...a partridge made from recycled furniture??
Holiday songs echoing in my ears, I saw these and fell in love. Each little bird is re-crafted from a salvaged chair arm or table leg or some other discarded piece of wood. The artist is Lars Beller Fjetland from Norway. He was inspired to create the Re-Turned creatures by all the detritus in local dumpsters.
Images from It's Nice That. Via Pinterest.
Everyone seems to be up-cycling pallets these days. While I like the idea, most of it ends up looking like pallets. These lamps from UK-based Factory Twenty One look so sophisticated you can't tell the source wood is so humble.
The clever assembly (giant hair elastics?) and color fade (so on trend!) make them almost perfect. The icing on the green cake is that they ship flat-packed. Want one of your very own? Check out Factory Twenty One's Etsy shop.
Images from FactoryTwentyOne. Via Upcyclista.
If you're a crafty DIY type, you should know about the amazing team and HomeMade Modern. They regularly post easy, well documented, and industrially styled DIY projects for you to add to that list of "I'd like to make that!" Fond of simple materials--concrete, plywood--they come up with some really interesting and modern shapes and provide enough detail for you to modify the projects for you own needs. In this case, easy instructions to size the cubby to fit your own particular size dog. Currently on their site they have several projects using faceted shapes, but I wanted to share this fantastic dog house.
I don't have a dog, but if I did, I would be so tempted to make this charming pet bed for him.
*Before the pronunciation police get onto me, I know the traditional phrase is dog-eat-dog, but this is one of my favorite mis-stated cliches.
Images from HomeMade Modern. Via NOTCOT.
Tricia found this great image on Pinterest, but the source link was broken. I managed to track down a credit (thank you Google image search) on a Czech website.
I don't know anything about it, but thank you Tomáš Vacek of STUDIO VACEK for designing such an interesting twiggy modern bench.
Image from Pinterest. Via Tricia.
Giant wooden lego minifig? Yes, please!
Handmade, with beautiful packaging. Check the wood shavings, and the individually numbered feet!
Images from Thibaut Malet. Via NOTCOT.
Michael McGillis works magic with natural materials and extremely well-chosen paint colors (or, in the case of the stonework, plastic bags).
If you live in Minnesota or France, you might be able to visit one of these in person. The rest of us will admire from afar.
Images from Michael McGillis. Via NOTCOT.
We've covered Nendo projects before, and the Japanese designers always have something smart to say. This time, it's cohabitation, Japanese capsule style.
You plus up to 78 tiny bird families. I wonder how many of the nests are occupied?
The design is provocative, and charming without being too cute. The idea is better communing with nature, and the peepholes are a clever way to get your voyeur birdwatching on.
Images from Nendo. Via NOTCOT.
Our beloved Tricia has been hard at work, and finally launched her own Etsy shop, Rewind Lab. I'll feature her jewelry some other time, but today I wanted to show off the golf club racks.
Tricia is a purest in her green adventures, and with the exception of a bit of glue and the lacquer, all of this is reclaimed, from the vintage clubs to the wood salvaged from abandoned futon frames. My golfing experience involves more spinning windmills than manicured greens, but I think they're lovely. You can get your own here.
Images from Rewind Lab.
T and I have had a lot of conversations about how to convey the material source for something you're creating, especially if those materials are reused. Most of the example out there are earnest, but not clean and modern. The other day I ran across Provenance. They make cutting boards and other housewares from recycled teak and glass. But the best part is their branding and packaging that gets the idea across in a lovely, modern, Helvetica-esque way. No fair-trade, made-by-hippies image here. This is the new green, beyond green, where consumers want to know the materials in their products the same way they want to know the ingredients in their food.
On the fronts of the packaging, This Is Now...
And on the back, This Was...
It's so well done. I wish we'd thought of it. For more details and photos, read the full article on the dieline.
Images from the dieline.
When I was a kid, I went through a phase of wanting to be an architect. I remember spending hours drawing floor plans of my father's imaginary lake house. I never really sketched the house itself, just the floor plans. I found it satisfying to figure out where everything would go, and how all the rooms would fit together.
My own kids draw mostly zombies and explosions (with the occasional rainbow thrown in for good measure), but no matter what the subject, this drawing board desk Ninetonine would be a cute place to draw. The pencil cup chimney is very clever, and the dual use as desk/playhouse is charming.
Images from Ninetonine. Via Remodelista.
