EVOLVE.VOICE.ENERGY.RENEW.

The Future of Industrial Designby Colin Dunn

Clickby Kirsti Scott

Branching Outby Sally Nancrede

The Greenhouse of the Futureby Alex Frangos

APRIL 2010 $14.95 US $21.95 CAN

Contents

columns articles

Evovle8Annual Designing Green CompetitionA chance to be recognized for your

green thoughts in industrial design.

Industrial Design2The Future of Industrial DesignOpportunities avaiable to create from

the recyclable items laying around your

house. Think before you toss.

Graphic Design10ClickWith just the click of your computer

mouse, you can be more green.

Interior Design18Branching OutGreen is the new black. Designers find

ways to with recycled or natural

materials.

Architecture Design30The Greenhouse of the FutureGreenhouses inspire architects’. What

their new interest and ideas could lead

to next in our future. Will greenhouses

no longer be just for plants anymore?

Voice16Trash PeopleMaking a difference sometimes takes

more than just getting an army of

people.

Energy28Plant a Thought and Watch it GrowA giant solar flower that follows the

sun. Will you?

Renew40Sunchips COm-postable BagSome companies think their all that

and a bag of chips. Next to this new

bag, they don’t stand a chance.

1 EVERMAG

The Future

of

Ind

us

tr

ial

De

sig

n

by Collin Dunn

3 EVERMAG

Reen-minded, sustainable industrial design is certainly nothing new. Unfortunately, design-ers have gotten a bad rap from time to time for being unnecessarily wasteful and dreaming up ridiculous ideas and products that have no practi-cal application at all. I think we all remember the Rubix cube; need I say more? The same accusations are true in the fashion industry, certainly, but if anyone out there things that great, green things aren’t happening in fashion, go read about Johan-na Hofring and eat crow. Industrial design is all around all of us, everywhere, and not all of it good.

But I have seen the future, my friends, and the future is good. I recently had the pleasure of visiting an industrial design class at the University of Washington as they presented their final semester projects. Before I can tell you what I saw there, consider these products: used semi-truck brake pads, last Sunday’s New York Times, unused athletic shoe insoles, empty soda cans, and discarded paint chips. All of these things usually have a one-way ticket to either the trash can or the recycle bin, and in both places they eventually add to the collective pile of junk that is waste created by human beings living on this planet. Keep these items in the back of your mind, and ask yourself, “What would happen if...?”

This is the question that each of the design students found themselves answering as they endeavored toward creating something useful from something they found in the garbage can. Professor Louise St. Pierre asks her students to consider alternative prospects for the products they found. “I want my students to be able to look at important questions from very divergent perspectives,” she says. She wants her students to be able to harmonize what humans need and what humans want; admittedly, this is not an easy task, but in the end all came up with something that even MacGyver would be proud of. But how?

Bookshelves made from brake pads? Oki-dokey.Remember those brake pads, newspapers, insoles and cans? They all no longer exist in their original form. The brake pads have been redesigned into “Oki,” a bookshelf and a catch-all bowl, the brainchildren of Lauren Saint, Egan Metcalf and Christine Lee. The curve of the pad has been re-imagined and serves as both the edge of the bookcase and the basin for the “catch-all” bowl, a great place for keys, change, cell phones and the like. The simple shape and antiquated look gives the appearance of an artifact found in a New Delhi street market, though in truth, Oki is the most well-traveled bookcase you’ll ever find; it just comes by way of the long-haul trucker and not the Third World ceramics-maker.

Recycle an old life into something new and more beautiful.

5 EVERMAG

Long into the future, as long as human beings traverse the

earth, we will need stuff, and people to design this stuff. After

seeing what is waiting to be unleashed on the world, there is no

limit to the heights that green design can climb. I’m happy to say

that, for these students, the future of industrial design is now.

