anna garforth: mossenger.

UK designer Anna Garforth has gone above and beyond green-washing to create a truly biodegradable and all natural graffiti. With “Mossenger” she’s created living, breathing, and sustainable outdoor art. Fashioned from a common moss that thrives on brick walls, she took a quote from poet Eleanor Stevens, carved the moss, and glued it to the wall with a mix of totally biodegradable ingredients.

As the moss grows it will begin to spread out and the words themselves will literally spread themselves, in all their green glory, across the wall and melt into a field of green. Part of an on-going project experimenting with public space and street art, I’m majorly interested to see what Garforth will be up to next. Perhaps the next lines of the poem will strategically find themselves on walls across the city?

Via It’s Nice That

solar collector.

If art is in the eye of the beholder, then here is what happens when the beholders are creating the art. In the hills near Cambridge, Ontario, Gorbet Design Inc. (made up of Matt, Rob, and Susan LK Gorbet) has created Solar Collector.

Just the online description itself gets my little new-media-modern-artist’s heart a-thumping:

In a collaboration between the community and the sun, Solar Collector gathers human expression and solar energy during the day, then brings them together each night in a performance of flowing light.

How awesome does THAT sound? Integrating the cycles of it’s natural environment into an interaction-based work of outdoor art, similar to Jiyeon Song’s beautiful “One Day Poem Pavilion”, almost every aspect of Solar Collector’s design took a completely holistic and thought-out approach to it’s natural surroundings. Despite the high-tech aspect of its workings, there is a subtle, organic reasoning behind almost every element of the piece.

The 12 aluminum shafts are held at separate angles in the hillside. Each shaft has three LED lights and three solar collectors, gathering the sun’s energy to power their noctural illumination. The angles of the shaft represent the sun’s position throughout the year: the tallest shaft faces the sun’s location at winter solstice, and the lowest shaft faces does the same for summer solstice. If you’re a techie kinda person, you can check out all the detailed specs here.

During the day, while sunlight charges the batteries within each shaft, people go online and create their own patterns and send them electronically to solar collector. At sunset, Solar Collector comes to life and creates it’s display not just from the energy of light but from the creative energy of human beings. As the solar power in the batteries diminishes during the night, the light from each shaft slowly fades away and darkens until they’re energized by the sun again the next morning. It’s as natural and universal a cycle as breathing.

There’s also a kind of delightful shock to the location of Solar Collector. For those of you who don’t live in Southern Ontario, Cambridge isn’t exactly the first place you’d expect to find an interactive outdoor light sculpture. In fact, it may be one of the last. The randomness of its locale adds to it’s overall coolness.

Via Stimulant

wwf canada: “zero carbon”.

Smart. So so smart. This definitely goes down into the “wish I had thought of that” file. And it’s Canadian to boot.

Taking the concept of recycling into a more virtual realm, WWF Canada’s latest spot, “Zero Carbon”, is “the world’s first zero-carbon TV ad”. It’s made up of recycled video clips (some as old as 60 years), was created during virtual collaboration sessions, and for any in-person meetings the people behind it took public transit to reach each other. Just to make sure nothing was missed, environmental consulting engineer Steve Lapp even did an emissions audit on it’s production. and carbon off-sets were bought for any energy that was used.

The icing on this cake is the old skool appearance of some vintage Shelley Long at 0:22…

(Agency: DraftFCB Canada.)

Via Stimulant

mathieu lehanneur: flood restaurants.

In his ground-breaking new interiour design for Paris’ Flood Restaurants, visionary designer Mathieu Lehanneur has taken the integration of ecology and experiential design to new heights.

Sleek round aquariums sit throughout the space, each filled with 100-litres of Spirulina Plantesis. The micro algae creates oxygen through photosynthesis, aided by the large bright windows nearby. Besides their eye-popping futuristic vibe and awesome visual quality – the aquariums seem to almost glow with an organic phosphoresence – the pure, fresh oxygen they release into the air adds to a full-sensory, holistic experience. The design goes beyond what you can touch and see to improving the environment of the very atmosphere inside the space. You may not be able to consciously sense it, but undoubtedly your body will know.

