Furniture
Stylish Sustainable Furniture in Tel Aviv – Ubico Design Studio
With so much trash and waste in the world, it’s great to see individuals like Ori Ben-Zvi turning into something beautiful and useful.
With stylish and thought provoking designs, Ubico Design Studio has been converting reclaimed materials into works of functional art since February of 2008.
Materials are collected from dumpsters, renovations works and the streets of Tel Aviv, Israel with the intention of urban gathering and reclaiming.
Offering sustainable furniture and accessories from recycled materials with environmentally conscious finishes, Our focus is on generating high quality design with good craftsmanship made solely of recycled and reclaimed materials.
High Flying Recycled Retro Furniture
Vintage planes are like vintage automobiles, they have a certain class and distinct style about them. Some people like them, and some people love them. I personally love all the polished aluminum, patterned rivets and sleek forms of the aircraft from the past- back when you used to wear a suit on the plane and they used to fly to places like Havana.
MotoArt brings that feeling right into to your living room, bedroom or office with their vintage aircraft furniture. Sourced from actual pieces of aircraft history, each design incorporates a meticulously cleaned and polished piece of and truly unique vintage plane. More than recycled or reused, these pieces are re-fashioned to accentuate their beauty and design.
Most pieces are modernized into desks, beds and office components- a meld of vintage technology with modern technology into a wondrous work of art. If automotive is more your thing, you may want to check out these vintage car furniture designs.
Tottini – Design For Modern Green Kids
Seattle moms Melissa Maffei and Melissa Van Flandern both have a passion for the simplicity and beauty of modern design which is wholly apparent when you step into their children’s furnishing store Tottini. Brimming with bright colors and interesting shapes, your children will instantly fall in love with everything in the store, and you will appreciate the clean modern design.
Surrounded by fresh children’s products with sustainable green design, recycled content and modern eco-chic simplicity and materials, Tottini is the place for green kids (and their parents). Art and design take center stage at this children’s furnishings boutique, products and furnishings are well designed with clean modern lines. Most toys and furnishings are made from organic cotton, sustainable wood, bamboo and recycled plastics- but lack nothing in the fun department.
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LiT Lampshades – Promoting Green Home Design
Lampshades are not usually something you think of when designing green, and it is really hard to find environmentally friendly shades. Most shades have a plastic styrene backing which in no way is biodegradable. They are then coated with toxic glue then the fabric. Let’s think what happens when this glue gets hot,….toxic glue….hot light bulb….your baby’s room….hum? None too good for the earth, and on the aesthetic side- most plastic based shades are ugly, thus none too good for your decor.
LiT, a not only local but green designer lampshade company (based in Seattle, Washington), is taking a stand against ugly toxic shades by making their shades earth friendly through careful consideration in the materials used in producing LiTshades. Instead of plastic owner Dawn Bassett uses only paper backing. The backing is laminated using water based, non-toxic adhesive and then the reclaimed, recycled or re-purposed fabrics and papers give the shades their final touch. She also insists on only using natural fiber textiles like silks and cottons.
Dawn makes all her shades by hand, usually sitting quietly or rocking out to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in her shop. Her shades are not mass produced in Vietnam, Indonesia, or China in large crazy factories by little kids for two cents a day.
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Eco Friendly Reader Suggestions – Green Jewelry and Sustainable Furniture Design
When it comes to green design, there are some really cool eco-friendly artists out there doing some amazing work. Here at The Chic Ecologist, we like to bring to light some of these beautiful sustainable designs. I have had a lot of great ‘reader finds’ and small design shops and artists send me some of their works and designs, so it is time to share!
Nikki Montoya is a jewelry designer that comes to us from Southern California with an eclectic collection of jewelry inspired by the past. Sustainable materials, salvaged rarities and vintage charms are brilliantly combined with a contemporary vision and technique. Each one of these unique and inspired handmade creations are one of a kind. I am a particular fan of the bangles (pictured) and “Sparrows”. Check out her website and find her jewelry sprinkled in a handful of Los Angeles area boutiques.
