Green design for the home is hardly newsbreaking. But a forward-thinking collaborative in Boulder, Colorado, makes  sustainable home furnishings, clothing, and little luxuries accessible to everyone.

As a resident, I feel confident stating that Boulder practically invented the ethos of green living. Yet even amongst the  city’s (third party-certified, controlled wood) forest of eco-chic boutiques; green design firms;  grocery stores and restaurants defined by locally-sourced ingredients;  hybrid automobiles; LEED-certified buildings;  cyclists, and non-profits devoted to planetary salvation, madelife stands out.

Formerly known as factoryMADE (the branding transition is happening as you read), this groovy, green design showroom located just off happening East Pearl Street is a store and collaborative artist space boasting cutting-edge products made from reclaimed or ethically-made, – sourced-and-shipped materials. Eighty percent of the stock is made by Colorado artists, designers, and other creative folk.

Before you start envisioning hand-loomed hemp yoga mats and recycled beer bottle bongs, allow me to explain: madelife’s largely consignment-based inventory is super-stylish, and undeniably cool. The vibe might best be described as “agrarian-urban-mod,” or, perhaps, “etsy-meets-Design Within Reach.” There are trendy threads and funky dining tables made from repurposed basketball court hardwood. Shed antlers are gilded and decorated with beguiling curlicues (Suggested use: hat rack or necklace display.).

Jewelry, both delicate and chunky, is crafted from copper wire, old bike parts, feathers, antler, leather, metal scraps, and other odds and ends. Luscious apothecary goods are chock-full of natural ingredients like beeswax, essential oils, and other botanical goodness. Woodblock-printed pillows accentuate modernist sofas sheathed in nubby fabric; wee woodland dioramas are housed in old cigar boxes. Once, I dropped by and discovered a gloriously refurbished, peony-pink Frigidaire; you never know what kinds of treasure you’ll find at madelife, but the place never fails to inspire or incite desire.

This is why they also offer workshops and events for all ages (The company website states, “We curate + cultivate creative talent, community, and culture;” they also do custom video, music, and design for select clients, and donate 10-percent of their net profits to “underserved young people with creative potential.”).

Kids’ summer camps this year include classes on storybook making and functional art. Big people can try their hand at silversmithing, making beauty products, constructing terrariums, sewing, and reupholstering furniture. Check out the summer schedule and get your craft on.

Images: (top) madelife (All other images) whimseybox

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The AIGA (Re)Design awards celebrate the best in sustainable design.

On Thursday night, the winners of the AIGA (Re)Design Awards, a competition celebrating the best in sustainable design, were presented at the (Re)Design Extravaganza at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles. Underneath a handsome Stegosaurus specimen in the museum’s new Dinosaur Hall, guests could admire the winning work up close.

The (Re)Design Awards were started by the Colorado chapter of the AIGA in 2009, and was from the beginning, designed to be a traveling competition. This year, the L.A. chapter got their chance to represent. Stan Evenson, who co-chaired the competition with his wife Tricia, told me how far he thinks we have come: “As long as 15 years ago or so I remember speaking to our clients about sustainability practices and feeling I was considered slightly left of Communism when I would bring the subject up. Today, it’s very different since designers are more conscious than ever, understanding that our planet is headed on a collision course with nature if we continue wearing ‘design blinders.’ There is no room in our landfills to handle this oversight. It’s a great opportunity to encourage sustainability and social responsibility in our design solutions.”

The competition had two main categories: Environmental Sustainability and Social Responsibility. Within those two, each had subcategories for Individual/Agency, Student, For Profit Corporation and Non Profit Corporation.

Interestingly, two firms sweeped their categories, Method in Environmental Responsibility, For Profit, and SoftFirm Studios in Social Responsibility, For Profit. A handful of the winning entries were clients with “living” in their name (Living Principles, Living Cities, Living Buildings and Living Light), perhaps this is the new buzz word in the environmental field?