Recycled newspaper and plaster make up most of the “Rinnova planters.” The newspapers, comics and all, were shredded, mixed with plaster, and molded into planters, complete with drainage holes and a wooden stand. Though not large enough to cultivate a summer watermelon or ear of corn, they are a perfect fit for urban windowsill gardening. A sleek, smooth design gives them a classic look and feel. The foks at IKEA would kill to get their hands on these planters, though team members Dylan Davis, Marcel Blabolil and Jean Lee might first want to come up with a more Swedish-sounding name than “Rinnova planters.”

So what happens when the paint store down the street decides to stop carrying “Summer Peach” or “Lipstick Pink?” Usually, all of these paint chips go straight to the garbage or recycling bin, to make way for “Indian Summer Peach” and “Lip Gloss Pink,” but Terri Lee, Chuck Ely and Michael Nash turned them into “Hue” lights. With 1001 different color combination options, you can finally have a lamp that perfectly matches your “Canary Yellow” walls.

Recycled pop culture.

The final project showcased an ingenious way to recycle pop culture: coasters made from aluminum soda cans. A flat metal coaster is a little on the thin side, so each coaster was padded with an unused athletic shoe insole, discarded by the hundreds at your local shoe store when people insert their custom insoles. Framed by vinyl tubing to eliminate the dangerously-sharp edge of the cut aluminum, they fit perfectly inside tuna cans for a simple, unique and functional package to a nifty, fun product.

The one common denominator with all of these projects is that aesthetics and the materials and resources used to make them are equally important. Professor St. Pierre stresses the need to view the world from many divergent perspectives; it isn’t just about creating a prod-uct that is beautiful. She says that beauty is in-nate, and all human cultures pay attention to beauty, thereby making beauty a human need. She reminded me that Buckminster Fuller once said, “If I look at a design and it isn’t beautiful, it doesn’t work,” so while the beauty paradigm is an important one, industrial design cannot be about beauty for beauty’s sake. She wants her students to reach beyond something that is just in good taste today; a product that has “enduring beauty” are ultimately the most successful, and the most sustainable.

7 EVERMAG

EVOLVE

Each spring the Industrial Design Department’s student chapter of IDSA, Industrial Designers’ Society of Amer-ica, sponsors a competition for students. Students are assigned teams and given a unique challenge to design and build a functional ob-ject completely from recycla-ble materials over two days.

The last two years Graphic Design students have partici-pated in different capacities. In 2006 graphic design stu-dents were assigned to teams that built chairs. In 2007 the competition centered on designing, building and com-peting with a method of mov-ing each design team from one location to another. Graphic Design students played the role of recorder / observers.

Their effort culminated in a presentation made to the leadership of IDSA about how graphic design could play a greater role in future competition.

Annual Designing Green Competition

9 EVERMAG

Cb y K i r s t i S c o t t

L I C K

A Cure for All the Ills of Printing

11 EVERMAG

LivewrongOne of the main messages at last weekend’s Compost-modern conference on sustainable design was that designers must help make changes to lessen the hu-man impact on the environment through incremen-tal changes as well as systematic changes. These two tactics are comparable to treating the symptoms of a disease and finding a cure. One addresses short-term changes to reduce discomfort, and one removes the problem altogether. Treating the symptoms is valu-able, finding the cure is priceless. In this article, I’m going to offer a few ideas about how designers can work to create the cures for some of our environmen-tal problems.

As designers, we have the power to help those around us find better ways to do things. We are, by nature, creative problem-solvers. We must apply our brain power to finding ways to change percep-tions, get things done in ways that do less harm to the environment, and find new ways of doing the things we already do.

John Bielenberg, founder of Project M, likes to encourage companies and individuals to consider whole new “wrong” ways of thinking about solu-tions. Don’t limit yourself to the first idea that comes to your mind, but instead, keep thinking until you come up with something that is revolu-tionary. John wears a “LIVEWRONG” bracelet to remind himself to think beyond the first solutions that come to him.

C r e a t i v i t y i s a r e n e w a b l e r e s o u r c e .

C r e a t i v i t y i s a r e n e w a b l e r e s o u r c e .

