Sea Chair is made entirely from plastic waste collected from the ocean.

April 05, 2013 by Designsquish

William Miller: “To look into the Gowanus canal is to gaze into the eyes of a corpse. It is murky and clouded over but if you look closely you can see life and light reflected in the mercury, feces and coal tar that drift in the canal like malevolent clouds. This uncomfortable cohabitation is the foundation of a photographic study of the strangely beautiful horror that the canal hosts”

March 21, 2013 by Designsquish

March 15, 2013 by Designsquish

January 04, 2013 by Designsquish

Bubble Chandelier by New York-based design studio Souda made from post-consumer plastic soda bottles.
Painting by Margaretha Barbara Dietzsch, 1741-1784.

November 29, 2012 by Designsquish

Two great documentaries about bees - VANISHING OF THE BEES and QUEEN OF THE SUN

Both films center around the sudden disappearance of honey bees from beehives around the world, caused by the poorly understood phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD. Vanishing of the Bees does not draw any firm scientific conclusions as to the precise cause or causes of CCD, it does suggest a link between neonicotinoid pesticides and CCD.  Queen of the Sun explores the historical and contemporary relationship between bees and humans. 

Artwork by Adam Makarenko.

May 13, 2012 by Designsquish

Ah! This looks so comfortable!

April 08, 2012 by Designsquish

Dow Powerhouse solar shingles blend in with your traditional shingles and apparently do not require any special tools for installation.

- http://gizmodo.com/dow-powerhouse-solar-shingles-could-finally-have-you-hugging-trees

by Designsquish

Above: Overgrown wild garden aesthetic. Design by Plant Architects

February 03, 2012 by Designsquish

Letting green take over.

Above: Flower Tower, Paris.  “A box full of ordinary apartments with terraces surrounded by flower pots. A very literal green building” - New York Magazine

January 25, 2012 by Designsquish

via Old Chum

August 11, 2011 by Designsquish

I am happy to share this interview with Matt Anderson, an amazing filmmaker and artist. In fact, Matt has almost completed his very first feature length documentary, Fall and Winter. The film focuses on environmental issues, but interestingly enough the underlying message doesn’t stop with political action to “change the world.” Fall and Winter inspires us to take matters into our own hands, often quite literally by working with our hands. Building our own homes, growing our own food, and other such practices may require us to alter our current world views, but will ultimately help achieve a much more sustainable lifestyle.

Q: What would be a dream come true?
A: To witness an extraordinary stage of evolution in human consciousness. I think this is happening one way or another.

Q: What did you like about growing up in Vancouver?
A: When I was about 6 or 7 we moved from the city to a small, unserviced island off the coast of Vancouver. There were no cars or stores, and all water and power had to be self-contained. I commuted to school every day on our boat. No matter how big the waves were we had to jump into the dinghy and make it to the mainland. I think this gave me a deep love and respect for the forces of Nature, and set the foundation for my values today.

Q: Why/where/when did you decide to make “Fall and Winter”?
A: There really is no beginning point for this film. For years I was fascinated by conspiracies as a modern mythology - a realm of free thought where fantasy and history co-existed in pursuit of meaning and truth. I went to some conspiracy conventions and read stacks of books about the New World Order, UFO’s and ‘hidden history’. Somewhere along the way I began to migrate from asking ‘what if…?’ and towards ‘what is…?’. This lead me to a small conference in the Silicon Valley called ‘Global Catastrophic Risks’ about 3 years ago. 30 scientists were meeting to discuss the myriad of threats facing life on earth, and strategies to mitigate these threats (if possible). I began to understand that what is really happening is more fascinating and important than the realm of conspiracy. I decided that the film had to be about the massive changes occurring on our planet - and the people facing this challenge head on.

Q: What are some things that inspire you?
A: To me, it’s important to be inspired both by positive and negative forces. I am driven by the beauty of Nature, the things that my dear friends create and also by the destructive practices rampant around the globe. I think it’s important to be full of love and also mad as hell!

“Fall & Winter is a documentary that explores the origins and present-day realities of our global crisis to better understand the catastrophic transition we have now entered. Over the past year we’ve traveled 15,000 miles around the country, documenting various aspects of both the collapse and rebirth happening all around us. The film highlights a variety of ways in which individuals are creating innovative, sustainable methods of living in adaptation to their environment, and fostering in their communities a vital transformation in the way we live on this planet.”

WatchFall and Winter previewand remember to donate at their website!

-http://fallwintermovie.com/
-http://fallwintermovie.com/donate.html

July 03, 2011 by Designsquish

Rainbow Gatherings are temporary intentional communities usually held in outdoor settings, and espousing and practicing ideals of peace, love, harmony, freedom and community, as a consciously expressed alternative to mainstream popular culture, consumerism, capitalism and mass media…Rainbow Gatherings are an expression of a Utopian impulse, combined with bohemianism, hipster and hippie culture, with roots clearly traceable to the 1960’s counterculture. Mainstream society is commonly referred to and viewed as “Babylon”, connoting the participants’ widely held belief that modern lifestyles and systems of government are unhealthy, unsustainable, exploitative and out of harmony with the natural systems of the planet….The first Rainbow Gathering, a four-day event in Colorado in July 1972, was organized by youth counterculture “tribes” based in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. - wiki

- Rainbow Gathering album on flickr by photographer Benoit Paillé

June 01, 2011 by Designsquish

-http://treehugger.com

May 13, 2011 by Designsquish

All I need is a thermos and a tin/aluminum lunch box.

