Feast your eyes on the Firefly

Firefly outdoor table features a pop-out solar-powered lamp

 Anupam

Eco Factor: Sustainable furniture concept harvests solar energy.

The Firefly table by industrial designer Vuk Dragovic has been designed for outdoors of restaurants, cafes and even homes. The sustainable table is equipped with solar panels that charge during the day to power an onboard lamp after dark.

The lamp is located in the center of the table and pops out when pressed to shed light across the entire top of the table. The innovation is the fusion of functionality, form and sustainability.

Via: Industrial Design Served

Pedal Pushers

Pedal-Powered Roller Coaster

by manley

Now that the summer has kicked in for most of us, we’ve probably got a few items to check off on our to-do lists. And what summer is complete without a visit to the local carnival or amusement park? With all those concession stands, bright lights and thrilling rides? Thinking about it now, don’t you think that those places use up a lot of energy? To power a roller coaster itself must take a house and a half but you have to remember that it runs approximately 500 times a day. With the world trying to conserve energy, Japan has created one of the first-ever human powered roller coasters.

Located in Japan’s Washuzan Highland Park and known as the Sky Cycle roller coaster, it requires riders to pedal throughout the whole ride. The coaster does not have extremely large loops or anything of that sort (unless you know someone who can pedal through those!) but it does have many turns and high hills!

The side-by-side pedal powered cars are attached to the track and when you pedal, it moves the little wheels that ultimately move the car. With the added touch of the pink basket, it makes it seem like you’re just riding a bike hundreds of feet in the air, no biggie!

Although there are safety concerns regarding the ride, there have not been any accidents so far. The fact that the Japanese are taking the initiative to create something that’s almost 100 per cent man (person) powered is a breakthrough. Although for the daredevils like me out there, there may not be one with loops anytime soon but the track is a long one and can prove to be fun!

Click here for more pictures. Would you ride this thing?

via:vidalafine.com

The Nano Garden from Hyundai

Hyundai’s Kitchen Nano Garden uses hydroponic technique to grow food

 Sukhmani 

Eco Factor: Kitchen vegetable garden grows food without using harmful fertilizers and pesticides.

Gardening is pure fun. It offers some of the best advantages. Fresh air to breathe, aromatic flowers to refresh the surroundings and then of course the home-grown vegetables. Hyundai has good news for those bereft of all the gardening fun simply because they didn’t have any space to practice it. Hyundai is planning to introduce its Kitchen Nano Garden. Yes, a lush green garden right in your small apartment kitchen. The Nano Garden resembling a fridge would grow food using hydroponics, controllable light, water and nutrient supplies sans fertilizers and pesticides. Natural air purifier with easy and simple gardening procedure, the Nano Garden is ideal for homes with lack of outdoor space. Nothing is out yet on the when it would hit the stores.

Via: Dvice

A million unwanted CD's recycled to create a shimmering inland sea

Artist creates shimmering inland sea using a million unwanted CDs

Anupam

Eco Factor: Artwork created from discarded CDs.

Artist Bruce Munro has reused about one million unwanted compact discs to create a shimmering inland sea at Long Knoll Field in Wiltshire, England. Apart from some local collections, the massive sea used more than 600,000 discarded CDs that were sent from as far away as Brazil and California.

The 120sqm carpet of glittering CDs reflects light from the sun and the moon across a 10-acre field. While on one side the reflective surfaces present a soft blue haze, with light ahead they dazzle like mirrors. The “CD Sea” will be on public view 24 hours a day before the structure is disassembled and the CDs sent to a recycling plant after two months.

Via: The Daily Mail

Gray Water recycling concept with Hedgehog

Hedgehog translates into a livable design with gray water recycling

Posted by: Priyanka Ohri

Eco Factor: In Hedgehog, the rainwater + gray water = service water supply

Designed by Cheungvogl architects, the Hedgehog concept of the building is wrapped with the a skin that has been made of high gloss finished PVC sticks. These sticks, owing to their virtue of diffusing light, are called “Light Diffusers.” The skin of high gloss PVC sticks appear like golden-silvery shimmering rain. But, when seen from a close distance these PVC sticks become almost invisible. The direct sunlight is reflected due to the presence of light diffusers and reaches the interiors as diffuse or as we can say soft welcome light. The idea of openness manifests itself in larger intensity on the inside, which I think can be credited to the lighting provided with the help of light diffusers. In addition to using PVC as one of the main ingredients, what really gets this design rolling is that on the ground rain water is collected to feed together with recycled gray water into service water supply.

Via: Architizer

Tortoise Wins!

Brian Jungen creates stunning turtle shell with plastic trash cans

Aditi Justa

Eco Factor: Giant turtle shell made from industrial trash cans.