13 EVERMAG

Speed it up.Great design can help people find the information they need more quickly. Consider the signage at a drive-through window at a fast-food place. If the sign is well-designed, someone can find what they want quickly and spend less time idling in line while they look for what they want and get out of their pollu-tion-producing car more quickly.

But, what if they didn’t have to sit in line in the first place? What if the restaurant had a website where you could order before leaving home and just sail to a pre-order window to pick up your meal? Design-ers should be looking for opportunities to help their clients improve in ways they might never have con-sidered.

How else can graphic designers help?I’d love to hear other ideas about how designers can move us closer to a sustainable society. What ideas do you have? Leave a comment or share this article with your fellow designers to keep the sustainability conversation going.

D o i t d i f f e r e n t l y.

One of the great examples of a systematic change has been with respect to printing. Designers can now specify recycled or bamboo paper, soy inks, and water-based coatings, and use only printers certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. You can even use EcoFont, which uses 20% less ink and toner to reduce the impact of your printed piece. These all reduce the symptoms of printing’s effect on the environment.

But how about if you don’t print your client’s piece at all? Instead, you can post a PDF file with the same information, send an e-mail instead of a post-card, create a banner ad instead of a print ad, or put the information in a blog post. These options represent an entirely new system of “dematerial-izing” these pieces of information so they have virtually no impact on our environment. They’re a cure for all the ills of printing, such as the nega-tive impact on forests, water usage, and the waste products of printing.

Sit. Stay.

We create much of the carbon in the air by travel-ing around. Great ways to reduce the amount of carbon your activities create include using a more efficient or hybrid car, carpooling, riding your bike, walking, or buying carbon offsets for travel.

But, how about no traveling in the first place? Tech-nology now makes it possible to work from home, attend a webinar or webcast instead of attending an event in person, and hold video conferences in-stead of traveling to a meeting. To encourage your clients not to require in-person presentations, you can even add a line item to your invoices for carbon offsets they’ll have to purchase to offset everyone’s travel to the meeting. It may just make them think before scheduling another meeting.

TRASH PEOPLE

How many persons does it take to get a message across? To be exact, as the people of Rome, Italy see it, it takes and army of man-made ‘Trash People’ to get their point across. With mainly plastic and alumi-num cans and bottles, they molded together these life-size human forms for the rest of the world to see.

With just the little trash they gathered, a small army of about one hundred trash people was created. Look-ing at it from a global per-spective, these trash people could outnumber our popu-lation by many. Think about what you’re throwing away next time and the possibili-ties of recycling instead.

VOICE

Green is th

e new black

Green is th

e new black

Branching Outby Sally Nancrede

19 EVERMAG

Green is the new black, from fashion to home — basic and pervasive, everywhere you look.

The Sustainable Furnishings Council, partner-ing with World Market Center Las Vegas, had the first ECOngress in January. The event drew sizable crowds and enthusiastic responses.

But there’s more to green than being ecologically responsible. Today there’s a green movement that’s defining design within your home. Earth tones and the nature look are back in vogue.

Home Accents Today calls it “Trend: Earthy.”

“Earthy, yet sublimely sophisticated, the season’s newest looks boast rugged good looks in shades de-rived from nature,” said Tracy Bulla, senior product editor. Green is the new black, from fashion to home — ba-

sic and pervasive, everywhere you look.

The Sustainable Furnishings Council, partnering with World Market Center Las Vegas, had the first ECOngress in January. The event drew sizable crowds and enthusiastic responses.

But there’s more to green than being ecologically responsible. Today there’s a green movement that’s defining design within your home. Earth tones and the nature look are back in vogue.

Home Accents Today calls it “Trend: Earthy.”

“There’s more to green than being ecologically responsible.”

“Earthy, yet sublimely sophisticated, the season’s newest looks boast rugged good looks in shades de-rived from nature,” said Tracy Bulla, senior prod-uct editor.

