The Tiny Life

Here is a Tiny House that comes from the Designers at Ecospace.  They design a full range of building from small office pods and bigger.  Using SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels) these houses can be put together fairly quickly.  At only a few hundred feet, they pack a ton into this thing.  At around $55,000 this is a premium house, but I feel it serves to provide good inspirations for your own design.

Made from sustainable cedar wood with an optional plant covered roof, low-energy heating, lighting and insulation, it’s right at home with the environment as well as your garden. Use it as your office and the garden commute will do wonders for your carbon footprint too.

Click link below for more photos!

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Interesting video with the Director of Transportation for DC.  He is well know for his contributions in Zip Cars.  Among many parts of a “multi-modal” system as he refers to it, is a bike share program.  Annual fees to have access bikes are $40.00

At a presentation at its Arkansas headquarters, mega-retailer Walmart announced a significant new sustainability goal for its supply chain: Reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from the life cycle of its products by 20 million metric tons (22 million US tons) by 2015–a figure roughly equal to the company’s current annual emissions, and about one and a half times the company’s projected carbon footprint growth in the same time period.  This is similar to 2.3 million cars worth of pollution.

In doing so it has collaborated with the Environmental Defense Fund, and with ClearCarbon Inc., the Carbon Disclosure Project, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the University of Arkansas’ Applied Sustainability Center to verify GHG reduction claims.

In determining which product categories to focus on first, Walmart SVP of Sustainability Matt Kistler said:

Over the next five years we’re going to be focusing on certain categories, certain businesses where the biggest opportunity exists, where it’s the most efficient, and most cost-effective to remove that greenhouse gas from that supply chain. Whether it be in apparel, whether it be in food, whether it be in home line products, we’re looking at the category of products where there’s great opportunity, but where its at a low cost to remove.

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Today I thought it would be fun to talk about some interesting eco-friendly things that caught my over the past week.

You love pizza, but you hate the waste of the packaging. Well here is a new idea from Greenbox, Check the video for how it works.

Next is recycled newspaper that has been spun into yarn which can be used to make any number of things. I have yet to see how well it holds up in the rain, but this product screams Etsy.

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Here is another one that I found, my sister and mother are both weirdly addicted to using straws, frankly I just don’t get it, but what kills me is that they have to throw these away each time.  I have never really seen any straws that are designed to be reusable or practical for reuse.  The nifty part about these is that you can drop them in a pot of boiling water or a dishwasher to completely sterilize them, inside and out.

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Here is a great little ottoman that is made from upcycled materials.  While I would be buying one of these, at a price tag of $425, You could easily make one of these yourself if you can get your hands on the old burlap bags.

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Found this great article over at Dornob, talking about 5 mobile green houses.

Ever see a shopping cart piled high with plants? How about a greenhouse on the back of a pickup truck? No, then perhaps a flatbed garden on wheels? Or at the extreme of eco-strange: how about a typical mobile-home trailer that folds out into an entirely fake green garden – the ultimate portable kitsch patio?

Don’t stress out if you missed the opportunity to have one of the fabulous gifts from our green guides shipped in time for the holidays. There are plenty of thoughtful last-minute green gifts for everyone on your list! So whether you haven’t been able find that special something for your sister, in-laws, co-worker, or even your best friends, we have the prefect ideas that are earth friendly and easy to put together. herb planters, seeds kit, recycled cans, edible, baking, cooking ingredients gifts eco green holiday “last minute” guide 2009 diy handmade

1. HANDMADE SEED STARTER KIT A great gift for almost anyone on your list is handmade seed starter kit. You can customize a planter by covering or painting an aluminum can, a yogurt cup, or any other container with a bottom that can be punctured for drainage. Avocado8 has some great tips for the type of soil and seeds to use for a starter kit. To make it even more special, you may want to add a few plant markers to the kit. You can design your own, or use a template, like this one from Goldtop design. sustainable design, green design, last minute gifts, green christmas presents, eco holiday gifts, edible gifts

2. EDIBLE GREEN GIFT Edible gifts are a standby last-minute treat. Holiday cookies made from organic ingredients will be enjoyed by all, but if you aren’t very savvy with baking you could try something easier like spiced nuts, chocolate-covered gummy bears, or even your own fudge sauce. Green cooking tip: reusable silicon mats are great for eco-friendly baking. Another nice alternative is to create a cute package with all the ingredients and instructions needed to make a special recipe – try a chocolate cranberry cookie mix, or hot cocoa mix. sustainable design, green design, last minute gifts, green christmas presents, eco holiday gifts, vase

