Style of Design

Think that avoiding cheap, throwaway clothes and sticking with brand names means that your wardrobe is safe from dangerous toxins? Think again. Chinese inspectors randomly sampling department stores and boutiques in the southeast China province of Zhejiang found that a dizzying 60 percent of garments made outside of China suffered from poor colorfastness, high levels of acid or even contained formaldehyde. And you might recognize some of the offenders’ names – Dolce & Gabbana, Hugo Boss, Hermes, Trussardi, and Versace.

READ MORE >

Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: designer clothing, Dolce & Gabanna, eco-fashion, eco-fashion news, green fashion, Hermes, Hugo Boss, Sustainable Fashion, sustainable style, Trussardi, Versace

Yesterday, Toshiba ended its manufacture of mass-market incandescent light bulbs–bulbs that use a ton of energy, burn out quickly and pale in comparison in terms of energy efficiency to CFLs and LEDs. The move ends the company’s 120-year history of incandescent bulb production. The decision signals that the lighting industry is poised to become significantly greener.

Read the rest of Toshiba Kills Incandescent Bulb Production

Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: Australia and incandescent lights, cfl, climate legislation, environmentally friendly light bulbs, EU and incandescent lights, green design, incandescent bulbs, LED, light bulb legislation, Toshiba, Toshiba halts incandescent production, US and incandescent lights

Read the rest of Water Harvesting Skyscrapers to Solve Sudan’s Drought

Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: “sustainable architecture”, architecture for sudan, drought-proof architecture, Eco Architecture, eco design, green architecture, green design, H3AR architecture, polish architecture, sudan, sustainable design, Watertower

Are you an urban dweller aching for a garden of your own? You don’t have to move to the suburbs or pester your landlord to let you up on the rooftop anymore. Designer Godefroy de Virieu and landscapers Louis de Fleurieu and Virgile Desurmont have come up with a flexible alternative to the traditional garden. Simple and portable, the Bacsac is a planting bag made from a permeable/porous geo-textile that prevents asphyxiation of the soil, allowing you to plant just about anything anywhere. Available in an array of shapes and sizes, each Bacsac is 100% recyclable, UV-resistant, frost resistant, tear and traction resistant, adaptable, hang-able, stackable… need we go on?

+ Bacsac

Via Designboom

Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: 100% recyclable gardening bags, bacsac, bacsac garden bag, Gardening, gardening solutions, geo-textiles, permeable porous gardening bags, urban gardens

Read the rest of Philips Lumiblade Reflections OLED Mirrorwall Now Available

Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: Eco, efficient, Electricity, green, green lighting, lumiblade, mirror, mirrorwall, OLED, Philips, pholed, reflection, renewable energy, Sustainable

While a party guest suggests to Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate that “There’s a great future in plastics,” nobody could have predicted that they’d one day be used to make houses! Plastic waste is a class-A environmental problem, and putting recycled plastic to new use is one way of limiting it. And that’s exactly what Welsh company Affresol is doing by using it to build their amazing modular homes.

Read the rest of Affresol Makes Modular Homes Out of Recycled Plastic

Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: green architecture, Green Building, green design, plastic, Plastic bottles, recycling, Swansea, water bottles

Min Kyu Choi recently took home the top prize in this year’s Brit Insurance Design Awards with his smartly designed, material efficient, “Folding Plug.” The elegant and simple design features the necessary 3 prongs, but with way less material. When folded up, the plug is less than 1 cm thick — much thinner even than Apple’s innovative square plug.

Read the rest of Smart Folding Plug Wins 2010 Brit Insurance Design Award

Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: brit insurance design awards, design awards, eco design, efficient material usage, green design, less material, made in mind, min kyo choi, smart design, smart plug

Are you good at video games? Then you might be able work the Dragon Runner, a 14 lb bomb-disposal robot unveiled today by the British Ministry of Defence. The robot, which measures 9″x8″x3, can be worn as a backpack and is capable of climbing stairs, opening doors, lifting up items, and it can even dig around explosives — all via a game console-like controller.

Read the rest of Britain’s New Dragon Runner Robot Deactivates Live Explosives

Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: army, bomb disposal, bombs, dragon runner, eco design, green design, hurt locker, uk army

Imagine a 3-d printer so large that it can spit out entire buildings made from stone. Sounds science fiction-y, right? But that’s exactly what designer Enrico Dini created with his prototype D-Shape printer. Dini hopes to use the printer to create buildings made of stone and eventually, moon dust.

Read the rest of 3-D Printer Creates Entire Buildings From Solid Rock

Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: 3-D printer, 3D printer makes buildings, Alta Space, D-Shape, Enrico Dini, green design, La Scuola Normale Superiore, Norman Foster, sculptures on the moon

Paul Rudolph was one of the dominant architects in the sixties and seventies, who understood how to build with the climate instead of fighting it. Yet so many of his buildings are now gone or threatened. Why are the works of this master of modern architecture being sent to the scrapyard in such staggering numbers?

Read the rest of Why Is Everybody Tearing Down Paul Rudolph Houses and Buildings?

Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: “sustainable architecture”, demolition, Green Building, green design, green renovation, modern architecture, Paul Rudolph, sustainable design