Perhaps another way to define this salute to Earth is New Naturals 2010. This 21st-century version encompasses things that are real, authentic, hand-made, without the veneer of pretension or osten-tatious excess (though they may be expensive). Shapes are organic. Materials include wood and stone, wool and leather. It’s an upscale version of Brown County revisited.

21 EVERMAG

Thick planks of ancient wood are honed into one-of-a-kind dining tables. Petrified wood logs are crafted into lamp tables. Capiz shells are sliced into a veneer of shiny pearlescence. Black painted oyster shells cover console tables and chandeliers. Iron is hand-forged into table bases and topped with slabs of wood that beg to be caressed. Concrete is poured into countertops; bamboo is everywhere from floors to linens to furniture.

Lenova has unveiled the first bamboo kitchen sink. Made of sustainable bamboo, the new apron sink brings the warmth of wood into the kitchen and comes with a lifetime guarantee. Also available are sensuous bamboo vessel bathroom sinks.

Real wood reflects today’s infatuation with nature.There’s a unique table from Charleston Forge with a retail price tag of nearly $20,000. It’s made of a 250-year-old spalted maple tree that fell in western North Carolina, explains Art Barber, chairman and chief executive officer of the Boone, N.C., company.

“It’s one of a kind,” he emphasizes. The maple is hand-planed, and the base is hand-forged solid steel.“This whole process is handmade,” says Barber, who was broke 20 years ago when he and his wife arrived at the High Point Furniture Market and took a space in a hallway. Now Charleston Forge works with designers and specializes in custom furnishings.

Charleston Forge is not trying to compete with commodity goods.

Neither is Pieter VanTuyl, a Grand Rapids, Mich., company that creates limited-edition artisanal fur-nishings. A hand-knapped stone from a Hudson River valley barn is repurposed as a hand-carved bench with reclaimed Douglas fir feet.

Expect to pay $9,200 for this limited-edition piece.

The Natural Collection from Century Furniture fea-tures hardwoods from sustained forests, soy-based foams, recycled metal upholstery springs and or-ganic or natural fabrics. But this collection goes beyond soy and recycled.

25 EVERMAG

Designer Craig Staton explains that the designs are organic and flowing to match the eco-friendly manufacturing techniques.

Here’s another example of how green is affecting style. Century Furniture is weaving water hya-cinth into fine furniture. Water hyacinth is a pest plant that was introduced into Thailand and then invaded the country’s canals, much as kudzu has taken over North Carolina and the Southeast.

Water hyacinth is softer and smoother than rattan and wicker, plus it’s lighter and less brittle. So ex-pect to see more water hyacinth furniture.

River rock and aged timber are a recurring theme in the Cascade collection from Bernhardt Furni-ture. The contemporary collection is inspired by the Zenlike simplicity of nature. The emphasis is on natural materials like crushed sea urchin and environmentally friendly methods.

27 EVERMAG

Bernhardt also offers one-of-a-kind petrified wood tables from Indonesia. Each one is different. These stool-style tables are similar to those seen in bou-tiques in resorts such as Santa Fe, N.M. Price? Ex-pect to pay about $1,000 for a 200 million-year-old slice of history.It’s cheaper to buy a stack of reclaimed teak branch-es. At the recent Las Vegas Market, Groovystuff in-troduced a group of lamps crafted from branches and roots of reclaimed teak. And Asian Art Imports offered tables crafted out of recycled eucalyptus twigs bundled together, then topped with glass.

Indianapolis interior designer Todd Otterman, owner of Design Works, said, “People are doing more natural, but they’re also doing their own style.”

He said he’s done bamboo floors and concrete coun-tertops, “but clients want to mix things.”

Otterman says he’s seeing a lot of the new naturals trend in design magazines “and I’m seeing a lot of it in new products.” But he’s not seeing as much here yet.

“I think people are to the point they are going whatever direction they’re comfortable with.”

Going green, he adds, also can mean buying re-cycled, reused or repurposed.

