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Archive for the ‘Materials’ Category

Feeling High on the Highline

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Last week my husband, daughter and I returned from a trip around the world to show the  6 month old baby off to her relatives throughout the globe.  One of our stops was New York City where we visited with my side of the family. I had been reading about the Highlinerenovation in New York for about a year and to my delight we hit the opening at the perfect time. It was a Monday afternoon on July 5th . I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a better summer day in the city, perfect temperature, clear skies with an occasional puffy white cloud floating by us.  We started our journey on 12th Street between 10 and 11th Avenue in the meat packing district where the old railway, now converted into an elevated city park, begins. It’s the lower Manhattan’s answer to Central Park. But it has a few things Central Park is lacking: a clear view to the Hudson, no street traffic and a vantage point to city rooftops you would never imagine existed.  On our walk there my husband commented, “Wow, they still sell meat here.” It is a perfect example of urban civility when you see a Hugo Boss Boutique, next to quaint outdoor patio dining of a tasty bistro, with the Quality Meat warehouse in full view complete with blue collar guys loading sides of beef into cold trucks.  In the mix is a sky scraping, modern condo sitting atop the Highline Park.  The scene is sublime and even these great pictures can’t tell the story… you have got to go to the city and check it out for yourself.

See what I mean.

Tags: Architecture, ASID, Aspen, austin, Award Winning, Bath, Boca Raton, Brand Ambassador, california interior designer, Celebrity Interior Designer, Commercial, Construction, Contractor, Custom Furniture, dallas, Decor, Decorating, Design, Expert, Expert Witness, famous interior designer, Furniture Rentals, green, Green Building Guidelines, green materials, Green Renovations, HGTV, Home, home design, home remodeling, Host, houston, Interior Decorator, interior design, interior design expert witness, Interior Designers, kitchen, La Quinta, LEED, los angeles interior designer, Miami, new york, Orange County Interior Designer, Palm Beach, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Rancho Santa Fe, Remodel, Renovate, Residential, Space Planning, Spokesperson, Staging, sustainable, Top Interior Designer
Posted in Green Building, Green Living, Materials | No Comments »

The Greening of Westweek

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

Every year the PDC opens their doors for a fabulous three day party called Westweek.  Showrooms host glamourous parties with entertaining lectures and  tasty treats.  This year I was delighted to see so much attention being to sustainable products and practices. The libation station hosted by  Liebherr served up a refreshing organic fruit drink.  When they handed me the styrofoam cup and offered me a plastic cap and straw, I proudly declined and said, “caps and straws are not great for the environment”.  I was so happy to hear the reply, “but these are 100% percent biodegradable and made of corn, even the cup breaks down”.  I had just been rereading Cradle to Cradle the day before and this was one of the solutions they offered.  Talk about syncronicity. The PDC was the last place I expected to practice cradle to cradle theory.  Go Liebherr.

As I was sipping my delicious libation, I headed through the Green Building lobby and saw fashion and furniture collide in the Barbie/Student Designer exhibit.  Cisco, one of my favorite sustainable vendors, provided this adorable campaign inspired seat. Barbie can fold it up into a suitcase and hit the road in her hybrid.

My daughter Elle and niece,  now 2 1/2 and three months old, made their first appearances at Westweek this year. Elle was much more impressed by the bagpipes at Edelman Leather than the Barbie exhibit.  I always imagined she’d be a singer, so this was encouraging. Her smoking hot daddy carried her around in the Baby Bjorn. You can  imagine all the attention he got!

Stylemaker Thomas Lavin embraced green design with open arms. He’s included an entire line of sustainable fabrics, Creation Bauman and featured Chista’s gorgeous tables at Westweek this year.

And as always, Thomas had the hippest flowers arrangements. They reminded me of something I’d see in the Jetson’s living room.  Brook Casey really loved them because they actually looked like his work.

The show stopper was at Moura Starr, a wholly sustainable showroom which just relocated to the PDC after 14 years on Melrose.  I can only imagine how they got this table into the showroom, it’s enormous.  The table is made from a fallen tree which was nearly impossible to win at auction and fabricate.  You only have to look at it to know it was well worth the effort. I had admired Moura Starr’s furniture for years without knowing about their committment to sustainability.  Westweek was a hit and I now have another green showroom in my arsenal!

Tags: Pacific Design Center
Posted in Events, Materials, Parties, Retailers | No Comments »

Ship it to Me Green

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

Most often when people think of eco-friendly products, they think about what a certain product is made of. This is one of the elements, but there are many more. A product that is manufactured locally, and contains 75% eco-friendly materials should be considered more “green” than an item of the same size containing 100% eco-friendly materials that is shipped from China fully assembled.

According to treehugger.com , a green product is one “that is both environmentally and socially responsible.” Here are some criteria they give to determine an items’ “green-ness”:

1. Demonstrate care for the people who make, supply and use the product
2. Demonstrate care for the ecological community in manufacturing
3. Use materials which are reused, recycled, renewable or organic
4. Products that address the use of energy in their production.Could the energy saved by their use be greater than the energy it took to create the item?
5. Serve a useful purpose
6. Use materials that can be recycled or are biodegradable.

I’m seeing more and more businesses implement or continue the green practices that make products more appealing to those that care about the environment.

Our firm loves Ikea. The fact that Ikea flat-packs their furniture means that costs are reduced because more of that item can be shipped to the store at one time. Also, consumers are able to order most items online. This means than rather than making a trip to the physical store, the items can be shipped directly to the home from the place of manufacture.If you do have to make a trip, the flat-pack concept allows a few rooms of furniture to fit inside your back seat! One trip!

In other news, Wal-Mart is attempting some of its own packaging improvements. They have reshaped their milk cartons to be taller and rectangular-shaped for greater efficiency in shipping, which keeps consumer costs down about 20 cents a gallon. The new shape allows cartons to be stacked on top of one another, rather than packaged with lots of material separating rows of cartons. While some consumers love the new body shape, some are not so amused. Jo from Ohio said, “It is an utterly stupid design. You can’t use a paper towel, water and wipe it up every time you pour milk. They would need to give away a mini roll of paper towels or wet wipes to wipe up the old stinking milk on counters, coffer cups, bowls…. How green is the new design if we are wasting paper towels and running water after every use?” Hmmm, something to think about. A nice attempt though, I think.

Tags: Architecture, ASID, Aspen, austin, Award Winning, Bath, Boca Raton, Brand Ambassador, california interior designer, Celebrity Interior Designer, Commercial, Construction, Contractor, Custom Furniture, dallas, Decor, Decorating, Design, eco-friendly, Expert, Expert Witness, famous interior designer, Furniture Rentals, green, green product, HGTV, Home, home design, home remodeling, Host, houston, Interior Decorator, interior design, interior design expert witness, Interior Designers, kitchen, La Quinta, LEED, los angeles interior designer, Materials, Miami, new york, Orange County Interior Designer, Palm Beach, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Rancho Santa Fe, Remodel, Renovate, Residential, Space Planning, Spokesperson, Staging, sustainable, Top Interior Designer, Wal-mart
Posted in Green Living, Materials | No Comments »

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