Cherokee Lofts by Pugh+Scarpa Architects
Cherokee Lofts build by Pugh + Scarpa Architects is the most advanced and distinctive building of its kind in Los Angeles. It will be the first “green” LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold Certified building in Hollywood per the U.S. Green Building Council certification system and the first LEED Gold Certified mixed-use or market-rate multifamily building in Southern California.
The development pays homage to the significant musical and Hollywood history of Cherokee Recording Studios, MGM Studios before it, and all the artists who recorded music on the site from Frank Sinatra to David Bowie to Dave Matthews. Its unique architectural form and integrated function create a high-performing building that is an expression of the environmental and cultural context in which it is built.
SIE43 Chair by Pawel Grunert
Designer Pawel Grunert has created the SIE43 Chair for the ‘Eco Trans Pop’ exhibition of ecological design at the Colombari Gallery in Milan, Italy.
The chair is made from PET bottles with a stainless steel frame. The bottles can be easily changed if they show signs of damage. The seat is in the form of a flower. The rhythm of hundreds of PET bottles creates an organic structure. An ordinary form is transformed into an extraordinary form, standard form into a unique one.
Link Via [Materialicious]
Capdell Will be Part of the Project Gaia of Eco-City Planning in Barcelona
Gaia 3
Capdell will colaborate with the architect Luis de Garrido in the project Gaia with the placement of the chairs Elizabetha and Eboli in the appartment number 3 which has a surface of 361,30m2 and it is located in Barcelona. This project will be finished by March 2010. Capdell consolidates this way its policy of innovation and continues its advances which consist of introducing furniture pieces in the field of “sustainable architecture”.
Eco-pods Project by Howeler + Yoon Architecture & Squared Design Lab
Howeler + Yoon Boston based architects and Squared Design Lab from Los Angeles have designed a conceptual structure for Boston, where an unfinished building would be covered in modular pods growing algae for biofuel.
The pods would be continuously rearranged by robotic arms (powered by the micro-algae produced) to ensure the optimum growing conditions for alage in each pod. The designers intend to use the structure, called Eco-pods, to inform the public about the potential of micro-algae, a bio-fuel that can be grown vertically. The pods could also house research projects.
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Bottle Bank Arcade Machine by Thefuntheory.com
The latest stroke of genius from FunTheory.com. Turn a recycling bottle bank into an arcade game and guess what happens…. more people get more engaged and recycle more.
Bee House by James Ennis
The project Bee House, created by the Irish designer James Ennis, is the winner of the European Design Award for a sustainable present, assigned by an international jury that examined over 100 works.
This project organised by the EESC is the first “green public procurement” project of a European institution.
“United in diversity, living with the bio diversity” was the winning design concept behind “Bee house”, which consisted of a box with windows that had flowers and was actually a room for bees. This highlighted the importance of the vital role of bees in food production and life in particular.
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“Savior Bud” by Kim Hyo Jin and Seol Ah Sun
Presented at the Seoul Design competition, the “Savior Bud” is inspired by the “Giving Tree,” latches on to trees and uses it’s natural recycling processes to obtain water. In a simple process which basically involves collecting the moisture from the leaves and emptying it out into containers, the Savior Bud takes one more step toward acceptable living conditions in Africa.
SolarCharger 906 by i.Tech Dynamic
i.Tech Dynamic has launched on the market a solar charger for mobile devices. SolarCharger 906 is about the size of a deck of cards and lets on-the-go users charge their mobile devices such as cellphone, PDA, GPS, PMP with solar energy. This device features monocrystalline solar panel and does efficient solar conversion. Other than sunlight, the portable charger can also get power from a PC via USB port.
i.Tech Dynamic’s $59.99 SolarCharger 906 comes with 10 adapter plugs for use with a variety of mobile phones and entertainment devices, including iPhone, iPod, BlackBerry and other name-brand products.
Link Via [ecofriend]
Gardening Coral in Fiji, a Video by Jonathan Clay for BBC
This is a pilot project currently underway, that is being highlighted by BBC in the documentary series “South pacific”. The film was made under the guidance of Jonathan Clay who was grateful enough to share this clip to the world.
