I’ve tried to get rid of newspapers completely in my home, but SOMEHOW (eh hem, Jason?) they keep creeping back in.

The upcycled newspapers are tightly rolled and paperbacked with a loom. Cleanings a breeze with your Dyson, but keep them away from too much sunlight or you’ll have yellow walls.

@Core77

Tom Broadbent with his toilet design

“HighDro Power works by using the water discharged from appliances such as showers, toilets and sinks in high-rise apartments. The water goes down the pipe and hits four turbine blades that drive one generator.” says Tom. “The inspiration for HighDro Power was literally a ‘Eureka!’ moment that came when I emptied a bath in a hotel and found that it cleared very quickly and with a large amount of force. It seemed logical that this energy should be harnessed in some way to create green electricity and help governments meet targets and it filled an obvious gap in the market.”

I would feel a little less guilty about the flush if I had one. @Inhabitat

Sometimes clients have a hard time seeing everything together, or making counter-top decisions in this case. For this particular client, I needed to pull out a major arsenal from my designer tool-belt: labeling the samples by what the response was.

To perform this trick, put all the known selections in the middle. Grab some 11″ x 17″ and label one “Never” and the other “Do-able” Place those two regionally across from each other and two blank sheets diagonally from each other. With a pencil, write what the client says about the material beside it so that they can see what they’re saying. The goal here is to make the client feel empowered to make their decision, and you’re just there for emotional support. I can’t say that this will work with all clients in need, but I thought it was a pretty handy dandy trick if you ask me.

When the client popped into our showroom a few months back, she had just purchased this interesting home in West Point Grey and knew she was going to redo the all the electrical and the kitchen. She was pretty intent on saving everything and keeping the character of the home.

What really got my goat was this little gem of a butler’s cart. Tucked neatly away under the end base cabinet, this little red Formica top cart had seen better days, but it’s concept was ingenious for the time.

Last week was possession day, and I hadn’t taken site measurements so I appeared at our scheduled time, 4 hours after possession. The client and her daughter had already started stripping wallpaper, and the man of the house had begun ripping up the red and gold shag in the second main floor bedroom (which is really too small to be a bedroom.) Follow my reactions:

Can they get this all done in time for my cabinets to arrive and be installed? Can all this electrical be redone behind all the lath and plaster without the ceiling coming down? Can I take out the soffits, oh wait, those arn’t soffits, those are false front cabinets. Oh no! That ruins the plan for the archway I want to keep because it’s hanging off the cabinet now?!? And these frameless cabinets could ruin the interior walls when they come down, oh and is that wallpaper on the wall, inside the cabinets?? There’s wallpaper everywhere here!! What have I done!!

Panic set it, but I kept my cool.

So say goodbye to the original 1930′s kitchen – that was likely remodeled in the 50′s – because there is nothing left.

I’m a little star struck with this house. Either that, or I really got too much sun yesterday.

It’s Frank Gehry‘s, and of course it looks turned inside out and upside down, but what really caught my eye is how simple the kitchen is. And, being a kitchen designer, I was really taken aback because I thought the carpet should match the drapes, if you know what I mean. So what’s so interesting about the kitchen? Well, it’s linear, of course. (Linear kitchens are where all the fixtures and appliances are along one wall with work centres between)

@ archdaily

Now what would posses such a great architect to have a linear kitchen. It’s clearly not the original location of the kitchen in the home, but has Gehry made it secondary to the function of the home? Architects generally, but not always true, have a nasty habit of not planning kitchens very well… but I think that this kitchen is a gem because it’s modern, and linear. I can see myself cooking up a storm (if I cooked more, or had more time) and it feels like a flexible space.

More @archdaily

Old on left, new on right

Back at the beginning of May, a customer came into the showroom @ILK with a cabinet door. Normally I tense up a bit when this type of thing happens because they’re usually looking for a match to some other manufacturers product. Not this time.

Requirements:

• Match Doorstyle of existing.
• Match colour of existing
• Add 6″ cabinet to left of Range
• Remove 29″ eating centre with drawers and add cabinetry
• Service work: repair damaged drawer & level all doors and drawers

Result:

• Doorstyle still manufactured 21 years later
• Colour match done by factory, exactly
• New 6″ Cabinet provides space for awkward items – baking sheets, spices
• New 30″ cabinets provide new baking/cooking/storage centre
• Service work completed

Although this is a small job, it is these types of projects that show you what your product line stands for, the character of your design team, and reputation of your company.

What if, let’s say, your basement flooded and was filled with sewage backing up from the street. If you don’t have a basement, and you’ve never seen one, image it to be your space filled with floaties. I bet you would be on the phone so fast to solve the problem, wouldn’t you? Because all that sewage and grey water isn’t good for a) the basement, and b) your health.

So, why has it taken one of the biggest companies in the world over 50 days to stop the oil coming out of the bottom of the ocean? Clearly this decision was driven by money because rather than going directly ahead with capping it, they tried to harness it – unsuccessfully, twice – to recapture revenues. Greed. Gluttony.

Frankly, I am sick and tired of it and I’ve more than reached media-fatigue with the man-made disaster. How long are we going to pillage this singular planet in which we have no option but to live on?

Can I just say, FINALLY! You wouldn’t believe how many pens there are in this little 470sq. ft. space, last count was 20, and I can’t say that I actually use a pen daily. Well, yes, I sketch designs out, I write down notes and fly-outs on the concept drawings, writing a rent cheque maybe, but other than that I just don’t use a pen. This makes me feel a bit safer in my choice to purchase a pen.

DBA 98 Biodegradable Pen from DBA on Vimeo.

via TreeHugger