Perch a Velorbis Wood Carrier Crate on the front of your bicycle.

Embellish your bicycle with the pragmatic vintage appeal of a Wood Carrier Crate (€60), from Velorbis. Perch this Danish ash wood creation on your cycle and watch heads turn while you pedal unburdened.

And while we’re building wish lists, have you ever seen a ride as beautiful as this Studine Balloon Bicycle (€660)? I didn’t think so. I’ll take one with cream balloon tires please.

Look for Lustables daily at EcoSalon. 100% gorgeous green finds, and never sponsored. Submit your favorite to tips@ecosalon.com.

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Christiane Lemieux’s new book Undecorate breaks all the rules.

I follow the rules. I don’t park in emergency zones, I wait for my seating section to be called before boarding, and I always sort my recycling. But sometimes I color outside the lines. In fact, I break all social conventions and rules when it comes to design (remember my diatribe against furniture suites and homogeny?), so my heart pitters, patters, and flutters at the notion of Undecorate ($40), by Christiane Lemieux (the founder and creative director of DwellStudio). In this fresh new take on interiors, Lemieux explores spaces that challenge tradition with an eclectic, “love of imperfection and penchant for surprise and unusual juxtapositions.”

The premise of Undecorate sanctions taking hold of your space and taking the liberty to infuse your taste. If you find something you love, it belongs inside your walls – regardless of color, style, function, etc. Embracing diversity among your objects results in a unique aesthetic analogous to Bohemian whimsy.

Here’s an excerpt to ponder from the introduction of Undecorate.

“What does it mean to undecorate? A fine question.

It’s mixing fine antiques with your collection of Cher Barbie dolls, as Harry Heissman does in his description-defying apartment in Brooklyn Heights. It’s leaving temporary party decorations up for years because they just somehow seem right, as Erica Tanov does in her ridiculously beautiful California house. It’s wedging antique columns into a suburban house, or parking your cars in the living room, or building your own alter, or hanging vintage advertising posters in your toddler’s bedroom. Undecorated is following your instinct, even when it’s telling you to do something a little crazy, a little different, something against the rules.

Undecorating isn’t haphazard style; it’s not thought-free. It’s about being guided by something other than the traditional constraints – whether it’s your commitment to the environment, or your love of polka dots, or the fact that you want to feel like you’re in Paris when you live in Peoria.”

What’s not to love, right? I’m off to order my copy here. May I suggest you do the same? And don’t let it linger on your coffee table alone, set it beside one of these beautiful bound pictorial creations.

Images: Melanie Acevedo for Undecorate

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Land artist Jim Denevan’s medium is sand.

From a single piece of driftwood, a low tide, endless grains of sand, and inspiration, art is born. Then, just a handful of hours later, the tide rises and the work blurs, finally melting away. Artist Jim Denevan repeats this transient artistry on beaches around the world.

The ephemeral beauty of Denevan has graced frozen lakes, dry lakes, and desert sands in addition to the sand that parallels our oceans.

Denevan’s fleeting artistic endeavors are the largest pieces of artwork ever created (some are several miles in diameter). The wonder of his artwork falls into the category of land art.

The brilliance of Denevan was wound into eloquence by the Anthropologist:

“Artist Jim Denevan is in pursuit of the impermanent. From the vanishing curl of a wave to sand briefly stilled between tides, nature’s fleeting moments are his stock-in-trade.”

Denevan also creates art with earth and ice. Outside the realm of art, Denevan founded Outstanding in the Field – a mobile feast aimed to, “re-connect diners to the land and the origins of their food, and to honor the local farmers and food artisans who cultivate it.”

For more inspiring land art, explore Andy Goldsworthy’s land art.

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Boxsal cardboard picnic box complete with compostable eating tools.

The Boxsal Today’s Date Box ($25) is an afternoon date of conscious whimsy. The cardboard container is creatively designed to host the perfect picnic ingredients and comes stocked with compostable trays, bowls, cups, and utensils. All this afternoon romance is wrapped up in a cardboard paint-by-numbers canvas to cap your edible date with artistic sparks.

Look for Lustables daily at EcoSalon. 100% gorgeous green finds, and never sponsored. Submit your favorite to tips@ecosalon.com.

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Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) explained.

Let’s talk quantity. Last week we covered the basic qualities of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), so diving into the quantifiable details and juicy substance behind the LEED Rating Systems that has sculpted the sustainable building industry is only natural.

LEED dictates an assembly of seven focus topics – sustainable site development, water savings, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental air quality, innovation in design, and regional priority. The LEED curriculum is distributed throughout the entire building lifecycle, from conception through design, construction, occupation, and maintenance. Each of the LEED Rating Systems (revisit our first article to delve into the different rating systems) is tailored to a specific building type and industry. Here’s a simple breakdown from the USGBC website of what each topic covers and an explanation of what, specifically, LEED measures.

Sustainable Site Development: Choosing a building’s site and managing that site during construction are important considerations for a project’s sustainability. The Sustainable Sites category discourages development on previously undeveloped land; minimizes a building’s impact on ecosystems and waterways; encourages regionally appropriate landscaping; rewards smart transportation choices; controls stormwater runoff; and reduces erosion, light pollution, heat island effect and construction-related pollution.