Environmental Sustainability: Individual/Agency: 1st Place: University of Hawaii, School of Architecture, Identity System by Design Workshop, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Environmental Sustainability: Individual/Agency: 2nd Place: PUMA Clever Little Bag by fuseproject.

Environmental Sustainability: Individual/Agency: 3rd Place: Living Principles Community Website by Tomorrow Partners.

Environmental Sustainability: Student: 1st Place: Chinese Character Practice Book—No Print Book by Li Xu.

Environmental Sustainability: Student: 2nd Place: Sustainability Guide by Erin Harp.

Environmental Sustainability: Student: 3rd Place: Balanza Verde: Educational Waste Management Unit for Elementary Schools by Alëna Konyk.

Environmental Sustainability: For Profit: 1st Place: Method Refills by Method Products Inc.—In-House Creative.

Environmental Sustainability: For Profit: 2nd Place: Method Greenskeeping Tool Kit by Method Products Inc.—In-House Creative.

Environmental Sustainability: For Profit: 3rd Place: Method Laundry Detergent by Method Products Inc.—In-House Creative.

Environmental Sustainability: Non Profit: 1st Place: Living Light by The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Team Living Light.

Environmental Sustainability: Non Profit: 2nd Place: A Zero Carbon, Handmade Stationery by Luce Beaulieu.

Environmental Sustainability: Non Profit: 3rd Place: GreenBlue Brand Identity by GreenBlue In-House Creative.

The range of entries was extremely diverse, from design students to seasoned designers and agencies. Entries included everything from the design of an undersea monitoring unit that studies decaying coral reefs, to a non-printed book with die-cutting and embossing that teaches the blind Chinese characters, to underwear products and packaging that gives 10% of profit back to charities, uses 100% organic, locally farmed cotton and sources packaging entirely within a 100 mile radius. Other projects that were entered included detergent packaging, a portable and reusable homeless shelter, an identity system for the University of Hawaii School of Architecture and a website for the creative community to share and showcase best practices, tools, stories and ideas for sustainability thinking. There was a fine line dividing sustainability and social responsibility and many times it just truly blended perfectly which made the judging challenging.

“I was impressed by the range of sustainable and socially innovative strategies shown by many of the entries,” says Naomi Pearson, one of five judges faced with the task of selecting winners from a strong set of submissions. “Especially impressive were entries that tackled both environmental (and human) health and social responsibility, given that these two issues are so closely linked.”

As an active practitioner in the field of graphic design, it is indeed nice to see that designers are starting to look beyond recycled paper and water-based inks, and instead looking carefully at the bigger picture. Sometimes sustainable design can be about coming up with smarter solutions and producing less stuff for the same amount of impact. And you don’t have to work for big-name clients like Method to do great, sustainable design.

Social Responsibility: Individual/Agency: 1st Place: PACT underwear by fuseproject.

Social Responsibility: Individual/Agency: 2nd Place: HERproject Toolbuilder by Tomorrow Partners.

Social Responsibility: Individual/Agency: 3rd Place: Verbien “See Better to Learn Better” by fuseproject.

Social Responsibility: Student: 1st Place: Fresh Fest New Orleans Poster by Azu Romá.

Social Responsibility: Student: 2nd Place: Helping Hands Guides by Karen Villalba and Kelsey Anderson.

Social Responsibility: Student: 3rd Place: Cupcaked by Derek Maxfield.

Social Responsibility: For Profit: 1st Place: Living City Design Competition by SoftFirm Studios.

Social Responsibility: For Profit: 2nd Place: Cascadia Programming Guide by SoftFirm Studios.

Social Responsibility: For Profit: 3rd Place: International Living Building Institute Identity by SoftFirm Studios.

Social Responsibility: Non Profit: 1st Place: cause/affect: Make Your Mark poster by Kristen Bouvier and Arvi Raquel-Santos.