“A lot of people are buying antiques because they’re comfortable with them, and they’re already manu-factured. Instead of buying a new piece, they’re buying an antique or vintage piece.”

The idea is for today’s furnishings to be earthy, ancient, unique and modern all at the same time.

Going green, he adds, also can mean buying recycled, reused or repurposed.

In a public park area of Bue-nos Aires, Argentina, a large solar flower greets and mim-ics the suns path through-out daylight. As the sun rises and sweeps across the sky, the large metallic petals flex and bend with the light.

What’s it’s purpose? To pro-vide the uneducated in their everyday environment, with a demonstration of what sus-tainable design can do. Plant a thought and watch it grow.

Plant a Thought and

Watch it Grow

ENERGY

29 EVERMAG

The Green House

A fresh look may be long

overdue, given the amount of

damage that homes can do

to the environment. It’s easy

to envision a power plant

spewing pollution or a high-

way full of cars burning bil-

lions of gallons of petroleum.

31 EVERMAG

of the Future

by Alex Frangos

But buildings -- silent and

unmoving -- are the quiet us-

ers of much of our energy,

through electricity, heating

and water consumption.

It could have gardens on its walls or a pond stocked with fish for dinner. It might mimic a tree, turn-ing sunlight into energy and carbon dioxide into oxygen. Or perhaps it will be more like a lizard, changing its color to suit the weather and healing itself when it gets damaged.

Those are just a handful of the possibilities that emerged from an exercise in futurism. The Wall Street Journal asked four architects to design an energy-efficient, environmentally sustainable house without regard to cost, technology, aesthet-ics or the way we are used to living.

The idea was not to dream up anything impossible or unlikely -- in other words, no antigravity living rooms. Instead, we asked the architects to think of what technology might make possible in the next few decades. They in turn asked us to rethink the way we live.

“This is a time of re-examining values, re-examin-ing what we need,” says one of our architects, Rick Cook, of the New York firm Cook + Fox. “We are re-examining the idea of home.”

A fresh look may be long overdue, given the amount of damage that homes can do to the envi-ronment. It’s easy to envision a power plant spew-ing pollution or a highway full of cars burning billions of gallons of petroleum. But buildings -- si-lent and unmoving -- are the quiet users of much of our energy, through electricity, heating and water consumption. The U.S. Energy Department estimates buildings are responsible for 39% of our energy consumption and a similar percentage of greenhouse-gas emissions.

The growing awareness of that fact helps explain why green building is one of the most pervasive trends in the construction industry -- even as the economy struggles and home-building is at its low-est level in a generation.

So, how will the green homes of tomorrow help solve the energy puzzle? Here’s a gander into the future.

ON THE HOUSE

The Rios Clementi Hale Studios house has a garden façade that includes chickpeas, tomatoes and other plants. The plants also provide shade and cooling. A rooftop reservoir collects water and keeps the building cool, while rooftop windmills generate energy.

What

will the

energy-

efficient

house

of the

future

look

like?

35 EVERMAG

“I’d love to build a house like a tree,” says archi-tect William McDonough of the Charlottesville, Va., firm William McDonough + Partners. And that’s what he set out to do here.

The surface of his house, like a leaf, contains a photosynthetic layer that captures sunlight. Un-like today’s solar panels, which are often pasted above a roofline, these are woven into the fabric of the exterior. They heat water and generate electric-ity for the home -- and create oxygen for the atmo-sphere, to offset carbon produced in other areas of the home.

The appeal of ultrathin, integrated solar panels goes beyond convenience. Today’s solar is plain ugly and off-putting to many homeowners, some-thing Mr. McDonough calls the “potpourri of mis-cellany stuck on our roofs.” Unseen solar arrays, especially ones that create hot water, will be a “breakthrough from aesthetic perspective, which is a huge issue,” he says.

As for the rest of the design, Mr. McDonough en-visions a sleek, curved roof with generous eaves to provide shade, which lowers the heat load in summer, thereby reducing the need for energy-hogging air conditioning. The roof also insulates and provides an outdoor garden.

