We had the opportunity to attend a symposium at Pratt Institute as part of their “ReIGNITE!” series during alumni weekend. The event brought together a group of panelists from across a wide range of disciplines speaking on ideas related to redefining the good life and reconsidering creative value in the 21st century.

The Re-vive Table Legs, created by UK design firm Cohda, offer a way to reclaim discarded materials and offer more functional flexibility than many traditional, non-sustainable solutions. The product consists of four patented, vice-like clamps that secure legs to any flat, rigid surface, converting that old piece of plywood in the garage or beautiful oak door found in the alley into a new table suitable for any use. If use dictates new needs, the legs can simply be removed—without any tools—and reattached to any other surface. It’s a wonderfully intuitive solution and a beautiful way to make new objects from [...]

Wooly Pockets are an interesting modular system for creating indoor and outdoor gardens. Constructed out of a soft, felt-like material made out of recycled plastic bottles, the pockets can be hung and stacked to create space-saving vertical wall gardens, and the flat syle allows for a more traditional flexible plant container. The material breathes, keeping roots healthy, and the Wooly Pockets come in an unlined version for the outdoors, and a lined version to keep indoor plants from leaking.

[via Better Living Through Design]

British designer Kyle Bean has created this impressive set of cardboard sculptures as a statement on the environmental impact of constantly upgrading to the newest tech gear.
[ via Design Crave ]

It really doesn’t get much more “green” or sustainable than this. The Build/Make/Craft/Bake blog has a tutorial on how to create little seed-starting planters out of eggshells. A simple but ingenious hack.
[via Curbly]

Barcelona’s Vaho Works create furniture out of items like shopping carts and oil drums and bags out of banner advertisements and tires. Vaho’s professional-looking and high-quality work (”Trashion”)  have even become part of promotional campaigns, with clients such as ADG-FAD ( a Spanish Graphic Designer and Art Director’s Association), Institut Barcelona Esports, and Grupo Mahou – San Miguel (a brewing company). Like many repurposed products, the items aren’t always cheap. Considering the craftsmanship and ethical benifits, though, Vaho’s products are within reach (about €30 for a small bag or €265 for a chair) and can be purchased through their online [...]

The ways our food is produced, packaged and shipped stand at the center of an ongoing debate about the health of our planet and ourselves, but the key to creating a sustainable system may rely on our collective ability to accept a realistic solution as a opposed to a perfect one. And this involves a concerted effort on the part of not only producers and consumers, but policy makers as well.
If we examine the farming methods in our country, we find a polarizing set of standards – industrial monoculture machines that favor high yields and high profits and smaller outfits [...]

There has been a continuous evolution of wine packaging throughout the years from bottles to cardboard boxes, corks to screw tops and more recently the emergence of Tetra Paks – essentially box 2.0 with less environmental impact.  And now South Africa’s The Company of Wine People have unveiled their new eco-friendly design, the wine pouch, a product that on first glance resembles a Capri Sun for grown-ups.
Treehugger examines this newest entrant as part of their ongoing debate on which design is the best choice from the standpoint of its sustainability as well as its overall practicality.  The wine pouch gets points [...]

We’ve been aware of vertical farming for a little while now, but whereas previously it only existed in theory, we’re finally beginning to see some fledging real world examples bringing the underlying principles to life.
Understanding the environmental impact of the way our food is grown and distributed, along with the future demands for feeding the rising population of our planet, the vertical farming model offers a simple, yet radical solution that attempts to address many of these issues – instead of bringing the food to the city, we can bring the cities to the food.  This idea goes far beyond rooftop [...]

How green is your food these days? Seen in Chelsea Market, NYC