Posted on 20 May 2010 by Sustainability Digest
Image via YouTube video
While butterfly populations worldwide struggle to stay afloat as the global temperature rises and changes their migration patterns and food sources, scientists have been hard at work coming up with their replacement – the mechanical butterfly that can survive anything but perhaps an attack of rust. Researchers successfully built and flew a flapping-wing-powered swallowtail butterfly, which could have big implications for the field of aerodynamics – after all we saw those videos of early airplanes that attempted to fly by flapping wings and they sure didn’t work. Though from the video, how we can tell this…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Posted on 18 May 2010 by Sustainability Digest
350-Passenger H Series. Image: MIT/Aurora Flight Sciences
Looking 3 Plane Generations Ahead
What will the airplanes of the future be like? This is the question that the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT tried to answer for NASA. The goal was to look 3 generations ahead of the current planes (that’s around the 2035 timeframe) and improve substantially on current tech in the areas of fuel-efficiency, noise, NOx emissions, safety, etc. Two plane designs came out of the research project; one to replace the current Boeing 737, and the other to replace the 777. Read on for more detai…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Posted on 11 May 2010 by Sustainability Digest
Photo: Flickr, CC & Seal of the state of Hawaii
Nissan Picks Hawaii as an Early Launch State
Hawaii residents will be able to get their hands on the Nissan LEAF electric car a bit earlier than the rest of us. Nissan has selected the state to be part of its early launch of the LEAF because of the state’s “strong commitment to clean energy” and probably also because people don’t drive quite as far on islands, making the LEAF’s 100 miles electric range less problematic….Read the full story on TreeHugger
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Posted on 29 April 2010 by Sustainability Digest
Maybe not as radical as square watermelons, but still quite progressive is Andrew Kim’s square Coke bottle design. It definitely raised the question whether or not all bottles and containers should be square from an environmental point of view. Of course aesthetics, identity and function are also important, but it’s surprising how much we could lower the environmental impact of distributing goods by stopping to transport air!…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Posted on 28 April 2010 by Sustainability Digest
Image via Louisiana Tech University
The idea of getting our feet to produce power for our gadgets is not new. Inventors have been working on the concept for years, with some surprisingly impractical results. However, as technology gets better for piezoelectric energy generation, scientists are hoping to create some sneakers that do more than just get you from place to place. While some Read the full story on TreeHugger
Posted on 23 April 2010 by Sustainability Digest
Rendering of “T-Garden” by Luca Trazzi. Photo via Interni
Philippe Starck — one of the participants in the FuoriSalone 2010 Interni Think Tank exhibition held at the same time as the Milan Furniture Fair, Salone Internazionale del Mobile 2010 — is one charismatic guy. He won me over way back in 2004, when I met him personally and watched his speech on the design of a building that included a Read the full story on TreeHugger
Posted on 22 April 2010 by Sustainability Digest
Water Fountain and Personal Fresh Air. Images by Design Academy Eindhoven
One of the shows that stood out this year at the Milan Furniture Fair was the Design Academy Eindhoven‘s Question exhibition at the up and coming district Ventura Lambrate. With all this excess of design and the various crisis going on (environmental, social, economic,…), it is nice to see that one group sat down and asked questions about the role of design. And they encouraged visitors to Read the full story on TreeHugger
Posted on 20 April 2010 by Sustainability Digest
Photo courtesy of Paperboard Innovation
Cardboard is one of those underrated materials, often with a short and meaningless lifespan that ends when your package is delivered. Unless you are cardboard in the hands of io10design‘s cardboard fiends Allessandro Antoniazzi and Valter Davanzo.
At the Temporary Museum for New Design during the Milan Furniture Fair, Salone Internazionale del Mobile 2010 the duo presented the exhibition “P…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Posted on 19 April 2010 by Sustainability Digest
Photo via Senz
So we are pretty keen on finding a solution to disposable design, or objects conceived to break here at TreeHugger, and one of our favorites is the shoddily-designed umbrella, which we gave its due way back in 2006 with our Umbrella Inside Out competition.
During the Milan Furniture Fair, Salone Internazionale del Mobile 2010, at one of the hundreds of off-site events on via Tortona, I came across a wind tunnel demonstrating the muscle of the award-winning Read the full story on TreeHugger
Posted on 19 April 2010 by Sustainability Digest
Still Light. Photo via On/Off by D-vision
There’s nothing like a light powered by the juicy red fruit more commonly seen in insalata caprese in this city to get the crowd all excited. Or how about a light carved out of soap or light shades made of freshly blown soap bubbles?
One of the most attention-grabbing displays at Salone Internazionale del Mobile 2010‘s SaloneSatellite showcase of young designers was “On/Off,” a collection of wildly innovative lighti…Read the full story on TreeHugger
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