Water Savings: Buildings are major users of our potable water supply. The goal of the Water Efficiency credit category is to encourage smarter use of water, inside and out. Water reduction is typically achieved through more efficient appliances, fixtures and fittings inside and water-wise landscaping outside.

Energy and Atmosphere: According to the U.S. Department of Energy, buildings use 39% of the energy and 74% of the electricity produced each year in the United States. The Energy & Atmosphere category encourages a wide variety of energy strategies: commissioning; energy use monitoring; efficient design and construction; efficient appliances, systems and lighting; the use of renewable and clean sources of energy, generated on-site or off-site; and other innovative strategies.

Materials and Resources: During both the construction and operations phases, buildings generate a lot of waste and use a lot of materials and resources. This credit category encourages the selection of sustainably grown, harvested, produced and transported products and materials. It promotes the reduction of waste as well as reuse and recycling, and it takes into account the reduction of waste at a product’s source.

Indoor Environmental Air Quality: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that Americans spend about 90% of their day indoors, where the air quality can be significantly worse than outside. The Indoor Environmental Quality credit category promotes strategies that can improve indoor air as well as providing access to natural daylight and views and improving acoustics.

Innovation in Design: The Innovation in Design credit category provides bonus points for projects that use new and innovative technologies and strategies to improve a building’s performance well beyond what is required by other LEED credits or in green building considerations that are not specifically addressed elsewhere in LEED. This credit category also rewards projects for including a LEED Accredited Professional on the team to ensure a holistic, integrated approach to the design and construction phase.

Regional Priority: USGBC’s regional councils, chapters and affiliates have identified the environmental concerns that are locally most important for every region of the country, and six LEED credits that address those local priorities were selected for each region.

Catch this piece on basic LEED qualities and visit the USGBC website for more information.

Images: USGBC

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“Delight becomes pictorial
When viewed through pain.”

Emily Dickinson (Excerpt from Delight Becomes Pictorial)

Image: Graphics Pixie

Editor’s note: Look for “visual poetry” in the mix here at EcoSalon every Saturday.

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Organic cotton blocked paisley duvet cover.

This Blocked Paisley Duvet Cover ($89) isn’t simply bedding, it’s a place to nestle your dreams. The pretty weave of 100% organic cotton is a repetitive graphic wonder.

Look for Lustables daily at EcoSalon. 100% gorgeous green finds, and never sponsored. Submit your favorite to tips@ecosalon.com.

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Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) explained.

LEED is an acronym that has taken hold of the sustainable building movement and become integrated in many industries beyond. If you have any interest in green building, you have stumbled across the ubiquitous acronym a handful of times – enough to know it’s inherently good. But what, exactly, does it mean?

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is the certification and rating system designed to encourage, standardize, and award sustainable building efforts. The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) developed the LEED Rating System, “the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.”

“LEED gives building owners and operators the tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings’ performance. LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.”

The LEED Rating System provides a framework for identifying and implementing practical and quantifiable green building solutions. The LEED framework outlines a number of credits and assigns points to a project based on how many credits the project fulfills. Based on the number of points earned, a project can earn titles ranging from Certified (earning the minimum number of points) to Silver, Gold, and Platinum (earning the maximum number of points).

Because building systems and types are dynamic and individualized, the clever people at the USGBC have developed different protocols for different industries. A healthcare facility, a retail tenant improvement project, and a new construction home all offer different challenges demanding unique solutions. LEED has responded with different rating systems for different building categories. Here is a rundown of the current rating systems:

Next in Shelter, we will look at how LEED has an impact on architectural design, construction, the environment, and green standards. Stay tuned.

Images: USGBC

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Stunning BDJ Craftworks Hickory Vase.

Variegated wood whittled from a solid hickory block – it’s so good. This Hickory Vase ($60), by BDJ Craftworks (available at Spartan), has a removable glass insert for pragmatic usage and easy cleaning. This is one vessel you can be proud to put on a pedestal.

Look for Lustables daily at EcoSalon. 100% gorgeous green finds, and never sponsored. Submit your favorite to tips@ecosalon.com.

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Garden gear to kick-start spring.

It’s time to don your gardening gloves and mingle among the ravishes of plucking, pulling, weeding, fertilizing, and planting- Are you ready for it? If not, here’s a gathering of garden muses to inspire your green thumb including a fair trade hat with a wide brim to shadow those lofty rays of sunshine, a journal to document your efforts and celebrate your blooms, a watering can with the perfect patina, chalkboard garden labels for whimsical nomenclature, and a concrete magnolia to embellish your plot.

Clockwise from top left:

1. Crochet Wide Brim Natural – Pachacuti, £43
2. My Garden: A Five-Year Journal – Anthropologie, $19.95
3. Verdigris Watering Can – Terrain, $16
4. Blackboard Garden Labels – Terrain, $14
5. Concrete Magnolia – Terrain, $36

Bring a bit of the garden inside with a beautiful beetle print, the scent of fresh basil masquerading as a soy candle, and the charm of Stephen Orr to enhance your skills and impart wisdom about responsible and aesthetic organic gardening.

Clockwise from top left:

1. Chalcosoma Atlas Print – Hagedornhagen, $48
2. Basil Scented Soy Candle – Mrs. Meyer’s, $9.99
3. Tomorrow’s Garden by Stephen Orr, $22.88

If you’d rather start growing fresh herbs indoors, click here for the ingredients to make that happen.

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