Smart Design

First there was the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) movement for those who wanted to save money and make things themselves for their home. Now there’s a new movement afoot, Grow-It-Yourself (GIY), for those who want to grow their own food. It’s hard to farm in the city, but it is possible to grow your own vegetables in your condo. Here’s a group of appliances that can help you GIY.

The Lightpot by Shulab Studio is a planter that has a lamp overhead, growing from the centre of the plant. The light highlights the greenery, so it is an ideal accessory for any dark corner.

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Spotted this over at swissmiss. It’s an intriguing graphic from GOOD magazine showing how much water each of us use in our daily activities. It’s the first I’ve read of water footprints (vs. the more common carbon footprint) the amount of water an individual uses.

“Water footprints can be hard to calculate, depending on how far up the chain of production you go,

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The Scrap Lab chair is made out of denim scraps left on the factory floor. The designer, Yongyut Chanapron, is part of Design Team Scrap Lab, a team created out of the Building Innovation and Technology Department of Kasetsart University in Thailand. A lab with a mission to make new products out of leftover materials, scraps, from various manufacturing processes.

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If you’ve ever owned a swimming pool you know it’s a chore, all the cleaning and maintenance, and you know the chlorine can’t be good for you nor the planet. So what to do? Convert your pool to a natural pond. If you have an existing in-ground swimming pool you can now transform it into a natural swimming pond. More on conversion in a bit. And if you’re considering getting a pool, consider getting a pond, you can eliminate expensive heating and maintenance bills, harmful chemicals, those weekly chores and allergic reactions. There is no need to fear infestations of mosquitoes or an invasion of frogs, a natural swimming pond is nature perfected, all the small creatures live in the plant zone while you relax in the swimming zone. So instead of killing every living thing that comes into contact with your pool, you can now save and encourage wildlife in your pond.

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The RKS Laundry Pod is a prototype handwash helper that helps cut down on energy use and makes washing by hand much easier. Put dirty items into Pod, add soap and water, soak and then spin by pumping the hand lever. Drain out soapy water, refill and spin to rinse then drain and spin to damp dry. This is perfect for those who hate to deal with their delicates or get hand cramps wringing out.

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In my last post I gave you my reasons for packing my own water and shunning the plastic bottle variety. But then today at TheDieline I spotted Boxed Water is Better – a boxed water company. “Part sustainable water company, part art project, part philanthropic project, and completely curious.” It started with the simple idea of creating a new bottled water brand sans bottle that is kinder to the environment and gives back. Interestingly designer and founder Benjamin Edgar looked to the past for inspiration for the container, the box is actually a century old beverage container.
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$1.50 for a quart of filtered local tap water in a plastic bottle. 50 cents for a quart of gas from Kuwait. The jarring difference in cost of these two vital liquids, one from a local source, the other from the other side of the planet three miles below its surface, has long struck me as a little, uh, odd.

$1.50 a quart for something that is in essence relatively plentiful, free and local? Move over plastic water bottles, with aquaovo‘s new THERM-O I can take my own filtered, or unfiltered, tap water with me.

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Save water and beautify your home. That’s what MOSS SUND Architects and Fig Forty had in mind when they created the CISTA rainwater harvesting system. The system is designed for urban environments and provides 100 gallons of rainwater storage within an 8-foot vertical planted frame, simultaneously conserving water and increasing green space. The vertical arrangement sits beneath an eaves trough downspout where it collects rainwater, the resulting water pressure is enough to operate a soaker hose that can be housed in a storage compartment at the base of the unit. A potted climbing plant such as ivy is placed at the base so it can eventually grow and climb up into the frame. There’s also an LED lit water level indicator, the system can be expanded both horizontally and vertically, and thanks to the nesting design it can be efficiently shipped. Necessity was the mother of invention in this instance; the partners of figlforty were clients of architects MOSS SUND and having recently completed a major modern green home renovation were looking for ways to harvest rain water and were disappointed with the options available. So together they created CISTA, a stainless steel pillar of green that can add beauty and conserve water.