The “bark” of the treelike house would be thin, in-sulating films that would self-clean and self-heal, Mr. McDonough says, thus avoiding the need to re-place them after years of exposure to the elements.

BRANCHING OUT

William McDonough + Partners envisions its house like a tree. The “bark” of the house is made up of thin, insulating films that would self-clean and self-heal if damaged. A curved roof with large eaves provides shade, which lowers the heat load in summer. The “trunk,” or the frame of the home, consists of carbon tubes, while the “roots” are a heat-pump system buried in the yard.

It sounds far-fetched, but some of these technolo-gies already exist. Self-cleaning glass, for instance, has a special coating that uses ultraviolet sunlight to break down organic dirt; rainwater then washes the filth away.

Self-healing paints that contain microscopic cap-sules of color are in use on some car paint, for in-stance. These vessels break open when the surface of the paint is scratched to repair the damage. Sim-ilar ideas could expand to repair other materials such as glass or cladding.

The “trunk” -- or the frame of the home -- would eschew wood or metals. Instead, lightweight, “re-source efficient” carbon tubes would keep the struc-ture standing upright.

Finally, the “roots” of the home would be a ground-source heat-pump exchange system buried in the yard. It would take advantage of the relatively con-stant temperature of the soil to control the home’s climate -- bringing in heat in winter, when the ground is warmer than the surrounding air, and cool in the summer, when the ground’s tempera-ture is lower. Such systems exist today, but cost puts them out of the reach of most homeowners.

Other technological advances in the home include cement that would absorb carbon dioxide as it cures, offsetting the heavy loads of energy used to make the material. What’s more, special surfaces on the house would capture condensation for wa-ter use, avoiding the need for wells or faraway sources.

The design also takes into account what hap-pens to the building when its useful life is over -- something most builders never consider, Mr. Mc-Donough says.

Today’s buildings are often filled with chemical in-sulators and films on windows. While there have been major advances in these areas, such as the use of low-chemical-emitting paints and carpets, most insulating windows today still contain mercury and other heavy metals.

Cook + Fox’s house reacts to the weather, turning dark in the bright sun to insulate the house from heat and turning clear on dark days to absorb light and heat. The façade also captures rain and condensation to fill the household’s water needs. Inside, walls and furniture are on rollers to take ad-vantage of the fact that some spaces, such as bedrooms, are underutilized most of the day.

Mr. McDonough envisions a building industry in which everything that goes into a house eventually breaks down harmlessly, much as a tree falls and biodegrades on the forest floor. So, in his house, building materials from the cladding to the floors would be easily disassembled and reused, or, as he says, “return to the Earth.”The Reptile House

If Mr. McDonough’s house is a tree, then this one is a liz-ard -- whose skin is among its most important features for survival.

Cook + Fox’s house has a “biomorphic” skin that reacts to the weather, turning dark in the bright sun to insulate the house from heat and turning clear on dark days to absorb as much light and heat as possible.

The façade also captures rain and condensation to fill the household’s water needs -- much like a desert-dwelling horny lizard rolls drops of dew from its nose to its mouth.

Mr. Cook sees the house of the future looking toward nature’s way of solving problems as much as it looks to technology, a concept called biomimicry. “You need to view a house as a surface area for life, as opposed to a thing to be power-washed,” Mr. Cook says.

Cook + Fox is well known for its green designs. Its biggest green project is the New York headquarters of Bank of Amer-ica, which is known as One Bryant Park.

The sculpted white-glass tower, Manhattan’s second-tallest after the Empire State Building, creates massive ice blocks in the evening when electricity is cheapest. As the “ice batteries” melt, they are used to cool the building during times of peak electricity loads during the day.

UNDER MY SKIN

39 EVERMAG

“The smaller thing

you can create, the

more sustainable it

is.”

