interior design
Eco-Development and Sustainable Renovation
I’ve noticed an interesting trend lately. The renovation of old buildings. Gorgeous old buildings gutted and rebuilt from the inside-out, as green and sustainable new structures.
An exciting (and well-publicized) example of this is the Sanctuary development on Capital Hill in Seattle.
The original church was built in the early 1900s and has been a distinctive landmark of the neighborhood for years. Through the renovation of this historical icon, ecological- minded urban residences are being created.
The preservation of the beautiful building was a cornerstone of the project planning. Architectural details, bricks, wooden pews, flooring and windows were repurposed and used within the new residential development as stairs, detailing, in-fill and patching. New sustainable aspects of the housing itself include dual flush toilets and tankless water heaters. › Continue reading
Remove Indoor Toxins with these Specializing House Plants
Money Plant (Epipremnum aureum)
I’ve been reading a lot lately about air filtering house plants and which ones are the best for the job. Turns out, most are specialized to remove specific toxins, so lets first look at the list of indoor toxins so we can find out which plants you need to remove those toxins. Pretty much all plants are going to improve air quality, these have just been researched more than others and/or are better performing at removing certain things. Also keep in mind that many of these are also invasive weeds, so please keep them in pots in your home and take care when disposing of them.
Trichloroethylene (TCE) in the home is introduced from dry cleaning, printing inks, paints, lacquers, varnishes, and adhesives. This chemical is considered by the National Cancer Institute as a potent liver carcinogen.
Benzene is present in many common items including gasoline, inks, oils, paints, plastics, and rubber. It is an eye and skin irritant as well as being a contributing factor to leukemia in humans. Repeated skin contact with benzene will cause drying, inflammation, blistering and dermatitis.
Formaldehyde is a extraordinarily common in almost every indoor environment. Found in everything from particle board or pressed wood products used in many furniture pieces, to grocery bags, facial tissues and paper towels. Even common household cleaning agents and air fragrances contain formaldehyde. With carpet backings, fire proof coatings, permanent-press clothes and natural gas all containing the toxin, it is nearly impossible to avoid.
The ANDREA Natural Plant Air Purifier
Its great to see people taking design hints from nature, and the ANDREA is no different. Well, actually, it is more of an integration of nature. Housing an actual live plant of your choosing, it uses more than just a filter to clean your air, it uses a whole process of nature.
While it may just appear to be a plant in a plastic dome with a fan, it is actually much more complex. Funneling the air through the leaves and roots of the plant, particles and harmful airborne toxins are absorbed and converted by the plant using the natural process of nature. No, that is not the technical term, but lets just say the chemical processes get complex.
Designed by Mathieu Lehanneur and David Edwards of Harvard University, it is not only pleasing to look at, it is also effective at reducing indoor pollution levels. Our homes and offices can have higher pollution levels than outside due to toxic cleaning chemicals, VOCs from interior paint and offgassing office furniture which house plants can be fairly effective at removing.
While I am sure the reductions aren’t going to be as big as your run of the mill carbon or HEPA filters, they also don’t make as much noise or have replaceable filter pads. Plus, as a bonus, they produce oxygen, that thing that we all breathe to stay alive- bet your household filter doesn’t do that!
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.
Plyboo Bamboo Plywood and Durapalm Palm Tree Sustainable Flooring
I love bamboo. Its beautiful, its durable, and its a great sustainable and renewable resource, so I am pretty excited about Plyboo by Smith and Fong. Certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and available for LEED credit by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), these surfaces and flooring are all about sustainability. Made from FSC certified bamboo and palm, these flooring and paneling alternatives have a beautiful and unique modern but warm look.
Smith & Fong’s Plyboo flooring, plywood and veneer are derived from Moso bamboo harvested from a forest that requires no irrigation, fertilizers or pesticides. Each year, only 20 percent of the plantation’s bamboo (or only the five-year growth) is cut, ensuring the forest canopy remains intact and the ecosystem is not disturbed.
Both the Durapalm and Plyboo flooring, veneer and plywood use a urea formaldehyde-free adhesive called PlybooPure™ and pass the California Air Resources Board (CARB)’s formaldehyde regulations for composite panels. It also earned the world’s first non-wood FSC certification for its bamboo resource in China, providing third-party validation of a truly sustainable industry. Additionally, Smith & Fong retain a relationship with the actual bamboo farmers, to ensure the quality and sustainability of the operation.
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.