.jpg "Poj Facundo bamboo furniture")
Miami based Argentinian furniture designer Facundo Poj has a scattering educational and experience background ranging from a master builder and Architecture school to a degree in Urban Affairs and Environmental Problems. His works consist of handcrafted junkyard objects with historic value. He is interested in subjects which contain a soul and have a lasting quality to them. Researching new ways of using materials outside the large scale mainstream manufacturing; he employes materials like salvaged cardboard or engineered bamboo. I particularly enjoy his repurposed bathtub line of furniture including the bathtub chaise lounge.
Related Items:
Simply Wooden Rings – Sustainable Wood Jewelry
Junkyard Tables – Vintage Automobile Hood Tables
Metaform Studio Lighting – Green Lighting Design
Beach Trash Sculptures – Necklaces from Discarded Rubbish
Repurposing & Upcycling – The Ultimate in Green Recycling is Reuse
Repurposing (also known as upcycling or reuse) is really the best way of taking an existing object (usually no longer suited for its original purpose) and reusing it for another purpose. This can be as simple as creating an art mosaic out of broken dishes, to turning old doors into tables. It can be as creative as you are and just takes some imagination and good ol’ Macgyver skills. Doing this in a pleasing design friendly way can sometimes be a challenge, but here are a few of my favorites that have worked brilliantly both in the visual and the functional uses. First up, some great green home ideas of repurposed furniture, decor and lighting:
Vintage Belt Floor Mat
One of the coolest floor covering/mats i have ever seen. Its made of old leather belts and has a textures and colors that astound me. You can find them at Branch Home, along with a whole lot of other cool designed sustainable items and housewares.
Designer: Inghua Ting
Made from: Vintage leather belts
Price: $688.00
Buy it at: Branch Home
Truck Spring Stools
A wonderful example of an industrial use object repurposed for home use. It has great interesting design with all the charachter of a vintage weathered found object. It wouldn’t work in all homes, but it would look really cool in a few.
Designer: Ken Fulk
Made from: Discarded truck springs
Find it at: Artefact Design & Salvage in Sonoma, California.
[via apartmenttherapy]
Tower Light
Metaform Studio offers great green design by upcycling wooden palates and other materials into lamps and lighting solutions. The light pictured is created by hand from a variety of found wooden palates along with a good design sense. While it might be worthwhile to try this yourself, if you would like to pass up the learning curve and go directly to a elegant professionally re-crafted product, this is your answer.
Designer: Khader Humied
Made from: Found wooden palates
Price: $1,400.00
Buy it at: Metaform Studio
Vintage Automobile Hood Tables
Metal coffee tables repurposed from vintage car and truck hoods are unique, beautiful and have some history. Not something you find everyday, and probably pretty difficult to do yourself, these are not for the amatuer upcycler.
Designer: Joel Hester
Made from: Vintage automobile hoods
Price: $850.00
Buy it at: joelhester.com
Daisy Vase
Repurposing the bic pen is very easy, and considering how many disposible pens there must be out there, its a good candidate. The preceding link shows several uses such as a handle for a set of utensils all the way to dynamic sculpture lighting. I am very impressed by the range of uses people have come up with for this simple and abundent object. The bic pen vase is one of my favorite because it radically changes the use and original form of the pen with very little energy or effort.
Designer: Jim Termeer and Jess Giffin
Made from: disposable Bic pens
Price: $22.00
Buy it at: designboom
Junkyard Tables
As soon as i saw one of these tables, i was in love. They have everything. Reused materials, beautiful design and textures, modern style, and each one is unique. It isn’t rocket science, but it takes skill and craftsmanship. Creating elegant metal tables out of salvaged vintage American automobile hoods is a great idea, and Joel Hester does it with class. With naturally worn patterns formed from oxidation, rust and vivid colors of paint, each piece has its own look and feel.
Each table is finished off with quality materials for the legs and feet, and given a new purpose in your living room. Starting at $850, they offer a reasonable price point for such a one-of-a-kind well made long lasting item. Also available for purchase are bed frames, desks and other metal framed furniture pieces.
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