Starck Wind Power For Your Home

Philippe Starck, known for his chic hotels, high-tech lamps and modern-style furniture, has now applied his renowned design aesthetic to domestic wind turbines. The designer unveiled two high-tech turbines for your home in Milan on Wednesday after two years of research and work.

The turbines will be produced by Italy’s Pramac, which makes power generation equipment and will come in two models of varying power generation capacity and expense. The first, a clear quadrangular model (400W WT), looks like a rectangular version of Dyson’s recently announced blade-less fan. It will generate 400 watts of power and cost 2,500 euros or $3,515. The second, a helicoidal model (1KW WT) will be able to generate 1 KW of power and cost 3,500 euros or $4,921.

“We have to help people to produce energy, to be part of the fight,” Starck said at the unveiling in Milan. “Energy should not be a punishment, we should create a desire (among people to produce it).” Starck reverses the typical “not in my backyard” response to wind power and has designed these turbines to become backyard fixtures perfect for your garden or roof.

Via Inhabitat and Reuters.

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A More Subtle Shade of Green – NeoCon 2009

Although this year’s Neocon did heavily encourage and promote Green awareness,  the information was pretty low-key and more about practical integration rather than simply a necessary marketing strategy.  This was also seen in the roll-out of new designs, exhibitions and strategies for businesses-from small to big.  As companies like Steelcase and Herman Miller (seen below) have spent years integrating sustainable practices, they therefore seem able to go back to focusing on design aesthetics, functionality and ergonomics as talking points.

Several other companies promoted their “healthy”, “earth-friendly” or “naturally inspired” products, tagging several certifications along the way such as UGBC, C2C, FSC, Greenguard, Greenspec etc.  As Penny Bonda recommended in NeoCon: Through a Green Lense, “Remember, as you engage with showroom personnel, to ask: Where did the product come from? What is it made of? How is it made? How is it maintained? What happens to it at the end of its life? How much energy does it use?”.

I would be very interested if anyone spent much time on this and/or concurrently, what they were told.  It seems those aforementioned rating systems are insufficient to not only answering these important questions, but also to ensuring their validity and consistency.

On a biased note, it was good to see Ecolect’s Materials PettingZoo™ there, as this is a good start in the direction of transparency, accessibility to information and specific materials, and most importantly – CHOICES.  As design student Elizabeth Wheeler commented, “The interactive element of The Petting Zoo was really helpful and I got more ideas about what I can design using more eco-friendly materials”.

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Rethinking Compostables

Wasara has a striking Japanese aesthetic. Their new product line of biodegradable paper plates and cups features an elegant design. Wasara plates are made using renewable reed pulp and bagasse (a fibrous byproduct of sugar production). The forms are organic but with attention to comfort and texture. In line with Japanese creative tradition, Wasara “represents the spirit of living in harmony with nature.” These products are a great example of how design can change our perception of a typically “cheap”, everyday item such as a paper cup or plate.

For more information see www.wasara.jp.

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Objectified Trailer: A Documentary Film About Industrial Design by Gary Hustwit

Inspiration and a move towards sustainability can be achieved by looking at, and learning from, the creative disciplines and design processes embedded in us (the creative community) and society.

Objectified is a feature-length independent documentary about Industrial Design. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the people who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability. It’s about our relationship to mass-produced objects and, by extension, the people who design them.

Through vérité footage and in-depth conversations, the film documents the creative processes of some of the world’s most influential designers, and looks at how the things they make impact our lives. What can we learn about who we are, and who we want to be, from the objects with which we surround ourselves?

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From ReUse to ReGlow

In the vein of inventive reuse, industrial designer Shelley Spicuzza has created a versatile and attractive globe lamp called ReGlow, with the aid of used PET bottles.  The lamp is configurable as a hanging pendant, desk or table lamp, as well as a dramatic floor-to-ceiling lamp, with multiple units fixed along a tall aluminum pole.  What makes ReGlow interesting is it’s simple central element, made from a two-part clear plastic sphere with holes arrayed around it, which allow the user to secure the bottles by placing their necks through the holes and then screwing their caps back on inside the sphere.  With its ease-of-access, the sphere allows one to replace  bulbs as well as even the bottles themselves, in order to achieve an array of color schemes depending on the color of the bottles at hand.  Straightforward in design, this lamp helps us imagine the potential reuses of the standard PET bottle, an unfortunately under-recycled product.

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A Great Idea from Moixa Energy Limited

London-based Moixa Energy has developed a NiMH battery that can be recharged using the innate electricity generating power of a computer’s (or monitor’s, game console’s, etc) USB ports, with an embedded LED indicator to reflect status of charge. Currently, the AA cell is the only model available, but the company will soon expand their product line to include AAA, C, D, 9V, and even specialized batteries for cell phones and PDAs. In their “Environment and Recycling FAQs” page, Moixa even speak to the environmental impact of the packaging in which the batteries are shipped, how the cardboard itself is recyclable, and that they are in the process of finding a biodegradable replacement (PLA perhaps?) for the plastic blister pack.

The USBCELL certainly represents a great step forward in making sensible electronics-based products with lower environmental impact, and for that, Moixa Energy won both a Gold award at the 2008 iF Product Design Awards, and a 2008 New Energy Award. However, it is important to keep in mind that for American consumers, the batteries still have a certain carbon footprint due to their shipment from the UK, which is an issue all too common to the majority of consumer electronics today, which are manufactured beyond our borders (that is, until the onset of a substantial U.S.-based green technology sector). Although less environmentally toxic than NiCd (Nickel Cadmium) batteries, it is still important to ensure that USBCELLs be properly disposed of when no longer useful. Moixa Energy will even accept USBCELLs purchased from USBCELL.com back via a freepost address, and one may visit Earth911.com’s Battery Recycling resource page for some great tips on how to recycle those bought elsewhere, as well as links describing the range of battery technologies.

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From ReUse to ReGlow

Reclaiming Tires: Design Within Reach Style

As a part of Design Within Reach’s new business strategies, they’ve been pushing hard to get eco-friendly products to the market. This new product from their rubber tire line was inspired by by the fact that “Americans alone toss out about 300 million tires every year.” These products are modeled using ancient leather-crafting techniques and actually made in Egypt. They are hand-cut and hand-sewn wile being useable indoors and out for planters, carrying containers or simply durable storage. Each container is durable and unique, offering a functional alternative to the landfill. To quote the folks at Design Within Reach, “the big thinkers of the world are working on creative ways to reuse this vast quantity of rubber – ideas include mixing ground-up tires with urethane to create sidewalks or burning them like coal to produce energy.” Their goal is to take this concept to the consumer market, creating smaller but important opportunities for material reuse in the product design industry.

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National Geographic Explains e-Waste and Recycling

This month’s National Geographic features a very informative article on e-waste called High Tech Trash. We highly recommend this read to any designer or business owner working in the electronics industry.

Click here for the full article.

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