› Continue reading
Amenity Home – Modern Chic Organic Cotton Linen and Sustainable Hemp Bedding
Amenity Handwoven Alpaca Throw Blanket
I just found this great sustainable modern design home collection from Amenity, and I want it. The designs are a perfect blend of modern and eco chic, all made from sustainable hemp and organic cotton and dyed with natural vegetable based dyes.
Producing their goods locally (printed and sewn in Los Angeles, CA) and only with eco-friendly dyes and minimally-processed natural fibers, their manufacturing process mirrors their ethic. Hand drawn and individually printed by Amenity’s founders, Nicole Chiala and Kristina de Corpo bridge clean modern design with eco friendly home decor to create this collection.
Amenity Organic Nursery Collection
I was also very excited about their Nursery collection of organic bedding for babies and children. Although I don’t have children of my own, I do feel that the less exposure to harsh chemicals, the better, especially during childhood development. Not only are they natural, they also look beautiful with fun blocky plants and animal prints, so chic parents take note!
With an array of organic and sustainable bedding, pillows, wall art, and even handwoven alpaca throw blankets from Peru, Amenity home decor makes a great addition to the somewhat limited sustainable and eco-friendly modern home design pool.
In addition, Amenity home has been so generous to provide The Chic Ecologist readers with a 30% discount! Just use the code “sunshine” when checking out, the code is good until March 15th, 2009.
Amenity Organic Duvet Cover
Eco Friendly Interior Painting – Green Up Your Redecorating and Remodeling
So you want to paint a few walls in your house, but are wondering how to do it in the most green environmentally friendly way. Interior Decorating can cause a lot of waste and produce harmful vapors, but you can reduce these by examining your options a little closer. Take the simple task of painting a wall, you need a drop cloth to protect your floors and surrounding areas, tape for getting those clean edges, rollers, buckets, trays, etc. Professionals tend to have heavy duty equipment, built for reuse like thick canvas drop cloths and metal trays, but what about for the do it yourselfer who doesn’t have any use for buying these heavy grade materials and doesn’t have the storage for it?
First lets start with the materials. While a canvas drop cloth tarp would be best for large jobs, multiple rooms, or if you have the extra storage; for those one time jobs take a look at the biodegradable Eco Drop floor covering. It works just as those regular plastic drop cloths do, but with a biodegradable twist. Made with renewable and biodegradable vegetable based plastics, these will have a much easier time breaking down over time, and are renewable. At $3, it won’t break the budget and is quite comparable to your plastic alternatives.
When it comes to trays, there are many options. Ideally a reusable metal tray which you could use over and over again would be the most eco friendly solution. However, for those who need a disposal option, the Bio Tray is a biodegradable paint tray made from recycled cardboard with a thin layer of plastic on top (to prevent paint absorption into the cardboard). You can further extend the life of the tray (or swap colors easily) by lining it with aluminum foil for a quick color change and cleanup. Just rinse and recycle the foil when done, or reuse it for another paint job.
Rollers can be a bit more tricky as these are most certainly disposable after a few uses. I try to rinse and squeegee as much paint as I could out of them, but I usually could only get 1-2 more uses out of them before they became patchy and unusable. Now you can be more eco friendly with Whizz Green rollers made with recycled materials.
Paint can be just as if not more important when choosing decorating green. You want to select a paint with low, preferably zero VOC content (check to make sure the pigments don’t contain VOC as well, as this is how several paints that claim no VOCs actually have some). VOC stands for Volatile Organic Compounds and can lead to Sick Building Syndrome (the building isn’t sick, but it is making you sick). This is what gives off that harsh paint odor and causes headaches when painting and during the drying process. Nowadays these paints are easier to find as most major paint brands have a zero VOC paint available in their line. They tend to be more expensive, but usually are much higher quality, allowing for just a single coat and better coverage (you use much less paint).
You can find most of these products at your local Home Depot or Lowes, and ask your local paint store to stock them if they don’t. You may be able to order them over the web through several green decorating retailers as well. When decorating, if you can’t reuse, then look for items that are recyclable or have recycled content; and if you are going disposible, try and find biodegradable items to stay green.
[via daily danny]
Green Materials for Eco Friendly Design – Sustainable Materials and Green Building Products
Green designers and material engineers have been hard at work; creating renewables, recycleables and waste reclaiming products. Green building materials are developing at a rapid pace, from fly-ash concrete to fabrics made from recycled goods. It can be hard to keep up with all of the new developments in green materials, but there are two great up to date resources at your fingertips. CSI GreenFormat and Ecolect are two eco material alternative online catalogues with information on many types of cutting edge building materials for architects, builders, designers and interior decorators.
