Interior Design Sense

Wondering what to do with all those old greeting cards and thank you notes? Now you can stick them in the ground and sprout wildflowers with Botanical Paperworks plantable greeting cards.. We’ve written about sprouting stamps and blooming business cards before, so it was only a matter of time before someone came up with plantable greeting cards. Available as thank-you cards, wedding invitations, baby announcements and customizable cards for any occasion, each card is handmade from 100% post-consumer waste fiber and is embedded with wildflower seeds. Simply plant them in a pot of soil and a few spring showers will start them on their way to a beautiful bouquet.

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Post tags: botanical paperworks, green design, green gardening, Recycled Materials, recycled paper, seed cards, sustainable design

Amid the flurry of high-tech wonders on display at this year’s Greener Gadgets Design Competition, Rob Podell’s Indoor Drying Rack boldly proved that green gadgets needn’t rely upon circuit boards and batteries to accomplish their function. One of the stars of the show and this year’s third place winner, the clothes drying rack contains no heavy metals, is constructed entirely out of recycled materials and bamboo, and requires no energy to use.

We’re big fans of Buckminster Fuller’s legacy of uber-efficient domes here at Inhabitat, so imagine our excitement when we heard that 12-year old whiz kid Max Wallack recently developed a sturdy geodesic shelter made entirely from recycled materials. Composed from discarded plastic, wire, and packing peanuts, the easy-to-assemble homeless shelter is lightweight, insulating, and recently took first place in PBS Design Squad’s Trash to Treasure competition.

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The model train is officially hip and eco-friendly. No, really! Leaving the realm of your Dad’s garage behind, one geek-ily cute metropolis has found a home at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers. The display, called “Golden Gate Express,” features miniature replicas of several major San Francisco landmarks. And the entire set is stunningly fabricated by Figureplant out of recycled materials.

Every year the Tate Britain Art Museum commissions an artist to decorate its Christmas tree. Last year’s was covered with guns and fighter planes, another was hung upside down and yet another year there was just a note saying the tree had been given to charity. This year’s creation by Bob & Roberta Smith has an ecological and recycling theme.

Called “Make Your Own Xmas”, it’s big, ramshackle wooden structure made of recycled materials, including sandwich boards, tape, signs and an oil drum. Eight bicycles of various sizes have been fixed to stands around the “trunk” (bottom), each holding a generator that is connected to a set of light bulbs that decora…

There was an entire row of exhibitors showing various incarnations of insulated concrete forms (ICFs) with their styrofoam walls and their plastic ties that are filled with concrete and then labelled green. Then there is Durisol, that has been around for half a century. it is made of wood chips and a bit of portland cement, 78% recycled materials, is noncombustible and is the original insulated concrete form. So why is it always ignored?…

<img alt=”keefe’s crapper outhouse with window photo” src=”http://www.treehugger.com/keefe%27s-crapper-outhouse-with-window-photo.jpg” width=”468″ height=”321″ /

Scorned by city folk, mocked by jokes (check out the synonyms and scatological references at Wikipedia), there is still a proper place in the countryside for a well-designed outhouse. For a small cabin or prefab in the woods, especially with a dwelling occupied a few weeks each year by only a handful of people, it’s a cheap solution to a human problem as old as civilization.

The outhouse shown here is made entirely of recycled materials – nails included – except for the roofing. Way cheaper than a composting toilet. At night, a 12 Volt DC bulb provides inside lighting. And…

Rome based designer Marco Capellini has become a well-known name in the Latin ecodesign movement.

Creator of the organization Remade, which promotes design with recycled materials in seven countries; and Matrec, an online resource for recycled materials, Capellini was in Buenos Aires for a conference organized by the city’s Metropolitan Design Center.

After his presentation, he spoke with TreeHugger about the evolution of green design. In response to those who still refer to the green movement as a trend, Capellini says, “the consideration of the environment in the de…

Furniture made out of recycled materials is hardly new to TreeHugger. But here is a French designer’s collection that includes tables, chairs, barbeques, shelves and lights–all made from recycled oil drums. Starting with your basic dented and rusted abandoned oil drum, the possibilities are endless. The first one was created from an industrial barrel and supermarket trolley wheels in 2003 and the creator, Francois Royer, then went on to develop new models and prototypes for furniture. The pieces combine aesthetics and respect for the environment in one useful and decorative object.

The basic Stanker is a one-off, unique table, using recycled materials. The name and model …

One of the cool things about going to Bioneers was seeing all the clothing on display. There was organic cotton shirts, hemp clothes, clothes from recycled materials. But some of the cutest pieces on display were from Multiple Treads, which sported a line of “reinc…