Coral Gardening from Jonathan Clay on Vimeo.
Via [Neatorama]
Keyboard Lamp by Nolan Herbut
Designer Nolan Herbut has meticulously removed and rearranged all the keys and wrapped the whole thing up to create this awesome Keyboard Parts Lamp.
“Awesome” Photo a Hit for Westminster Birder
Despite their aggressive reputation, loud screams and fierce, piercing looks, the red-tailed hawks at the park north of Burlington, just west of the Colorado-Kansas border, were being bullied when Gaines saw them.
“I’ve never seen red-tails harassed so much. They all seemed hoarse. I felt kind of sorry for them,” said Gaines of the sight of dozens of little birds dive-bombing the hawks.
SonUmbra Interactive Solar-Powered Tree Provides Sound and Light After Dark
Folks over at Loop.pH have designed a unique interactive solar-powered tree, which was unveiled at the London Design Festival. The structure comes with strands of light-emitting fabric woven into a lucent web of branches.
“Garden That Climbs The Steps” in Bilbao, Spain by Balmori Associates
“Garden That Climbs The Steps” in Bilbao, Spain has been designed by the New York based landscape and urban design office of Balmori Associates.
The garden climbs the stairs, running in undulating lines of different textures and colors. Envisioned as a dynamic urban space; it moves in time and with the seasons. Its lush planting cascades down as though the garden was flowing or melting, bleeding the colors into each other. In one gesture, it narrates a story of landscape taking over and expanding over the Public Space and Architecture, therefore transforming the way that the stairs and the space is perceived and read by the user. It is a garden of contrasts: the contrast between native and exotic plants, between the red flowers and the green grass, between the green grass and the grey paving. In form, the garden engages the horizontal plaza with the rising vertical plane of the steps and the upright gesture of Eduardo Chillida’s sculpture.
Power Flower by Art Energy Design
This 12-foot flower sculpture by Art Energy Design, is also a renewable energy display. By incorporating small solar cells into the leaves, and building a small wind turbine out of the flower petals, it is able to store enough energy to keep itself lit by LEDs at night.
Link Via [Flickr]
Temporary Installation at the AIASF’s Architecture in the City Festival
Designers tried to give all that trash a new life by using more than 2000 plastic beer cups for a temporary installation at the AIASF’s Architecture in the City Festival.
The support structure is a steel cable mesh, on which cups with custom laser-cut clips were attached. The low-cost structure can be easily disassembled and recycled for future use.
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Infinium 2009, Solar Car
The University of Michigan’s Solar Car Team pools academic disciplines, corporate backing and 3-D technology to engineer highly competitive electric vehicles. The Infinium is their tenth sun car in 20 years. In order to produce such a lean, clean and “green” machine, the 150 or so collaborators use CAD and Z Corp for efficient design, and mostly titanium and aluminium parts.
Strips of photovoltaic panels (the space-age, gallium-arsenide kind) absorb the sun’s energy along a sleek and light carbon-fibre shell, and a 16-hp electric motor in one of its three wheels propels the 600-lb coupe up to 90 miles per hour and 98 percent efficiency. Awesome aerodynamics and innovative innards apparently allow the Infinium a driving range of 200 to 300 miles without any sunlight at all.
Viewing Tower by Ateliereen Architecten
Dutch architects Ateliereen Architecten have completed a 25 metre tall viewing tower at an outdoor sports park in Reusel, the Netherlands. It consists of six cubes, hanging on a core of steel columns. Straight flight staircases raise in between and cross the cubes several times in different positions.
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Tara Donovan, Genius of Little Things
Tara Donovan is an inventive young sculptor whose installations bring wonder to the most common objects of everyday life. Donovan’s site-specific, sculptural works transform ordinary accumulated materials into intriguing visual and physical installations. Choosing a single object – such as a transparent drinking straw, scotch tape, a Styrofoam cup, or a paper clip – Donovan experiments with assembling it in different ways. Sensitive to the specific needs of her materials and the nature of her exhibit spaces, her installations are often arranged in ways reminiscent of geological or biological forms.
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