Smart Design

As consumers, we are in a state of constant craving, guided by our radar for all that is new. Sadly, this insatiable desire is not in keeping with a sustainable lifestyle, so a product that allows us to show the world our latest face without disposing of an item and replacing it with something new is a real treasure. Meins Taschen is just the ticket.

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As sustainability becomes an increasingly inevitable design element, designers are approaching this unwritten brief from various directions. In our last post, we looked at lighting design from an almost purely granola perspective (or edible, at any rate) – this time the point of view and execution are solidly industrial. Both will appeal, but perhaps to different users.

There may be an element of playfulness to the Allsteel Link light designed by Peter Stathis of San Francisco’s Virtual Studio, but the energy-saving aspect manages to outshine the task light’s good looks and fun factor. The combination of sustainability, performance and style led to the ICFF Editors Award for Best Lighting at New York’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair in 2008, when Link was first unveiled. read more

For The Birds, a series of food-based lamps by Florian Kräutli, came about when the young designer was left to make decisions about a previous tenant’s belongings following a move. The pieces that Kräutli liked became his; the others ended up as garbage. This arbitrary approach led him to the realization that products that are no longer owned by anyone are, in fact, anyone’s. He says, “But it is our concept of value, which makes them garbage or (precious) objects. Often there are chairs standing on the street as bulky waste which only shortly before were inside a house and were valuable objects.” read more

While students at the Rhode Island School of Design, Grain designers Chelsea Green, James Minola, and Brit Kleinman participated in a career shifting course led by designer Mimi Robinson entitled Bridging Cultures Through Design. This six week program connected the design students with groups of artisan communities and exporters in Guatemala. The goal was to create unique textile products to bring to US and international markets that celebrate Guatemalan artisan techniques and traditions while building sustainable incomes for the artisans. read more

Mexico may not be the first place one thinks of for sustainable design. Designer Emiliano Godoy’s Pirwi is one of several design firms that are part of a design boom in Mexico City, and his firm is squarely focused on sustainable furniture. Among the many intriguing designs in the Pirwi portfolio is the Knit Chair. “The construction of the Knit chair speaks about smaller pieces coming together to form a bigger structure.” Namely small pieces of Aircraft plywood held together with cotton rope. That structure flexes and responds to the user’s body. We’ve seen bent ply, now we have cellular ply. For that innovation alone it’s not surprising that this chair won a Bronze Leaf at the International Furniture Design Award in Asahikawa, Japan. Pirwi is actually a manufacturing collective founded by two industrial designers, Emiliano Godoy and Alejandro Castro in 2007. Today, the full Pirwi line includes more than 70 objects by 12 designers, and features several award-winning pieces and products, all sustainably made, now considered classics of contemporary Mexican design. Happily, Pirwi products are now available in the U.S. via the Kirk Gallery.

Have kids? If you have small ones you’ll likely need a high chair for meals. And if you want something with a little more modern design than those available at your neighborhood big box home store, it will cost quite a bit more. Enter the .minui HandySitt, a Danish-designed high chair now available in North America (it’s been available in Europe for a decade). It transforms any adult chair with a back into a high chair so your child can then eat at the same table as you. read more

Students of the IUAV Design Faculty in Venice, Italy have been re-thinking kitchen tools. They’ve come up with some interesting concepts that, if we are lucky, will see the light of day as a manufactured product. Here are a few examples:

MISSBRICIOLA by Elisa Davi, an alternative to the household food processor that can crush grains or nuts (walnuts, almonds, pistachios, hazelnuts…) and is hand-powered. Simply fill the semi-transparent silicon pouch with grain, insert the stainless steel sphere and begin pressing and rolling the pouch. The semi-transparency makes it possible to see the progress. When suitably crushed empty the grain from the pouch. read more

Furniture can do so much more than we’ve come to expect, we’re only limited by our imagination. Case in point, the renewable energy SOLo Lounge Table by iF (Intelligent Forms) is a table that has silicon cells embedded in its glass surface that collect and convert solar energy to clean and efficient electricity. The power is stored in the table so that you can then power your electronic gadgets. It has USB and standard three prong outlets for your MP3 player, cel phone, camera, just about any portable electronic device. read more

Recycled car seat belts have been made into pant belts, bags and chairs for a while now. This blogger has seen quite a few of these seat belt designs, most of them artisanal, and most look it. That is until 959, an Italian company that makes bags with recycled seatbelts, but in a way that incorporates the constraints of seat belts as a raw material into the designs and turns them into highly desirable objects. read more

RiVIT is Davide Scomparin’s 1st place winning entry to The Design Institution’s recent Beach&Pool 2008/09 design competition. The portable beach mat solves a couple of problems at the same time, it provides padded comfort and a hood to protect skin from the sun’s rays and at the same the hood captures those rays to charge your cel phone and or MP3 player (via USB). read more