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Over in TreeHugger we have been running our Best of Green series on Design and Architecture, but sometimes our Readers Choice picks don't get the exposure they deserve, particularly when the Editors' Choice is different. (Hey, that's our job!) Some of them are choices that we have shown on Planet Green or TreeHugger before, and some are from readers' nominations and are completely new to us.
The wonderful thing about getting nominations from readers is that we learned about things like Makedo and The Original Modern Urban Homestead, Readers Choice winners listed below. It was also great to see how readers favoured really clever ideas like Waybasics, a greener and simpler way to make furniture. We have learned a lot from this year's Readers Choice Awards, and I hope that we integrate them more tightly into the main awards next year. So here are your choices:
Best Architect or Designer, Small Firm: Alex Maurer and Fab-Homes
Image credit: Fab-Homes
Alex Maurer at Fab-Homes has put together "a collection of pre-designed modern dwellings planned along the principles of Passive Design and Sustainable Architecture. Our green homes are highly energy efficient, easy to maintain, healthy to live in, environmentally friendly and affordable."
We have noted before how we love the Passivhaus standard; we love prefab and we love modern. This was a close second for the editor's choice. More on Fab-homes in TreeHugger.
Best Industrial Design or Design Idea: Reuseable Connector System from Makedo
How to makedo - extended from MAKEDO on Vimeo.
What is Makedo? IT IS FANTASTIC. It is a simple system of reusable connectors and hinges that let you make things out of cardboard, scraps, whatever you have hanging around. What a wonderful idea; a little bit of plastic goes such a long way to turn so much stuff that is usually thrown away into a real play system. The creators say:
We are really interested in using design to inspire social change through playful creativity. By encouraging people to use their imagination and see the creative possibilities in the things around them, we not only reveal a boundless source of creative play but plant the seed for a new way of seeing and thinking about this world we share.
The makedo idea encompasses so much that is important to us - sustainability, social change and sharing in playful creativity. It's bigger than us, so we hope to inspire a broader community to engage, explore and enjoy.
It was a readers' nomination and a People's Choice winner, and a real find. More at Makedo; watch the two minute video to get a real sense of it. In retrospect, I am reconsidering my Editor's Choice.
Best Landscaping, Garden, or Urban Farm Project: The Dervaes Family of Path to Freedom Urban Homestead
Image credit: Urbanhomestead.org
Leonora wrote in TreeHugger: The Dervaes family shows us how they coverted a 1/5 acre city lot in Pasadena, CA into an eco-oasis that has reduced their dependence on electricity by 2/3 and increased their goals of living sustainably and self-sufficiently. From installing solar panels to brewing biodiesel, Path to Freedom has started a what they call a "homegrown revolution. . .using their hands as weapons of mass creation."
A great readers choice award. More at Path to Freedom
Best Furniture Design: Jimmy Chiang and Waybasics
Image credit: Waybasics
The People's Choice became the Editor's Choice with Waybasics; we loved the way it takes a waste product and recycles it into clean, simple, easy to assemble designs. Kristin covered it in TreeHugger and wrote:
"Gone are the days when a few cinder blocks and a couple of 2X6's constituted your shelving units. Today you can get shelves for pretty cheap, but the materials that go into them are also pretty cheap and probably not sustainable. The folks at Way Basics decided to engineer a product that uses some of that excess waste office paper, but that is also durable enough to last for years before it is recycled back into more zBoard shelves and cabinets. The zBoards are made from 100% -- 99% post-consumer recycled and 1% paper veneer for the outside."
More at Waybasics
Best Design Website: Unhappy Hipsters
Image credit: Unhappy Hipsters
I spit out my coffee all over my monitor when I first saw Unhappy Hipsters on its first day; I still think their first entry, shown above, was their best. I now start every morning with its irreverent mocking of modern design and the style of photography that you just can't take seriously anymore. It is by far my favourite website and would have received the editor's choice award except for one thing: the series is called "Best of Green" and there isn't a green thing about it. But I am thrilled that it was a blowout winner of the Readers' Choice awards, taking 79% of the vote. See them all at Unhappy Hipsters
Best Design Twitter Feed: @jetsongreen
Image credit: @jetsongreen
As editor, this was a tough call, and I was happy to take the Readers' Choice and make it the Editors' Choice. Preston Koerner does a wonderful job of documenting green design and we at TreeHugger rely on him as a source. How he manages to be a practicing lawyer at the same time is beyond me. Follow him on twitter here or at his blog, Jetson Green.
More Best of Green over at TreeHugger
Best of Green: Design and Architecture
Best of Green: Science and Technology
Best of Green: Travel and Nature
Best of Green: Culture & Celebrity
Best of Green: Fashion & Beauty