Social Responsibility: Non Profit: 2nd Place: Cardborigami, Inc. by Tina Hovsepian (who I got to assist putting up her clever cardboard shelter).

Social Responsibility: Non Profit: 3rd Place: Inner-City Arts Website by Kim Baer.

“The (Re)design Awards competition encourages inclusivity for every level of designer, from student to professional, and from non-profit organizations to for-profit corporations in all disciplines of design including Graphic and Product Design, Multi-Media, Urban Planning, Interior Design, and Architecture, and we believe our mission was successful,” says Stan Evenson. “Bringing this competition from national to worldwide, we were thrilled to have entries from 14 different countries and throughout the U.S., that featured great design thinking with purpose and substance in the categories of environmental sustainability and social responsibility.”

“I decided I wanted to do something to help the homeless,” says Tina Hovsepian about her school project Cardborigami. “It boiled down to the basic human necessity of shelter. I played with materials, ended up with cardboard, played with origami and picked this form that became the shell.” Hovsepian’s school project has since evolved to a non-profit, in the stages of funding. “I really believe that design can do a lot,” she says. “Everything we learn through our rigorous training can be used for good. Green design is definitely the way to go.”

“Thursday’s gala event was all about celebrating sustainability and social responsibility,” says Evenson. “We need to have the wiliness and conviction to make a difference on this planet by doing well, by doing good. And while doing that… take time to celebrate great design thinking for these two critical issues of our lifetime.”

Maybe design can’t save the world, but it can facilitate a great deal of important change, and that power should never be underestimated.

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This gorgeous interior has transcended the appeal of season; it’s an invitation to curl up by the fireplace with a steaming cup of blueberry herbal tea to soak up the warmth of logs and cinders. The same space is a vision of fresh summer breezes wafting through the air while juicy watermelon is sliced in the vibrant kitchen. This home is begging to be relished year round.

The wildly talented Jessica Helgerson created the casual and whimsical interior design, captured perfectly by Lincoln Barbour’s photography.

The confection of contrast between deep ebony floors and woodwork and pristine white is a mastery of graphic shapes and negative space – all embellished by innate texture of material. Reupholstered and refinished vintage finds create a delight of mid-century lines and charisma. The coffee table gleaming among the flood of natural light is constructed from locally salvaged wood by architect Yianni Doulis.

The expansive white space of the open and alluring great room is balanced by the elegant earthy silhouettes of two antique Portuguese eel traps dangling over the fireplace. The soft color palette is accented by handfuls of muted translucent glass demijohn bottles and sprinkled with vivid veins of life – leafy branches.

This charming space was found lingering unassumingly on Design*Sponge (click over for more pictures!).

(Check out Jessica Helgerson Interior Design for a basic lesson on sustainable design and materials.)

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Automatism is a source of automatic inspiration compiled by artist Lori Langille, and you don’t have to take my word for it. The Times Online agrees, naming this creative design blog as one of the top 50 design blogs in the world (yes, world). Cote Maison named Automatism as one of the top 15 international design blogs. Still not a believer? Make the journey to this haven of all things beautiful and fall in love firsthand, Ms. Langille’s blog with shower you with delights and inspiration.

Here are two of my favorite green spaces at Automatism. First up, this simple weekend retreat (once a boat shed) is the perfect antidote to chaotic weekday stress (image above). This Parisian repair shop transformed into the loft of my dreams – the perfect mixture of industrial and vintage (image below).

This artwork is from the hands of the blog editor herself, Lori Langille.

Be sure to add Automatism to your list of daily reads – and get a cup of tea ready for your inevitable travel through the archives.

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Parlez-Vous Français? Me neither, but for an encounter with this graceful hotel, I would be rolling the romance of France off my tongue in a heartbeat. All five guest rooms nestled in this stone haven (once a winery) are screaming my name. La Maison Pujol is quite possibly the most swoon-inducing and tempting vacation I have ever met. You can find this lovely hotel at the crossroads of vintage modern and intricately simple in southern France.

