Category: Sustainability

Posters

The Medium Is the Message

By Delphine Hirasuna |

A project by Happiness Brussels designed by Anthony Burrill in London, this limited edition poster was made to benefit the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. The poster’s message is simple and direct, but it takes on an emotional resonance when viewers learn that it was silk-screened using oil collected off of Louisiana beaches after the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Over the years some artists and artisans have let the choice of material imbue their creation with symbolic significance – e.g., guns melted down to make a peace sculpture; pottery made from the volcanic ash of the Mount St. Helens eruption; objects that incorporate pieces of the Berlin Wall, etc. It adds another dimension of meaning to the object and makes you think.

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Packaging

The Environment vs. Noise Pollution Dilemma

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Back in 2009, Frito-Lay did a good thing. It introduced the world’s first manufactured 100% biodegradable packaging for its healthy SunChips snack products. Made from plant-based materials, the SunChips bags are said to decompose completely in just 14 weeks, returning to Mother Nature all that it borrowed. Better yet, designers weren’t asked to make major sacrifices. SunChips packaging, undoubtedly printed using vegetable-based inks, could be as colorful and detailed in design as its less eco-friendly competitors.

Everyone should be happy, right? What’s not to like about a tasty whole grain snack that is good for the body and good for the earth. Well, for one, the noise pollution. The high decibel crinkling sound made by the environmentally friendly packaging every time the eater reached into the bag for another handful of chips was so loud that it made it hard to hear the TV and annoyed roommates who were trying to get some sleep. Frito-Lay tried to put a good face on it, admitting that yes, the bags were a little noisier, but not a big deal. The uproar on Facebook and YouTube, however, refused to quiet down. Consumers felt they shouldn’t have to put up with ear torture just to help the earth.

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Architecture

Packaged Architecture

By Delphine Hirasuna |

You’ve heard the barroom ditty “99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer. Take one down and pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall”? Well, try this one: “33,000 beer crates forming a wall, 33,000 beer crates …”

Asked by their client, Atomium, to construct a temporary pavilion in Brussels to mark the 50th anniversary of the Universal World Exhibition, SHSH, an architectural firm with offices in Brussels, London and Sendai, constructed a “package” exhibition space out of 33,000 recycled plastic beer crates.

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Product Design

Finally, A Bright Idea

By Delphine Hirasuna |

“It’s strange that the bulb, an object synonymous with ideas, is almost entirely absent of imagination,” comments Plumen on its website. The UK-based compact fluorescent (CFL) bulb maker is determined to change that. Calling its product the “world’s first designer energy-saving light bulb,” Hulger, the British electronics company that designed Plumen, has challenged the notion that CFL light bulbs can only come in three shapes and must, by necessity, look unattractively utilitarian.

Plumen — which draws its name from “plume,” a bird’s showy feathers — is bending the gas-filled tubing the way a glass blower manipulates molten glass into sculptural forms. Like other energy-saving bulbs, Plumen products use 80% less energy than traditional incandescent bulbs and last about eight times longer. The savings may not just be in the electricity usage; consumers may decide to forego the cost of a lampshade and just enjoy the decorative style of the bare bulb. Right now Plumen bulbs are only available in the UK and Europe, but the company says they will be introduced in the U.S. soon.

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Architecture

Fly Away Home

By Delphine Hirasuna |

On the hard-packed sands of California’s Mojave Desert stands a surreal sight. Hundreds of decommissioned commercial jets are lined up row after row, in the middle of nowhere. Their engines are taped shut with Mylar to keep out drifting sands. This is a graveyard for retired jets, many of which originally cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build. Now they only serve as awnings for rattle snakes and reptiles that take shelter from the unrelenting sun. Some planes may be stripped of useful parts that can be reconditioned. Others may be bought by a third-world country or short-hop commuter startup. And still others will simply languish there for years – a kind of “Stonehenge” of the 21st century.

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