Tag Archives: Inhabitat

MOD.FAB: Stunning Prefab by the School of Frank Lloyd Wright

17 Feb

PreFab Modern, Jennifer Siegal, Taliesin West, PrairieMod, Sustainable Building, Office of Mobile Design

Frank Lloyd Wright meets modern day prefab in the stunning Mod.Fab home, developed by students at Taliesin West in collaboration with their Dean Victor Sidy and Inhabitat favorite Jennifer Siegal. The goal of the collaboration was to build a prototype prefab conducive to elegant and sustainable living within the heart of the desert landscape. It only took a single picture for us to become instantaneous fans, and from passive solar design to photovoltaic panels and SIPs we’re thoroughly impressed with the project’s sustainable elements.

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New York Fashion Week: Sublet Clothing Spring Preview

17 Feb

Sublet Clothing, Sublet eco apparel, Sublet eco fashion, Sublet Spring 2009 collection, Sublet Christina dress, Sublet Tara and Inessah, NYC eco fashion, NYC eco fashion designers, green fashion NY, sustainable style NYC

It’s officially New York Fashion Week here in New York City, and despite the glum economic outlook, there are some definite bright spots shimmering on the streets of the recession-battered Big Apple. Inhabitat is joining the brigade for ‘runway optimism’ by highlighting NYC-based eco fashion talent and innovative designers. We are genuinely inspired by the sustainable style efforts of several fashion houses slated for stardom in 2009. We view fashion week as an opportunity to further examine clothing and the vital role it plays in our lives, not only as an expression of individuality, but as a shelter that sustains us. What better opportunity to support designers who create socially and environmentally responsible garments, than by doing your consumer homework during fashion week hype. With this in mind, we are kicking off our fashion week coverage with a sneak preview of Sublet Clothing’s playful and smart, eco-chic Spring 2009 collection.

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Inhabitat Blog Picks of the Week

17 Feb

inhabitat blog picks, cute quirky design ideas, unusual green

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Ugh, for those of us that are single, even if fabulously so. But who says that we don’t also deserve an extra dose of lovin’? Which is why this week, we want to show our appreciation for your faithful readership here at Inhabitat by sharing the cute and quirky design ideas we have seen — because hopefully you love the cute and quirkiness in us too!

Treehugger tells us about some really neat Japanese lamps.

Haute*Nature showcases re-purposed wool lamp shades that are warm and cozy.

Keetsa Mattress Store shares the Bike Chair, made of recycled steel and aluminum bike parts.

NotCot features Paula Hayes’ rather unusual and botanical “Living Necklaces.”

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Greenwash Watch: Sherwin Williams GreenSure Label

26 Jan

greensure standards

We learn from Inhabitat that Sherwin-Williams has introduced a new line of paints, and has invented a new label, GreenSure, to go with it. They list a whole pile of standards and requirements that their paints must meet to get GreenSure; no doubt they will mean something to chemists. But what does it mean to the public? Not a whole lot. But let’s look at one of the standards, perhaps the most important for paints, the Volatile Organic Compounds or VOCs. As is shown above, Sherwin Williams’ standard for VOCs is 50 grams per litre.

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Rensselaer Students Naples and Zummo Reinvent Wobo

6 Jan

zummo  naples wobo bottle house
Popular Science

Rensselaer Polytechnic students Peter Zummo and Matthew Naples have developed a modern version of Heineken’s Wobo (world bottle-here in TreeHugger and more detail in Inhabitat) of 45 years ago; a plastic bottle that can be filled with sand and locked together like Lego to build housing. Their struggle to patent and bring it to market is covered in The New York Times Education Life section.

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PUMA City, Shipping Container Store / LOT-EK

22 Dec

Our green friends over Inhabitat just tipped us on a  new project by NYC/Napoli based office LOT-EK, a practice that has been doing an interesting job by reusing containers.

24 containers are put together to create a 3 storey store with over 11,000 sqf, including a bar/lounge area and 2 decks.

The store is currently at the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-2009, and it´s transported to each location (Alicante, Boston, Stockholm) and assembled quickly.

More pictures details after the jump.

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Solar Power, Sea-Water Heating and a New ‘Bridge’ for Copenhagen

13 Nov

Steven Holl's iconic solar powered towers will form a new gateway for Copenhagen image

Steven Holl Architects have made our pages before – from a huge ‘eco-complex’ in China, to the shiny Whitney Water Purification facility. Now we hear via Inhabitat and The Guardian that the ground-breaking architect has won a competition to design a new gateway for Copenhagen. The result? Towering sky scrapers with some pretty impressive eco-features. C…

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Sky Village in Rødovre / MVRDV

12 Nov

Some time ago we featured a mid rise building by OMA in New York, a cantilevered volume that brings a new concept for tall buildings. A similar approach can be found at a recent competition for the Rødovre Skyscraper won by MVRDV in association with ADEPT: A 116m tall mixed use tower, based on a 60sqm module arranged around the central core of the building.

It´s interesting to see the structural approach for this new typology, as you can see on another render below: the inner core -actually 3 cores to access the different program segments- is made out of concrete, with the units wrapping it around on a steel structure.

Something interesting in times like this, is that the building allows for different configurations responding to unstable markets, flexibility achieved by re-designating these 60sqm units.

The lower levels will offer space for retail and restaurants, with a surrounding public plaza. Over that, the building starts to widen for office space, and then starts to lean to the north to generate terraced gardens to the south, an orientation that benefits the residential apartments on that portion of the building. At the top, the hotel will have a great view of the city.

Last week I was talking with Robert Lange from BIG, and he was telling me that the danish goverment is very strict when it comes to energy standards in buildings, which is reflected on some green facts of this building: it includes a greywater circuit, the use of 40% recycled concrete in the foundation and a variety of energy producing devices on the façade.

The building looks good at street level, something very important for the city.

Also, keep an eye on ADEPT. They have won some interesting competitions, I´m sure we will hear from them in the future.

Seen at Contemporist and Inhabitat.

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Folding Bamboo Houses by Ming Tang

23 Oct

ming tang folding houses image

Jorge at Inhabitat calls Ming Tang’s temporary shelters “origami inspired”; They remind me more of the tensile structures of Frei Otto They were developed as temporary shelters for the homeless after last May’s earthquake in Chian that left millions homeless and shown at the Urban Re:vision competition. …

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