At my firm, David Baker + Partners, we’ve really been getting into green roofs. Green roofs are basically grassy pads of moss and other plants that sit on your roof to help keep the heat in in the winter and cool in in the summer. This bath mat brings a bit of the green roof inside and puts it under your feet. I love it mainly because I love the feel of moss on my feet, but having one of these mats would seem to also save you time and money… and energy because you never have to clean it. I’d like to smell one of these things after a year’s time.

Flotspotting: La Chanh Nguyen brings green to the bathroom – Core77.

Zoe Mowat has come up with something I find quite special. Her Circumflex accent chair is a perfect triumvirate of steel, cast plastic, and walnut which creates something that is forward thinking and yet retains an old-world richness. Usually, when I see chairs like this they’re either too clumsy or look like a robot made the chair, but this chair is just right. I can’t wait to actually sit in this chair, though. I see this as a very good restaurant chair except that your back may be a bit fatigued after two hours of dining. Maybe the best use of the chair is somewhere where design is paramount but sitting around should be no longer than a few minutes.

Definitely check out the link below for a complete line of clever and beautiful products:

Bubblicious

Tubes by Tsunami Glassworks was one of the highlights of ICFF for me. I’m a sucker for contemporary glass design, and this work surpassed all others in my opinion. Each piece in Tubes is hand blown and finished, and each piece has its own character and hue. When all pieces are assembled to make a forest of glass vases a perfect poem is created, but one that can change and evolved to suit the owner’s mood. Also, if you’re so inclined, these green glass vases will make the perfect vessel for the longest of long stemmed flowers. Crazy idea, I know, but why not?

The paraseat is a beautiful concept that exploits the use of a simple mechanical concept. It’s a simple plastic cantilever with a lot at the end that allows you to wedge this thing on a post and use paraseat as a comfortable impromptu place to read a paper or have a drink. If you combine this with the claim(p) by Maya Goldblum then you’ve got the possibility for a temporary restaurant.

Heineken has created one of the most ingenious products I’ve seen in days. As you can see from the image above, the new Heineken World Bottle or WOBO can be used as a building material after its contents have been consumed. This product presents a real challenge to my moral compass. One perspective is that if you are poor and need an inexpensive building material to create your home, then you can just go around collecting these bottles until you have enough to fashion a home. This bottle can be more easily recycled and thus much less energy wasted in its reprocessing of materials while helping someone build their home. The other perspective is it promotes getting drunk over and over in an effort to gather enough building materials. I can hear the slogan now: “Get wasted for planet earth!” or “Drink your way out of homelessness!” . But, maybe I’m being a bit too cynical.

(via Designverb)

(via  Inhabitat)

(via Archinect)

Someone just sent me this video today, and I don’t know what to make of it. All I know is that the persons who sent me the video are part of a small Denver design and fabrication studio named Double Butter. I know they have an incredible talent for making fine furniture. I know that their collective produces some pretty nice art as well. What I can’t figure out is what the hell this video they sent me is all about. From what I gather, Double Butter takes the green steel bench shown in the picture above, and installs it in front of places of cultural significance such as the Denver Art Museum. These installations appear to be completely unsanctioned and unwarranted. Now, I don’t know about you, but that takes some serious balls. And the film shows all their antics happening in broad daylight. I give them major credit for their daring, and fortunately I think the bench they have installed is a fine addition to the landscape. The one thing that I’m completely shocked about, though, is not the bench, not the act of installing the bench, but how completely vacant and lifeless Denver appears to be in the middle of the day. From the video, there seems to be no one on the streets. It reminds me of a scene out of this movie I saw last night called 28 Weeks Later where a virus kills every single human being in the UK and the city of London is left completely empty. Maybe they should have considered shooting the scenes in Denver judging by how easy it would be to clear the streets. I’m not saying at all that it doesn’t take any less guts to do a renegade installation, but I think it would be more fun for me as the audience if they installed one of these things in front of a police station as cops are walking by. Or better yet, come to San Francisco and install one of these in front of my house…please!

I am in love with this product! These are the unbelievably simple measuring devices by Royal VKB called Balancing Bowls. Royal VKB, by the way, is a young Dutch kitchenware firm with a vast stable of talented designers. Their work really creates new rules for how you can eat serve and make food. It’s quite exciting. The Balancing Bowls are a colorful alternative to using measuring cups and spoons. So what do these bowls do that’s so cool? They have two cups. One cup is weighted so that the cup sits firmly on the table while the other cup is raised in the air. Pour your ingredients into the raised cup, and when the cup lowers to touch the table you know you have the right amount of ingredients. What a beautifully simple concept. The bolds seventies blues, greens, and browns are also quite attractive colors for the bowls. I should say that before you run out and buy the Balancing Bowls it’s quite common in Europe to measure things for cooking by their mass rather than their volume like we do here in America, so these Bowls don’t do us much good.

Ana Linares is a freshly graduated designer who went to Pratt in New York. But even though she is fresh out of school, she has a number of competent designs under her belt, the most exciting of which is the Conversation Chair. This chair is one of those pieces that is almost an instant classic simply because of its graphic and iconic posturing. It is a single sheet of either aluminum or steel which is cut into shape (I’m assuming cut with either a plasma cutter or high pressure water jet), bent to the specifications of the chair, and finished off with a gloriously decadent powder coat. Now, I must admit that I’ve seen tons of similar furniture such as this available for years such as the Blu Dot and the recent collection from Form Us With Love or even the amazing PikNik by Dirk Wynants. But Ana’s piece has transcended all of these by bringing the piece one step further an giving it social meaning. Her seat is a seat for two. A place for a conversation. And every move and turn the chair makes is there to reinforce its social contract with the users. I definitely see myself enjoying this chair not only for its beauty but for its use, and I can’t wait to see what Ms. Linares has in store for us.

So, on to the first post!: The Claim(p) by Maya Goldblum. Maya is a recent graduate of the Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design. The device is essentially a cup holder with an adjustable clamp integrated into the cup holder. The concept for the Claim(p) is to combine “claim” and “clamp” mashing the two concepts up into one idea: Claim(p). Thus, the name. What Ms. Goldblum is alluding to is that this clamp with a cup holder can claim public space for whatever function you needed by simply wrapping the device around a light pole and claiming that public space as your impromptu coffee spot for the time being. For instance, one could set up a few of these claim(p)s at a sidewalk light pole and have an instant bar for socializing.

In the future, I cold see Ms. Goldblum expanding her idea further to include a small table for writing or eating that could claim a piece of public space for the people that like to further their public street experience. I’m drawn to the idea of the claim(p) because it seems so efficient in its ability to make something out of nearly nothing. Imagine if dozens of these devices are set up on sign posts outside of a popular cafe. It would extend the social space and business area of the cafe by quite a lot while being an advertisement for the business. However, I don’t see this concept working too well in suburbia where you might just get cars passing you where the driver is thinking, ” Why is that guy standing next to a pole drinking coffee?”