The recovery from the earthquake in Haiti is showing us the value of building our physical world with sustainable reuse of materials, such as re-purposing the rubble from destroyed buildings to mix concrete for new structures.

The good news is we don’t have to rely on earthquakes, floods and fires to inspire our most innovative product designers to bring their concepts to the table. Here are some exciting trends meeting the future demands of a world that is scaling down and greening up.

Light Transmitting Concrete: Shining example of Innovation

Hungarian architect Aron Losonszi’s light-transmitting concrete is a mixture of fine concrete and thousands of tiny optical glass optic fibers, which are blended to filter views and add “weightiness and lightness” at the same time. The new material, Litraconâ„¢, forms an aggregate that is used as building blocks that can be designed in various sizes with embedded heat-isolation. Installations so far have included the Iberville Parish Vets Memorial in Louisiana, the Hungarian Embassy in Paris, two logo walls in Belgium and Hong Kong.

STRAW: The Bale Out That Works

Make hay houses while the sun shines! Resurrecting an age-old method to conserve energy and materials for neo-eco dwellings, the bales are stacked like bricks in the post and beam construction. The biggest concern: keeping moisture out, and experts say this can be accomplished with proper foundation design, roof overhang, plumbing not routed through the bales and installing moisture barriers. For green building tips on building with straw, look here.

EDIBLE GREENS: The Utopian vision of the New Front Lawn

Ask any guerilla gardener. Grass sucks in terms of water use and feeding a healthy world. With that in mind, architect Fritz Haeg’s “radical gardening” of replacing the front lawn with food we grow to eat is spreading now from his original geodesic home in Los Angeles to gardens in New Jersey, Austin, Baltimore, Kansas and elsewhere. As the Whitney Museum points out, his Edible Estates (the book is now in its 2nd edition) are reminiscent of the World War II Victory gardens with results that can be appreciated by an entire community. Go to his YouTube video and get inspired to tear out your green carpet.

CORN: High Starch, low emissions Floor Fiber

Roll out the barrel, of corn that is. Using starch’s sugar to make a new plastic for carpet offers these advantages: reduced CO2 emissions, stain-protection and biodegradable in landfills. Leading the way is Mohawk’s Smartstrand with Bio-PDO, a renewable sourced polymer which is said to require 30 percent less energy than nylon to produce along with 65 percent reduced greenhouse emissions. Another company, CornCarpet, boasts of its exceptional softness. If you must use carpet, which is not the best choice for allergies, at least corn sugar offers a better option – and a new direction that seems to be the innovator in carpet design for 2010.

RECLAIMED FABRICS: Out with the Old, in with the Old. It’s what’s new

While Knoll and other design institutions continuing their commitment to producing green certified modern textiles, sources like Modern Fabrics are launching online retailing of the best designed textiles of yore (Pollack, Pearson, Knoll, Kravet, Jhane Barnes to name a few) that once would constitute waste on the workroom floor. Instead of these to-the-trade treasures being packed up in black trash bags headed for the dump, these sources are courting designers and consumers trying to garner great upholstery for a good price (50 to 70 percent off list prices) while reducing waste. Soy, bio organic cotton and milk-based cotton may be hot in production but reclaimed is the coolest trend of all. It’s a kind of forever love the design world cannot pass up.

Images by: Jeremy Levine Design, colros, woodleywonderworks, kevindooley

The post Behind the Scenes: 5 Key Product Design Trends Building a Greener World appeared first on EcoSalon.

Teaching the nation’s future fabric designers not to use flame retardants and harsh dyes is one thing. Teaming up with a leading manufacturer who is going the green route is another.

These are the lessons being learned at the California School of Professional Fabric Design in Berkeley, California, founded 35 years ago by Zeida Rothman (above), who has designed printed fabrics for clients like Wamsutta Sheets, Fieldcrest Cannon, Burlington Industries and Schumacher.

Students study hybrid designing – mastering the art of hand-painting fabric with water-based paints along with learning to produce their own computer-generated patterns. They work in the classroom one day a week at the school which features two floors and an impressive gallery. The rest of the time, they work at home to earn their degrees.

They also are trained in how to assemble a portfolio and interview for a job. Through their own skills and Rothman’s contacts, many end up in the textile and surface pattern design industries making prints for Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma, Hallmark and Bed, Bath and Beyond.

One of those students, my friend Miriam Lipton, enrolled in the program specifically to produce green decor textiles. But for her, and others headed in the organic direction, Rothman sees the challenges along the way.

“There’s a strong interest among the students and there’s a reality of what exists,” founder Rothman tells me. “When they graduate and go out on their own some encounter organic companies but the majority don’t. It’s slowly creeping into the textile industry so that people can make a choice.”

Meantime, educating the consumer is key, according to Rothman, who says she tells her young mother students to be more selective in what they are buying for infants and kids by looking at the labels. “We educate them on what is there and what not to do and that they have the choice to go organic.”

But for the budding textile designer, the choices aren’t so great. “The organic approach is mostly going into bedding and apparel,” Rothman observes, adding that a former student has created a successful organic linen company, Harmony Art, in northern California. But she points out the majority of the manufacturing is actually being done abroad, mostly in China, where the lovely florals and ikats created by her students are printed onto chemically-treated fabric by the large manufacturing industry.

Still, with determined eco-conscious students like Miriam, perhaps more fabric houses can be established here at home, a return to the old school of fabric making on a smaller scale. The good news is that these designers are highly employable once they graduate.

“People are so happy to be paid to be creative. In fact, most students are here because they want a new career,” says Rothman. “Even if they have no art background, they share of love of textiles and really want to explore that love.”

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