The interiors of La Maison Pujol transcend the standard style genres. Owner and architect/designer Philippe Phi combines vintage typography, authentic ancient stone walls, modern lighting, and classic design. There is something innately satisfying about the sole intention of a designer – the homes and designs of creative minds without the inhibitions of client constraints just seem to sing with personality and artistic abandon. (For more spaces that belong to designers, visit Gold Chairs and Bond Girls, Auction House Awe, and Blissfully Arranged Chaos.)

This property is more than just a luxurious and beautiful bed; it also comes with a heaping side of delicious breakfast. That’s right, this gorgeous property in France is a boutique bed and breakfast on a vintage silver platter.

The talented lens of Manolo Yllera captured this charismatic place of slumber. For more glimpses of Manolo’s polished photography, click over to Sex in a Convent.

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The alluring appeal of tropical nature is enthralling. Straight from the pages of one of my favorite glossy muses, the May/June issue of Australia Vogue Living offers this piece of paradise in a ten page spread. Here’s an edited taste of the original article written by Susan Westwood.

All the elements of a glamorous resort are laced together with the skills of local artisans at the Sovena Kiri Resort. Conceived by Six Senses, this hotel offers charm and responsibility perched beautifully on an island in the southeast corner of the gulf of Thailand. Earthy, local materials have been designed to gracefully depict nature through driftwood poles and rafters, teak leaf ceilings, and bamboo supports.

Pavilions are sprinkled throughout the property, nestled into rainforests, balanced high on cliff tops, and standing just steps from the beach. Central amenities include breezy dining salas (open air pavilions), an observatory pod for star gazing, and restaurants serving fresh, organic food (most vegetables are grown on site). The natural materials are adorned with vibrant splashes of color – hot fuschia, orange, and yellow – like “tropical blooms bursting through the surrounding jungle.”

Eva Shivdasani, director of interiors at Six Senses, shares her thoughts on the project, “My initial concept for this resort, as always, is to fit the designs with the natural environment and for them to represent the local culture.”

(This gorgeous photography by the talented Mikkel Vang.)

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Fields of carpet, a sea of leather: It’s becoming as endangered as the polar bear as we embrace less is more (less indulgent, more power to you).

Forward green design is radically shifting the kind of statements we are making in our dwellings. How do you know you have arrived? Once it was a clear site line from the entryway to the Olympic-sized pool, or finding yourself diminished by a great room the size of a hotel lobby, that you figured you could squeeze your entire house inside.

Scaling down has produced a new kind of house envy. We covet sleek, modern utility. In this era of the understatement, these luxury spots are being subtracted:

The Wrapping Room

Candy Spelling and the housewives of Beverly Hills and Menlo Park were all taken in by this “bonus room” suggested by Martha Stewart as a place for wrapping all of those holiday gifts. Sorry ladies. Stick em in reusable bags or boxes and call it a day.

The Powder Room

No need to impress with a fancy shmancy bath just for visitors. In a prefab or other low energy dwelling, guests use the main floor bathroom like everyone else. Just keep it pretty with flowers and clean towels when you entertain.

Three Car Garage

Even two car garages might suffice for families using public transit. This McMansion feature is as tacky as it gets and usually includes plenty of cabinets for box store bulk and other evidence of affluenza.

Au Pair Room

Who can afford live-in nannies anymore?

The Guest Room

This is not a necessity as it once was. Anyone willing to stay at your house rather than a hotel is willing to sleep on a sofa bed. Grandmas can crawl in with the kiddies and good old air mattresses do just fine for sleepovers.

The Dressing Room

As we continue to clean out our closets and espouse the notion quality over quantity, there is little need for massive closets or spare rooms for getting dressed.

Fitness Center/Gym

Most efficient spaces might see an elliptical in the bedroom or multi purpose room rather than an entire space devoted to machines. Ride your bike to the gym. What a concept.