Cincinnati design team Such + Such creates these topography-inspired clocks with their pet CNC machine. I love a good good mash-up of traditional material and modern manufacturing techniques (or the flip side, old school manufacturing and modern materials). They come in a couple of sizes and finishes, for those of you still use a clock to tell time.
Images from Such + Such. Via Fab.
Sometimes the best sculpture is made from the imperfect. Brazilian designer João Paulo Scigliano rescues discarded timber from logging companies. I couldn't get better photos, but I love these cubes with the holes inside. It's a modern take on all the redwood burl coffee table.
Images reposted from Recyclart.
So, I've seen some really nice skateboard jewelry, but this is pretty brilliant. Of course, this might be because I have a bare wall of cement board in my home, waiting for me to finally decide what surface is going there, and I've got all kinds of tile on the brain. I wish this were in our budget.
Art of Board recycles trashed and broken skateboard decks into lively wall tiles. The graphics make them pop, while the scrapes and scratches on the surface remind us of their first life. To fill their own supply chain, Art of Board created I Ride, I Recycle, which partners with skate shops to keep used decks out of landfill and put them into the hands of artists and designers looking for raw materials. The organization has a broader mission of encouraging skaters to minimize the environmental impact of their sport. We've profiled this kind of single-item supply chain before, and I'm always thrilled to see it working.
Images from Art of Board. Via Fab (Fab sale going until 5/18).
So, I finally took the dive into Pinterest and quickly got lost for an hour looking at some very lovely eye-candy. There are some challenges in using Pinterest, specifically around copyright*, and for me, it would be a lot more useful if they would allow private pinboards. That said, I fell down the rabbit hole of product design boards, and discovered California designer Daniel Ballou via a random pin from a French website.
How I got here doesn't really matter. The work is wonderful, and I love these bent plywood bike racks. The staging in these photos is perfect: Slat bench? Check! Eames lounge? Check! Bent wood awesomeness? Check!
*For more on Pinterest and copyright issues, read this Business Insider article.
Images from Daniel Ballou. Via Fubiz (Pinterest).
Make Magazine is sponsoring a DIY contest. Win your own 3D printer and a chance at a Nissan Leaf, plus fame and fortune and a chance to show off your skills. Details here.
If you're more of a voyeur than a competitor, you can just lurk in the gallery here. There are some great ideas already up, and more coming. I've pulled a couple of teaser photos for you. Good luck!
Images from Make. From the top,
Sprout vases from old wooden buoys,
Alley Cat kinetic art from found wood, and
recycled phone book desk organizer.
I've been working on some geometric lighting designs (more to come on that soon), and I discovered Dylan Design. The team at Design*Sponge always find the most exquisite lighting, and these pendants are no exception.
I'm crazy for the dark faceted wood and the red cord (available in other colors, too), and check the chandelier version!
Images from Dylan Design's Etsy shop. Via Design*Sponge.
One of the first posts we did here at the Lab was about Seattle design firm Graypants and their doodle lighting. Now they've designed a very cool looking chair made from a single sheet of plywood.
The Graypants team is working hard on all aspects of their low-waste approach. Their Slice Chair gets 3 chairs out of each sheet of FSC-certified plywood, and their low-VOC finish is actually a by-product of cheese. You can purchase one (or three) via their website.
Images from Graypants.
Ariele Alasko is, of course, in Brooklyn, but we could be such good friends. Her work is all salvaged wood awesomeness, and it's just stunning. I am (uncharacteristically) speechless. Choosing 3 photos to share with you was almost impossible. Please, click over to her blog, Brooklyn to West, and admire the work.
For you West Coasters, she designed her father's restaurant in Pacific Grove (il vecchio), if you want to see some of those amazing tables in person. Next time I take the kids to the aquarium, you can bet we'll be eating here.
Images from Ariele Alasko. Via Design Sponge.
I spotted one of these tables in a Houzz tour and wanted to know more. Unlike most Houzz posts, this one gave the artist details--Brent Comber in Vancouver, BC. One quick click, and I was in love with these Alder rounds. There's a lot of great sculpture here, but it's the pieces comprised of smaller bits that really send me.
If you're lucky enough to live in or visit Vancouver, you can see some of his work in person at the Salt Tasting Room or Yew restaurant. The glass-topped tables above are at Salt.
Images from Brent Comber. Via Houzz.
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