“Today, lunch boxes are generally made of vinyl, with foam insulation, and an aluminum/vinyl interior. As a result, they’re usually much better at retaining their temperature but are less rigid and protective.  Health concerns came to light in August 2002, when the Center for Environmental Health discovered that many popular vinyl lunch boxes contained dangerously high levels of lead..”.- from Wikipedia

Ready to say goodbye to plastic bags and other plastic food containers???
Stainless steel “Eco Lunch Box”:

May 01, 2011 by Designsquish

Cup City by Andrea Legge was a temporary interactive art installation comprised of a 2000 sq ft structure built using rented chain link fence panels at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas. Over the course of three days, concertgoers filled the structure with approximately 25,000 plastic cups and water bottles.

April 23, 2011 by Designsquish

Vertical garden in Barcelona, Spain.

March 26, 2011 by Designsquish

The CitiCar was a small electric vehicle, first produced in United States in 1974 by a company Sebring-Vanguard partly in response to the mid-1970s fuel crisis. The CitiCar was a tiny golf cart sized car that could go at a top speed of about 39 mile per hour.  At about 4,300 C-Car variants produced, it still holds the record for most road-legal electric cars made in automobile history.

December 17, 2010 by Designsquish

Jerko is an environmental cleanup movement with head-quarters in Gowanus Canal DIY slavaged, solar powered, rainwater harvesting house boat. Jerko the Gowanus Water Vacuum house boat floats up and down the Gowanus Canal, cleaning water through biological filtration.  (Gowanus Canal is one of the most polluted waterways in New York City, if not the world)
Read about Jerko the Gowanus Water Vacuum on Half Nomad:

http://www.halfnomad.com

Photographs of Jerko the Gowanus Water Vacuum were discovered on beautiful blog by photographer Elizabeth Weinberg:

http://www.elizabethweinberg.com

November 11, 2010 by Designsquish

“Red List protects nature” - The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, founded in 1948, is the world’s most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species.

“Protect birds - they are doctors of the forest”

“Cut down one - plant ten”

“Welcome, my feathered friends!”

June 25, 2010 by Designsquish

Brooklyn Bridge Park is an 85-acre park currently under construction on the Brooklyn waterfront in the vicinity of the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. As of March 22, 2010 the first newly built section of the park, Pier 1, has been open to the public. !!!!!!!!!!!!

March 30, 2010 by Designsquish

How to hand build your own well!!! (in Russian): www.kolodec.ru

March 08, 2010 by Designsquish

U.S massive high speed rail is officially on the way!

“According to one recent study, implementation of pending plans for the federally designated HSR corridors could result in an annual reduction of 6 billion pounds of CO2” - from High Speed Rail Strategic Plan.

February 01, 2010 by Designsquish

Biodegradable moss planter(organic carpet consisting of assortment of mosses) by Japan-based flower artist Makoto Azuma  

September 06, 2009 by Designsquish

From http://www.redesign.co.il/

August 21, 2009 by Designsquish

Patrick Blanc is a contemporary garden designer from France who basically “invented” the concept of a vertical garden.  What Patrick did is invent a hydroponic structure on which plants can easily grow vertically without any soil.  Essentially plants need water and minerals dissolved in it.  Many plants in the wild grow on vertical surfaces - rocks and cliffs. Many plants have the root ability to grow without any soil as long as there is sunlight, minerals and water.  Being soil-less, vertical gardens are very light and thus easy to implement on any wall.  Metal frame is installed that supports two layers of polyamide felt . These layers mimic cliff-growing mosses and support the roots of many plants. A network of pipes provides a nutrient solution containing dissolved minerals.  The roots of the plants take up the nutrients they need, and excess water is collected at the bottom of the wall by a gutter before being re-injected into the network of pipes.
In towns there are a lot more vertical free spaces than horizontal ,  Blanc says.  I wish to see many of them turned into a garden. 

May 30, 2009 by Designsquish

Osias Beert the Elder
Still-Life with Cherries and Strawberries in China Bowls
1608 Oil on panel
19 5/8” x 25 3/4”

One of my favorite Flemish vanitas paintings is “Still Life with wild Strawberries” by Osias Beert the Younger. Vanitas is a type of still life painting popular in Northern Europe in Flanders and the Netherlands in the 16th - 17th centuries. The word “vanitas” is Latin, meaning “emptiness” and loosely translated corresponds to the meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of vanity. Paintings executed in the vanitas style are meant as a reminder of the transience of life, the futility of pleasure and the certainty of death.




Osias Beert the Younger
Still Life with Wild Raspberries
Oil on Panel
11.2” x 15.6”

STILL LIFES WITH FLOWERS

Pieter Brueghel the Younger
Still Life with Flowers
1601-1678





Jan the Elder Brueghel
1607 Oil on wood
98 x 73 cm





Brueghel Jan the Elder
Still Life with flowers in a Glass

May 26, 2009 by Designsquish

Scottish Highlands area is an amazing and magical place that is definitely not from this world.  Steep bare mountains,  strong winds, rainfall , swampy grasslands and many waterfalls, they hide one of the strangest animals -  Kyloe.

Kyloe or Highland Cow is an ancient Scottish breed of beef cattle with long horns and long wavy pelts.  ( They look a lot like mammoths or at least like giant,big headed, hairy cows)  Highland cows are known are a hardy breed due to the rugged nature of their native Scottish Highlands, they graze on plants many other cattle avoid.






Other inhabitants of the Highlands are lots and lots of sheep.  Sheep is everywhere. 

May 23, 2009 by Designsquish

Kusamono and shitakusa are a potted collection of plants. Plants used are typically moss, grass, lichen, small mountain flowers and plants, bonsai trees, bamboo, or bulbs, that may be arranged to heighten the beauty or reflect a certain season.  Usually a collection is displayed separately in special pots, driftwood, or even stones. Photos from beautiful blogs: Shitakusamono and Happy Hearts at Home.

April 22, 2009 by Designsquish

Love the idea!!

April 21, 2009 by Designsquish