I love the pure, retro-minimalist feel of the entire design. Besides the algae aquariums, Lehanneur dip-coated all the chairs and tables in PVC to give them an ultra-smooth, wet touch to the skin. The lighting takes the oxygenated concept even further – each fixture has an atmospheric, almost molecular look to it. As if each one is about to burst with air or float away.

Via Snell at Lost At E Minor.

caroline wetterling: gro.

Ok, so let me try and explain the many reasons why I love this. Firstly, at the risk of understatement, plants are awesome. I read once that you should try and have a living thing in every room of your house, and plants give you some ecological energy and fresh O2 to burn.

Secondly, I love forward-thinking design that merges the organic with the modern; finding new ways to harness the beauty of botanical growth with the tech-geeky joy of owning something that looks like you could take it on a space ship. Thirdly – I’m into compartmentalized packaging. One of my guilty pleasures is airplane food. I have an almost Pavlovian response to the sound of that jangly trolley being wheeled down the aisle, and then those trays with the little boxes, neatly laid out for maximum efficiency and somehow and leaving you wanting more.

So, when Swedish designer Caroline Wetterling created Gro – a living, single-serving plant whose growth is displayed inside a sleek, futuristic glass egg – it’s three times the joy for me. Designed while she was still a student at Beckman’s College of Design, she said, “The greenhouse can host the three initial stages of a seed’s development, from seed to shoot to the development of true leaves. Plants like Forgetmenot, four-leaved clover and wild strawberries have enough space to flourish inside the capsule. In the bottom of the capsule, a set of bars is placed to keep the right level of moisture in the soil. The spout acts as a ventilation hole – it allows for oxygen to come in, condensation to come out, and keeps the proper temperature inside the capsule.”

And it’s cute as fuck.

help.

When looking to create a fresh, modern new brand, you might not think automatically of painkillers and bandages. Thankfully, Help did…

Help is to pharmaceuticals what the brilliant Method is to cleaning products: be clear, be environmentally friendly, be different, and look good enough that people will want to show you off. They clearly state that their goal is to make products that actually help people and to bring some simplicity and environmental responsibility to the ugly, plasticized, over-packaged pill industry. In fact, reading the ethics statement on their site was actually inspiring, and when was the last time you could say that about a company?

Their products are equally forward-thinking. Their packaging is made from 100% recycled paper pulp and is fully compostable. You can literally shove it in the dirt, walk away, and feel okay about it. “Help. I have a headache” is 500mg acetaminophen pills that come without coatings or dyes. They openly admit they aren’t as pretty, but they’re better for you and for the planet. “Help. I’ve cut myself” warns that the bandages inside are made from hydrocolloid, the same stuff hospitals use. Again, it doesn’t look like a Band-Aid, but it works better than one. I love everything Help is doing, and I hope they blow up huge. Right now they’re only available for sale online, but they promise they’re working on a nation-wide distribution deal. I can’t wait.

They’re also savvy enough to know that when a brand is this morally strong and beautifully designed, people want to interact with it and share it. That’s why they’ve got personalized “Help. I…” tees available too.

For just $20 bucks you can customize your own tee. The site’s easy to use ordering system lets you see exactly what your shirt will look like. Behold:

honda: “plant this letter”.

Green is the new Ad. As part of it’s new drive to raise the green-cred on it’s lawn and garden vehicles, Honda sent out a direct mail letter that literally grows. Once soaked in water and planted in soil, the seeds inside the paper itself grow into wildflowers. Though one could fairly easily argue the environmental implications of a direct mail letter (the creation of more paper, regardless of it’s biodegradability or green purpose, uses chemicals and expends energy… I’m just sayin’) the romantic in me loves the beautiful idea of this letter:

Brain-stormed by London, UK agency Inferno and copywritten by Jaime Diskin, they really seem to have walked their talk on this one: the envelope and paper were 100% recycled and acid free and the inks were green-friendly as well.

There’s a certain green simplicity going on here that I really love. Keep in mind this isn’t the first time something like this had been done; earlier this year Bogle Bartle Hegarty Asia created plantable tags for Levi’s Eco Jeans (made from 100% organic cotton) that had the whole paper-with-wildflower-seeds thing going on. Still, an idea this cool deserves to be re-envisioned. Plus, the concept of viable seeds embedded in paper existed before either of these campaigns and neither of these agencies invented it, so I think it’s fair game to find new ways to use such an eye-catching concept.

wild bunch & co.