Art is by far the best way to express ones emotions. So, what better way to show your concern for “Mother Nature”. Brian Jungen, one of Canada’s most promising young artists has created something extraordinary with trash bins. The creation called “Carapace” is a dome-shaped structure made out of green-plastic industrial trash cans.

The amazing artwork reflecting the artist’s long-standing interest in geodesic architecture and the environment suggests a giant turtle shell. With this creation, the trash-obsessed artist sends across the message of three “R”s of recycling - recycle, reinvent, reuse. Brian Jungen has already received the 2010 Gershon Iskowitz Prize for his outstanding contribution to visual arts in Canada.

Via: Boingboing

Follow the Sun

Spinning Heliotrope House follows the sun to maximize energy generation

Anupam

Eco Factor: Solar-powered house generates six times more energy that it needs.

The Heliotrope House by German architect Rolf Disch is a cylindrical house that tracks the path of the sun to give maximum access to daylight and allows the onboard solar panels to generate more energy. The record-breaking design is one of the first residential buildings to generate more energy than it uses.

The rotating mechanism allows the house to generate up to six times more energy than the requirement. The house rotates slowly around a central axis to catch maximum sunlight for the solar panels. The house features a rooftop deck laden with solar panels, which are supported by railings. These railings double as passive water heating pipes to serve the house below.

Via: Dornob

Old Banners make Amazing Eco-Lamps

Stunning Living Pixels Lamps Made From Recycled Banners

by Diane Pham,

These gorgeous lamps may look as if they’ve been excavated from ancient crystal caves, but they are in fact the product of an imaginative assemblage of recycled and eco-friendly materials. Created by a collective of designers based in Hong Kong, the ‘Living Pixels‘ lamp takes antique and junk light stands, low-energy bulbs, and a diffuser made up of recycled banners and turns them into a colorful feast for the eyes. But here’s the kicker — as vibrant as these lamps may appear to be in their luminescent state, when turned off, they’re actually a nondescript white!

  

Each diffuser, or lampshade, has been cut and sewn together from discarded banners collected from a variety of sources around the local area. Printed on the interior and white on the outside, the range of available materials and the mode of construction employed for each piece creates an incredible and varied diffusion of light. While not yet mass produced — each lamp is a one-off — the Living Pixels lamp has the potential to become a wonderful green addition to any space, able to provide an unassuming-yet-stunning source of light with the intrinsic power to ‘WOW’ with just a flip of the switch.

Via Yanko Design

Read more: Stunning Living Pixels Lamps Made From Recycled Banners | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

Pink Solar Pop-Up OR2 Tree

Dazzling Solar Powered OR2 Tree Structure Pops Up in London

by Ariel Schwartz,

Don’t be startled if you see a luminous pink tree sitting in London’s Belgrave Square this weekend — it’s just OR2, a combination shading device and solar-powered chandelier designed by London-based Orproject. The structure’s purpose is twofold: it acts as a source of shade during the day, and it turns into a dazzling chandelier at night, dispersing light collected by photovoltaic cells hours before.

The pink-tinted structure, built as part of the London Festival of Architecture, is a follow-up project to the OR single-surface solar roof structure. OR2 is translucent while in the shade, but it quickly fills in with color when exposed to sunlight.

According to the designers, OR and OR2 are the first structures to use photo-reactive technology at an architectural scale. The designers explain, “The beauty of OR2 is its constant interaction with the elements, at each moment of the day OR’s appearance is unique.”

Want to check out OR2 in person? It’s on display until July 4 at the Italian Cultural Institute in London.

+ Orproject

Read more: Dazzling Solar-Powered Chandelier Pops up in London | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

Up Project is somewhat of a sky park

Urban tower seen as a park within the sky

Aditi Justa

Eco Factor: Green multi-storey tower supports rainwater and grey water recycling.

WE-DESIGNS.ORG, an international multi-disciplinary creative group that has always shown its keen interest in investigation of architecture and design within the urban city demonstrates a new face of skyscrapers. Their ‘UP’ project is a multilayered investigative study of an urban tower condition, operated under the logics of the hexagon.

The project sets public and residential spaces into a multi-storey tower by utilizing an articulated folding system that increases useable floor area. The folding landscape has public spaces with natural greenery, making social activity and interaction absolutely relaxing and comfortable. The structure also has room for an integrated piping system that processes, collects, and recycles the rainwater, grey water within the building, and reuses it for heating and other water use.

The roof and piping collects and recycles rainwater. To let residence get mesmerized with the beautiful surrounding views, the structure incorporates a multifaceted façade. The curved window with bio-glass helps to maximum the thermal absorbance of sun light. This poetic intertwining of public space and tower makes an ideal living space for the urbanites.

Via: Designboom