Ecolect is a web–based company that provides information and news about sustainable materials for product design, architecture, furniture design, graphic design, and more. The website is beautifully designed, making it easy to browse, search and submit materials. The layout is similar to a blog format and offer material photos and descriptions. Since some of the materials are user submitted, the amount and depth of the specifications vary with each material. The interface is great for browsing green materials for basic information about newer textiles and building materials. The in depth green product descriptions give you full cradle to cradle information including information on production, manufacturing, use and end use recycling. What is really neat for green architecture firms or eco centered interior designers is their new green material subscription service called GreenBox. This service features a package of new product samples complete with descriptions and specs delivered to you every three months. Each delivery includes:
Ecolect GreenBox - Green Materials Sample Subscription
- 12 cutting edge material samples
- Material information
- Sustainability specs
- Performance overview
- Cost profiles
- Distributor information
Put together by Construction Specifications Institute, GreenFormat is a very extensive materials database for green products. While the interface may be a little more difficult, the information is gold. The materials listed on this site aren’t necessarily green, they leave that up to the browser to determine. This site suffers from the same user defined information, so while some of the materials may overwhelm you with information, others may offer none at all. Since this database is put together by CSI, you can be sure that there is a ever-growing mountain of information and green product descriptions, if it exists, it is probably listed here.
Construction Specifications Institute GreenFormat Website
Unfortunately neither of these sites offer searches based on LEED credit or allow product attribute comparisons in a single screen. Standardization of information would be nice as well, so that all products could be compared more fairly for defining atributes. Even with all these flaws, they are great eco resources for green materials. They are available for anyone to browse, so go ahead and explore them yourself to find that new fabric to redecorate with, or for use as in a sustainable remodeling project. For those more interested in green design, check out a previous article featuring asknature.org for engineering and architectural design ideas based on nature.
The Magic of Cork – Renewable, Sustainable and Good For Global Warming
Who knew this under-appreciated renewable resource was good for so many things? Most are familiar with cork as a bottle stopper. A 1600s French monk named Dom Perignon was the first to have fitted his sparkling wine with this unique bottle sealer, and it has, until recently, been the standard in the wine industry. With times and technology changing, many bottlers have begun to move towards a petroleum derived thermoplastic elastomer as a stopper. The reasons for this are primarily due to the natural properties of cork such as drying over time (allowing some leakage into the bottle) and cork taint, or trichloroanisole (TCA). TCA is caused when microorganisms in the natural cork combine with chemical contaminants used in the production process to kill bacteria. Some places, such as Penfolds, of Australia, have addressed the cork aging issue by holding workshops where consumers can bring in old bottles of wine, have the corks replaced, and even get a small sip to see how the wine is aging. However, with a 20% drop in wine industry cork sales between 2000 and 2005, what will become of existing cork orchards and this sustainable industry?
First lets explore what cork is all about.
Natural cork comes from the bark of cork oak trees (Quercus suber). The bark is harvested without harm to the tree, and will renew itself naturally over the period of 10-12 years before being harvested again. A cork oak tree can be harvested twelve times in its lifetime with the first harvest taking place after approximately 25 years. Cork harvesting is done by hand without the aid of machinery. Additionally, cork harvesting can actually aid in combating global warming as each time cork is harvested the tree absorbs more CO2 to aid in the regeneration process. Regularly harvested cork trees store 3-5 times more CO2 than those left unharvested. Portugal is the world’s leader in cork production, while it is also an important forest crop in Italy, Spain, Algeria, France, Tunisia, and Morocco.
What else can cork be used for?
Cork is common in flooring and wall covering applications and can have many benefits over other manufactured surfaces. Cork is light, wear resistant, elastic, impermeable and well insulated. It works exceptionally well for heat and sound insulating applications such as cold basement floors and walls (we actually have cork floors at my office building in Downtown Seattle). Cork flooring can be a great alternative to linoleum or wood, and works well in everything from basements, laundry rooms, bathrooms and even can look elegant in kitchens and entryways. It can be dyed to a variety of colors and comes in a wide range of textures and cuts. They are most commonly sold as square tiles due to the harvesting process providing a varying and limiting dimensions.
We have all seen or used cork boards for posting memos, calendars and photos on the wall, but the applications are limitless (i have even seen an article on the cork interior of a Mercedes automobile). It really is a wonder renewable. It has so many desirable properties, is entirely natural, and is fully biodegradable upon disposal. Comment to this post with some of the creative ways you have used cork.
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