I’m a sucker for anything that comes in a pretty bottle. And Wild Bunch & Co. juice is one of the prettiest I’ve seen in a long while.

This Singapore-based company is definitely taking juice high end. Not only do the bottles look hot enough to have perfume in them, but their stuff is 100% organic  and has cute names like Easy Peazy, Savage Cabbage, Iron Maiden, and Beet It.

If you’re in Singapore you can take a sunlit morning jaunt to their retail location for a shot of fresh-pressed Wheatgrass juice. If you’re not in Singapore (like most of us) you’re screwed though. On the flip side, if you live in Singapore and are independently wealthy you’re laughing, cause juice this awesome doesn’t come cheap though. For about CAD $175 a month they’ll make you 250mls of personally-ordered juice per day, deliver it to your office or house, and pick up the empties for recycling.

nike trash talk.

Promoted as the brainchild of Nike star endorser and big time environmentalist Steve Nash, last month Nike released the Trash Talk – the first high-end running shoe made not just out of environmentally friendly first-run materials, but literally out of scraps that would otherwise have been tossed.

Check out the details on exactly what Nike is (and isn’t) doing to walk their trash talk, as well as read the various soap-boxing of environmentalists claiming to see right through this, at the must-read Treehugger.

svalbard global seed vault.

It’s been evident to me for quite some time now that Scandinavia will eventually save the world from a self-imposed doom. For proof, look no further than the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

Officially up and running as of February 26, 2008, the vault is built into the permafrost of Spitsbergen Island in the very remote arctic Svalbard Archipelago (we’re talking only 1,120 kilometres from the North Pole remote… like, Santa might work there in the off-season remote…). Even cooler (literally), the vault sits deep inside a 120-metre long reinforced concrete tunnel built into the side of a sandstone mountain, behind two solid steel doors, and remote-controlled by a manned-outpost in Sweden. This shit is on lock down.

You KNOW that Dr. Claw’s secret lair is underneath this thing. But wait! It gets better…

As it’s name implies, the vault can hold up to 2 billion seeds from 4.5 million species from around the world. At the opening ceremony last week, 100 million seeds were placed inside. The seeds are kept in foil packets at -18˚ Celsisus and if undisturbed are expected to be usable for thousand of years. Called a “frozen garden of Eden” by European Commission president José Manuel Barroso, it’s mission is to preserve crop supplies and secure biological diversity. Though most people, myself included, like to think that the seed vault will help us grow bamboo and spelt and other protein-rich grains as we slowly re-populate the planet following some sort of apocalypse, it’s really more likely that it will supply replacement seeds when other gene banks around the world have equipment failures, fires, natural disasters… you know, boring stuff that doesn’t involve a 1000 foot tidal wave rushing towards the Eastern seaboard at the speed of sound.

They’ve covered all their bases with this one. The location was chosen because of it’s almost total lack of tectonic movement and the permafrost conditions pretty much create the ideal refrigerator. The location, 130 metres above sea level, will not flood even if the polar ice-caps melt. All of the seeds are organic and GMO free (despite the fact that it’s just smart, genetically modified seeds are basically sterile… another reason why we shouldn’t be messing with nature) and even if the air-conditioning system fails, now that the vault has reached it’s ideal frozen temperature, it’s estimated it would take 200 years before the temperature would rise enough to harm the seeds.

Though most of the building costs were fronted by the government of Norway, a lot of eyebrows have been raised by some of the other groups with a financial interest in the vault, including The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and US agri-business giant DuPont. Though you could argue that an agricultural company has an inherent interest to preserve seeds, this big-business connection has conspiracy theorists all over the net going off their rockers. The Zeitgeisters are all pretty sure Bill Gates is going to stock all the seeds in the world, poison the rest, and then enslave all of humankind into some kind of nutritional feudal state. If you want to read a more balanced view on the possible evils behind the whole thing, check out this post at the Rasta Seed Project.