interior design
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.