Walk-in Pantry

If you are endorsing fresh, local, organic and slow, then you aren’t stocking up on processed foods, and a few good shelves should do the trick.

Home Theater

Okay, we all like having friends over to watch the Oscars or favorite films, but only suits in the biz and the tenacious nouveau riche are building screening suites in their cribs with the works: Ridiculous sound systems; mohair chairs and massive screens, popcorn machines and bars. It’s the epitome of 80s gross. Come on, plug in the crockpot and gather round the LG in the den. It’s so much warmer.

Cabana

Keep the cabana boy but ditch the pool house, unless you are renting it out to buy groceries during the recession (which really isn’t over). Pools suck energy and this resort inspired space is practically extinct.

Images: gsloan, Candacerose; Elan Interiors; largerich; Patriotweb; HFB; Oak Hampton Park; HTN

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Have you always fantasized about the perfect modular home? Me neither. I will politely pass on the modular home. And then one day, the itHouse illuminated my computer screen and entirely enticed me. Suddenly I need at least one modular home.

The itHouse is “conceived as a minimal house with a maximized experience.” This modular system by Taalman Koch Architects can be completely customized to match your every whim and plopped onto a plot of land with minimal construction waste and site disturbance in twelve short and blissful weeks.

The geometric wonder, “utilizes a series of components prefabricated off-site in order to better control the construction waste, labor, and quality of the finished product. Conceived as a small house with glass walls and an open floor plan, the itHouse maximizes the relationship of the occupant to the surrounding landscape while minimizing the impact to delicate site conditions.”

If one-stop shopping makes you swoon, you will love that the itHouse even offers a selection of furniture (including that gorgeous Fireorb fireplace). The only question left: Two acres or three?

(Images from Pure Green Design and Dwell).

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Spray Paint Eclecticism. Broken Baroque. Auction House Awe. It seems no amount of categorical wit can do this space justice. Spray paint, auction houses, paint brushes, second-hand stores, and graffiti all live in these walls. Owners Jimmie Karlsson and Rick Schultz have turned this two-story flat in London into beautifully contained chaos. Karlsson has laced this interior with contrast, creating luscious tension by muddling together old, new, simple, ornate, antique, and modern. From the texture of the unsanded floors to the juxtaposition of opulence and urbanity, I love it. This flat exceeds and defies convention.

Karlsson, a designer for Jimmie Martin, has infused this space with personality, confessing that spray paint and upcycling are his hobbies, “I find it interesting to have pieces with soul and history that you won’t find elsewhere.” If you think upcycled furniture is anything except unabashedly stunning, click around Jimmie Martin, it won’t take long to change your mind.

The decadent photography by Sisters Agency captures the character of the space perfectly (as seen on Living Etc). I have already voiced my love for Harmoni og Kontrast, this interior is just one more morsel of the bountiful inspiration found there.

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Confession. I don’t always buy organic (gasps abound). But today I found something organic that was literally irresistible; it looked fresher, toxins were nowhere in sight, and it certainly left a delicious flavor on my taste buds. I am talking about the supple and fresh Organic Interior Design. Kelly LaPlante is the genius behind this firm. Yes, genius. And no, I don’t use the word genius lightly. Ms. LaPlante’s biography and resume are gleaming with a shine that rivals her gold dining chairs. I can’t decide if I am overwhelmed with awe and esteem or choking on my jealousy. Either way, there’s no debate about the gorgeousness of LaPlante’s Los Angeles Loft. Devour these images by Thomas J. Story.

Visit the original article on Sunset for more information, including thirteen ways this space is green.

The wildly talented LaPlante is in the midst of creating Standard, a periodical publication. The magazine is based on LaPlante’s thought that, “green is a standard, not a style.” I wait with baited breath.

(Thank you Automatism for introducing me to Kelly LaPlante.)

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