3. RECYCLED CUSTOMIZED FLOWER VASE Giving someone flowers can be a nice last-minute gesture for the holidays, but it will be even better when you give them a bouquet in a handmade vase. You can follow these easy instructions to make one from a recycled glass bottle using glue and yarn for a simple and classy look, or for a ceramic-inspired creation try this technique using puffy paints. sustainable design, green design, last minute gifts, green christmas presents, eco holiday gifts, DIY sketchbook

4. A PERSONALIZED SKETCHBOOK OR NOTEPAD Another easy gift is to make vintage-inspired notepads or sketchbooks with 100% recycled paper. You can use a thrift store book cover, or make your own cover by wrapping a sheet of cardboard with a newspaper, fabric or even paint chip samples. Don’t worry; there are online tutorials that will help you with the binding techniques. digital gifts, online gifts, sustainable design, green design, last minute gifts, green christmas presents, eco holiday gifts,

5. DIGITAL GIFTS Go digital with your last-minute gifts this year. For musical friends, gift them a custom playlist you made with iTunes, or send them a gift card for Amazon’s mp3s. For literary types, buy them a digital book for their kindle, or a subscription to a digital magazine or newspaper from Zinio. Photo junkies will love it when you buy them a pro account on Flickr, so they can organize and share all their photos online. sustainable design, green design, last minute gifts, green christmas presents, eco holiday gifts, gifts of time

6. GIFTS OF TIME A last-minute holiday present that is net-zero and consumerism-free is to give the gift of your time. You can make coupons using holiday letterpress cards, like these eco-friendly sustainably harvested yellow birch cards from Night Owl Paper Goods. Some ideas for coupon themes: offer to do an eco-friendly house cleaning, laundry duties for a month with natural detergents, prepare an organic meal, or offer to paint a room with low-VOC paints. For more great gifts ideas, be sure to check out our Gifts of Time Guide.

Reprinted: Inhabitat 12-2009

If you asked me a year ago if I would ever be blogging about toilets, well I most likely would have laughed at you.

I have seen these before, but they are most often conversion kits and a never looked quite as nice.  The Caroma Profile Smart is a Small profile toilet that has an integrated sink that uses the water before it goes into the toilet.  I have told folks about these before and often get this disgusted look, if you have never had to fix one you might not know how they work.  First the water fills a reservoir tank, that tank empties down into the bow through small holes at the top, the water collects in the bowl and well you know the rest.   The water that goes into the reservoir is 100% clean water, same stuff you drink from the tap.

If you are in another country this may not be the case as they sometimes use grey water, which I hope catches on here, but here in the US of A we use the regular water to fill the bowl.  What is more many folks put what are essentially chlorine tablets in the reservoir which creates a barrier if you will.  In fact if you read any disaster preparedness guide they talk about if push comes to shove, you can drink from the reservoir (best to boil).

So what’s so great about this toilet first it actually looks somewhat attractive, the second is that it is a very narrow profile, perfect for tiny houses.

• High efficiency dual flush toilet – 1.28/0.8 gallons (4.8/3 liters) per flush
• Integrated sink for enhanced water savings
• After flushing, fresh cold water is directed through the faucet for hand washing and drains into the tank to be used for the next flush
• Unique water and space saving design
• Chrome buttons built-in to tapware design
• Easy installation
• Large trapway virtually eliminates blockages
• 12″ rough-in

more here

I have been preaching the need for us to live allot more locally, for a variety of reasons.   As we do the old infrastructure of our 1600 mile salad will no longer have its usefulness. I wrote about how retrofitting a grocery store was one example of this, well here is another.  Dornob talked about this great concept

There are nearly 500,000 freestanding billboards in the United States alone. What if any number of these could be converted en mass into functional, modular prefab homes that could be shipped and installed in rural and urban areas around the country – eco-friendly, cheap new housing from recycled old billboards.

Prefabrication and portability are nothing new in architecture and transportation, but world-changing modular and mass-producible visions  like this concept by Nocturnal Design Labs are few and far between. Unlike most conventional prefabs, these spaces are planned with interior layouts, sun paths and wind patterns in mind, giving the result a distictive and dynamic shape.

rom the curved modern shell and functional interior spaces to the high-up locations with varied views, there is more to this than simply a clever idea from a forward-thinking designer – these are best understood as prefab building prototypes, the potential start of an entire movement in adaptive reuse already being explored by various architects and designs.

I normally only post Monday to Friday, but since its a holiday I decided to do a quick post.

Check out Green Costumes for kids over at Inhabitat