Smart Design

Much is said about the components of sustainable design: the materials themselves, the nature of the process and how friendly it will be to the future. But we often forget about sustaining the traditions that make the most of longstanding handicraft techniques. Promoting these skills can help develop trade that is crucial to certain economies. Barcelona’s nanimarquina has been playing an important role in sustaining the human touch, manufacturing rugs in northern India since 1993.

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Did I tell you I’ve become fascinated (kind of obsessed, actually) with composting? Talk about a great example of smart design — you take a bunch of unusable waste products, add sunlight and heat, and you get high quality, highly usable soil. Brilliant. Apparently it’s hard to beat the genius of Mother Nature.

We’ve just started composting in our own backyard. We’re using these adjustable bins and experimenting to see what works best for us. We add kitchen scraps and grass clippings to our compost bin and we’ve added bushels and bushels of wormy apples that fell from our backyard tree. I would love to get to a point where I’m able to add much of the paper waste our house creates, like homework, junk mail, and food packaging.

For much of my adult life, I didn’t have access to backyard or community composting, and I’m sure the same is true for many people. So when I saw the NatureMill Automatic Composter, a light clicked on for me.

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It’s the time of year when boxy Air Conditioner window units have long been shut off, but many are still lodged in windows, collecting dust and grime until their owners find time to yank them out of the windows and into winter storage. And although Central Air may reign in suburbia, single AC units are as much a part of urban centers as are noisy radiators and drafty windows.

Look up at an apartment or office building in a city; the protruding boxes are an unintentional (yet prevalent) design element. Surely architects and designers cringe when they see their work defaced by these antiquated units. read more

If you’re an urban dweller, a student, or a backpacker—basically someone who lugs around a lot of stuff throughout the day—deciding what is worthy to make it out of the house with you can require some tenacity, planning, and resourcefulness. Unfortunately, one of the things that often doesn’t make the cut is a reusable water bottle. Many are (understandably) hard, durable plastic or aluminum, but these take up a lot of space and can be heavy, even without water. With convenience and time, it often seems easiest to just buy a PET bottle on the go.

A new bottle released this past year, the Vapur, is a smart and easy solution to this problem. Termed the ‘anti-bottle,’ the Vapur is a 16 oz, flexible, rollable, foldable bottle. When filled, the tough, (BPA-free) polymer bag-bottle stands upright, and flattens to roll or fold up when empty. The colored bottles (green, blue, pink, and smoke) have a standard pop-top spout, and are conveniently freezer and dishwasher safe. It also comes with a detachable carabiner, for easily attaching to belt loops and backpacks.
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Humans have been cooking their food for an estimated quarter million years. After all that time though in still generally boils down to the manipulation of heat, water, and salt. We’ve baked, boiled, and steamed nearly everything we’ve come across, and while we obsess about design constantly at NOTCOT, at our freshly launched Tasteologie, dedicated to the fascinating design of culinary goodness,  we come across a lot, but people are still constantly coming up with new ways to cook things! You may have heard of Pressure Cooking, but have you tried the opposite? See more on the next page…
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At a time when the expectation is that all new products and projects place an emphasis on sustainability, a little humour mixed with mystery does not go astray. Such is the case of L’ham, a dynamo lamp based on a fishing rod and designed by an unseen character who is ostensibly the principal of a Spanish design studio with a focus on sustainable design.

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One of clean technology’s greatest challenges is the common perception that it is an eyesore – from wind turbine-hating NIMBY‘s to solar-quashing building codes, there’s a multitude of superficial fronts mounting against good green design. One smart solution that’s sure to curtail complaints from noisy neighbors is this set of gorgeous glass solar-thermal roof tiles designed by SolTech. The sturdy, modular shingles utilize a simple system to store energy from the sun to heat your home, and they’re quite beautiful to boot. read more

So many toys are plastic. It makes sense: toys should ideally be durable, lightweight, and colorful, while inexpensive and easy to replace. Plus, kids are naturally fickle, growing up fast and constantly changing their minds about what they want to eat for dinner or their which is the favorite toy of the moment. All this drives the manufacturing of droves of toys, used briefly, then discarded.

One solution: a toy that can adapt to a child’s changing interests, encouraging creativity and using up leftover household materials. Yup, that’s Makedo, “A reusable connector system for creating amazing objects and spaces from recycled materials.”
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Once in awhile someone will tell me they don’t have a dishwasher and a look of shock will immediately register on my face. Like “Whaaa? Are you trying to protest or something?” Then I’ll remember that for half of my adult life I didn’t have one either. It’s a pretty common thing. Especially if you live in a small city apartment, or have a fondness for older homes. And if you don’t own a dishwasher, finding the right dishrack becomes an actual thing you think about.

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The idea of wearing wool while sweating through a strenuous hiking session is, point blank, pretty unappealing. A pleasant workout could turn into an itchy, sticky mess pretty quick. But New Zealand company Icebreaker, in a dogged pursuit to create a natural fleece functioning for performance, recently released their Realfleece jacket.

The jacket, in versions for men or women, serves as the first outer layer in Icebreaker’s line of merino wool base layers. It’s outer layer is a smooth, breathable jersey finish, and the interior layer is a terry knit construction, with loft that has been brushed to create air pockets that work to trap air and lock in body heat. Plus, the design also makes it a jacket that can easily straddle both the performance and social worlds.
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