this unused material is removed from the waste stream, reducing landfill use and air pollution while giving rural farmers a new source of revenue.  Rapidly renewable or FSC-certified wood are used as bonding strips, greatly reducing the need for newly harvested wood for building.

Manufacture can be more involved than with particle board.  For example, with Kirei Board the sorghum stalks are compressed, washed, and woven into sheets.  The latter are then stacked and heat-pressed with a formaldehyde-free adhesive to create blocks, which are cut to desired size.

Kirei offers a similar product made of Moso bamboo.  The plantations from which this fiber is taken are generally reclaimed farmland, which helps to preserve uncut habitat.  Panels are available in a wide variety of colorways, including the luscious looking new Chocolate, probably the favorite out of all the bamboo treatments that I’ve yet seen.

These four products are suitable for architectural millwork, cabinetry, flooring (though not in high traffic areas), wall displays or covering, furniture, and decorative objects – in short, any application where one would normally think of using wood.

To round out this versatility Kirei came out with their Canamo Hemp Panels.  These are made with a no-added-formaldehyde resin and reclaimed hemp hurd fiber left over from fabric & seed oil manufacture: over 70% post-industrial recycled content.  The panels are produced in 48”x96” size and are offered in a variety of thicknesses, all left unfinished so that designers may best tailor the product to individual need.  According to Kirei, the hemp panels may be used for the purposes above.  Ceiling panels are also available.

Collectively, the Kirei philosophy may yield several LEED credits for one’s project, which in itself is wonderful, but there’s much more to it that that.

The word kirei is a Japanese adjective signifying many meanings, including Clean, Pure, Beautiful, and Truthful.  Under John Stein’s direction the company strives to embody its namesake as an ideal.  His business aims to stimulate the economic activity of its source regions by providing new jobs at fair market wages.  By using recycled products and efficient, sustainable practices, Kirei works to lessen humanity’s impact on natural resources while contributing to clean, healthy, and aesthetically pleasing indoor environments… with a eye to the latter quality.

“Green has to be beautiful,” says Mr. Stein.

“If you’re going to do green for green’s sake you’re going to have a very limited market – people who have health issues or people with a conscience.  If you have beautiful materials that happen to be green, then really they’re open to everybody.  I regard it almost as a gateway drug to other green activities.”

With the visual appeal of the Kirei product, perhaps we’ll see many new converts to the sustainable ethic.  Let’s hope so.

~ Emerald

Images courtesy of Kirei USA.

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.”

On offer are more than a hundred wallcoverings that contribute to LEED points.  Many of the styles contain recycled pulp or rapidly renewable materials (derived from plants that are harvested on a ten-year or shorter cycle).

A star among these styles is Newsworthy, which is 100% recycled and recyclable.  Newsprint strips are hand-woven on a loom and then paperbacked to make the product wall-ready.  As an unexpected alternative to traditional grasscloth Newsworthy has many charms, among them true variability – the weave teases the senses and, on close examination, the brain, for all the thousands of tiny textual snippets beg to tell their stories.

Movie lovers will enjoy Cinema Posters, a similar product woven from reclaimed movie posters.

My personal favorites are Currents, which looks stunning framed between glass, and Eden, with which a designer could achieve some pleasing effects with light and shadow.

Special care must be taken while cutting all these products – Weitzner recommends using a new, clean blade for each cut – and several require dry cleaning. The website contains specifics on each design.  It also features a specialized clickable search engine to help designers find the exact look they need.

~ Emerald

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.

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?

Created from discarded and reclaimed materials, the Mood Rocking Bed is suitable for inside and outside use, and can be made in any size, from twin to king.  It can also be allowed to rock in place, or it can be locked in any position using rubber stoppers.

Visit Shiner International’s Etsy store and see more great furniture and lighting creations.

Thanks for visiting!

Rachel

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?

Its parent company calls Breathe a “simple system for incorporating plants into DIRTT walls… to bring nature indoors and beautify and detoxify interior spaces.”  From a home-owner’s perspective, the modular planter looks like a splendid kitchen herb garden… or a sunroom fixture… or an arresting floral display in a well-lit entranceway.  If mounted to the wall about four to six feet upward, it could be a boon for pet owners wishing to keep their house plants safe from marauding cats or dogs.

In addition to easy installment on DIRTT modular units the “living wall” can be mounted to any pre-existing flat, vertical building surface: a desirable treatment for dull, bare concrete or brick walls with nothing cheerful to say otherwise.  Designers could content themselves with the simple statement of a single row of plants or potentially convert an entire wall into a soothing, visually delightful space.

Imagine banks of fragrant herbs or a living patchwork of flowers gracing the walls of a previously bare courtyard or boring employee break room.  Wouldn’t that help company morale?

Imagine a relief of green writ large upon the so-often-uninspiring walls of academic institutions.  A green school: lovely!  Look at the pretties!

There’s a lot of potential for this product just waiting to be tapped.  Take a moment to come see and find out more.

~ Emerald

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

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.

Although this may look like a nice, woven fiberglass, it is in fact made of a composite using ramie.  In other words, it is made largely of nettle fibers!

I love that something this sleek and modern in design could be made from one of the oldest fiber crops known to mankind.  The potential for eventually replacing the more problematic fiberglass with a rapidly renewable plant product is also exciting.

Thanks for visiting!

Rachel

 Seen on Yanko Design

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.

Check out the modular seating system Lagarta, which can be configured to almost any whim, or the Puf Fup, a free-form seat of strung cork balls reminiscent of a bean bag gone wild.  Other options include the solid, toy-like Corqui and the more traditionally shaped frame chair, Vinco.

Moorish tile inspired another creation which can be used either as a desk or table, along with a matching sideboard.  In fact, the company offers three different sideboards, each with a distinct voice.

The theme can be carried further with cork hot bases for the dinner table, cork candelabras, even a wine frapé formed of cork.

But my favorite thing is the wall covering.  It’s simply beautiful and, through vibrant, is also soothing to the eye.  Other attractions are its natural ability to absorb noise, act as thermal insulation, and – the mom in me loves this – it is washable.  I hope more patterns are forthcoming!

In the US, Corque Design has product available at MoMA Design Store in New York, NY, and at Touch, in Los Angeles, CA.  An online store is in the works but in the meantime go check out Corque Design on the web.

~ Emerald

Equal parts ethereal and threatening, this prickly looking lamp is by Amsterdam based product designer company Ilias Ernst.  By using magnetic fields to attract and hold nails to the lamp, the configuration of pendant can be easily manipulated, resulting in a completely unique piece every time.

I’m just not quite sure I would want to stand under it, you know what I mean?

You can see more of Ilias Ernst’s creative design ideas here.

Thanks for visiting!

Rachel

Seen on Inhabitat

And just as the name implies, Leslie Dickinson is crazy about belts.  Lots and lots of old belts – all woven together to form the seating for chairs she has refurbished.

I swear I see one of the of the funky black leather belts I used to wear back in college…

Are you more country than rock and roll?  There are chairs for you too.

These Shaker style ladder back chairs would work in a modern entrance hall just as well as they would in a traditional breakfast room.

This little oval footrest is so cute, I just want to pinch its cheeks – if it had any.

Leslie also does custom orders, so you can request just the color mix of belts you want.  I’d love to see one done in nothing but 80′s electric blue!  Wonder if I still have any of those lying around here,…

You can check out her other creations in her Etsy store, or on her website.

Thanks for visiting!

Rachel