This house in Belgium features a vertical garden and a logistical mowing challenge.

How often do you paint your house or agonize over what color to make it so that the neighbors don’t hate you? If you lived in this vegetation-rich dwelling, you would be freed of that intense decision-making. An added bonus? It’s green all over.

The “vertical garden” helps keep the six-bedroom family house (it’s the home and studio of a cinematographer) cool in summer, while acting as insulation in colder weather. It also provides privacy from the neighbors on three sides; the fourth wall, overlooking the (horizontal) garden, is glass. A simple white curtain provides shade during hot months.

Low-maintenance lush gardens are maintained with rain and a built-in irrigation system. We love the way it blends into the garden, almost as if it’s not really there at all.

This private home took eight years to construct. The original plans called for ivy, but as the idea of a green façade grew, the ivy was ditched for a selection of exotic plants by botanist Patrick Blanc. Architecture firm Samyn and Partners in Belgium created the design and project and refer to it as an “envelope.”

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An exquisite version of the exotic peacock feather in 100% reclaimed metals. 

$198.00

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

The post Lustables: Alkemie’s Peacock Feather Necklace appeared first on EcoSalon.

It’s not what you think.

Swinging singles? Just by its very sound it seems unsustainable, as if one person can have so much fun, an item should only have a single use or, god forbid, it might take more than one person to save the world. This week’s Friday Five focuses on the extraordinary number one, the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.

As a young woman you had sex just to tell the story. You traveled the world looking for romance finding it in the most unexpected places. Your life was full of it. Your cherished secrets nobody can (to this day) take away but one morning you woke up and realized it had gotten complicated – and maybe even a little crowded. Sex by Numbers columnist Abigail Wick discusses her new life as a single woman in 6 Months and Single: “My habitat is quiet, my heart is crystalline in its clarity, and my mind is no longer buzzing with white noise. It’s just me, my professional ambitions, my new friends, and an abiding sense of silence. ”

We believe there’s a special place in hell for single use kitchen products and thought a nice list with images to show you how dumb we’ve become as a society to want them was in order. Enter The Rachel Ray Garbage Bowl and Other Ridiculous Kitchen Products. If you have any of these things…we don’t want to know.

One of the hardest things you might be faced with as a woman is being single and people not thinking you’re doomed to spinsterhood, not to mention facing people who don’t understand you also don’t want children or the low sex drive that comes with long term marriage. In 9 Things You Don’t Need To Be Happy, writer Kim Derby celebrates celibacy and gives the middle finger to being forced to find a home for her eggs.

You have clothes with only a single use? That is so ’80s. Here in 2011 we like to maximize the use of our clothing to do double and triple duty and how lucky are we that more designers are jumping on the bandwagon to accommodate us. From the Video Vault: Convertible Clothing features designer Lara Miller whose Callie Cardigan made us freak out the first time we saw it in this video.

Critics warn that large-scale eco-communities aren’t all they’re hyped up to be. Shelter Editor, K. Emily Bond, writes that “despite all of your personal homesteading, composting, upcycling and permaculturing efforts, one-off sustainability is simply not enough to make a meaningful impact on the world. Rather, it takes a village to raise the world to a higher standard of living.” In Does it Take an Eco Village to Save the World?, we learn that plus one might just be one of the most empowering things we embrace.

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