The Mouzon Design house uses tomorrow’s tech-nologies -- as well as ancient techniques to reduce energy use. Solar paneling built into the roof and façade provides electricity and hot water. The house also employs a “breeze chimney,” an ancient architectural tool, as a kind of air conditioning.

The Cook + Fox house has a modern look, but it’s designed to fit into a traditional neighborhood setting. Inside, rooms are easily configurable for lounging or work. Walls and furniture are on roll-ers, for instance, to take advantage of the fact that some spaces, such as bedrooms, are underutilized most of the day.

What’s more, toilets and washrooms are separated, serving more people with less space. Making a house that’s more conducive to work is important for energy efficiency because it eliminates driving -- and thus reduces energy consumption.

A key feature of the house is perhaps its most tradi-tional: a front stoop, which enables the home dwell-er to look out on neighbors and observe the area.

Noting an idea from scientist E.O. Wilson, Mr. Cook says, “No matter how advanced we get with technologies, there are things that make the hu-man feel good no matter what. People like to see a horizon view and feel safe.”

Meals at Home

Rios Clementi Hale Studios cheekily calls their con-cept the “Incredible Edible House.”

This somewhat fantastical design seems to be as much about the future of food production as archi-tecture. The façade of the three-story abode is slath-ered in a vertical garden that includes chickpeas, tomatoes, arugula and green tea. Step outside in the morning and harvest your meals.

The plants both nourish the inhabitants and pro-vide shade and cooling, absorbing heat better than a wall made of wood, brick, stucco or glass.

Rios Clementi Hale, based in Los Angeles, has a reputation for playful and innovative designs. Its best-known works include the angular red, ochre and green-striped campus of the California Endow-ment in downtown Los Angeles. It has also done designs for Hollywood powers such as Walt Dis-ney’s Robert Iger and movie and music impresario David Geffen.

But the plants aren’t the only striking feature of the design. At three stories, the edible house is also more vertical than the typical suburban home, a nod to the importance of building dense, urban-style houses in order to reduce energy use. A roof-top reservoir collects water and keeps the building cool; rooftop windmills generate energy.

The house is also put together in an intriguing way: It’s made of three prefabricated containers stacked on top of each other that can be moved on a trailer if the mood fits. This method exists today, but it’s not used very much, since homeowners as-sociate prefabrication with lower-end homes.

But the benefits for lowering energy use are sub-stantial. The standardized construction in prefab-ricated homes reduces defects that can hamper energy conservation. And it’s easier to ship pre-fabricated parts, which means reduced fuel use for deliveries.

Learning From the Past

Looking to the future isn’t the only way to be in-novative. The house from architect Steve Mouzon, of Mouzon Design in Miami Beach, Fla., uses to-morrow’s technologies while mining ancient tech-niques to reduce energy use.

For instance, solar paneling built directly into the roof and façade provides electricity and hot water. But the house also employs a “breeze chimney,” an architectural tool used by the ancients, as a kind of old-school air conditioning.

The difference between the air pressure in the chimney and outside causes hot air to flow out of the chimney stack and cooler air to enter through windows and doors.

“It must make sense first,” says Mr. Mouzon, a so-called New Urbanist architect who believes in tradi-tional designs that emphasize pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods. His house “isn’t trying to do wild and wacky things with roof shapes or wall shapes but a good sensible building that is highly lovable. It is inventive where it needs to be.”

Like Rios Clementi Hale, Mr. Mouzon sees the house as a source of food. He would add “melon cradles,” an invention he says he thought up for this project, to allow heavy melons and other veg-etables to grow vertically up the sides of his house.

Another of his innovative ideas would require Americans to do more than just feed the goldfish bowl: He would install tilapia pools in a “kitchen garden” to provide fresh fish to the homeowner. It’s among the most energy-efficient ways to raise ani-mal protein, Mr. Mouzon says.

But the most important order for Mr. Mouzon is to make the house compact. “The smaller thing you can create, the more sustainable it is.”

In fact, that’s something that all four of our archi-tects agree on: Americans need to learn to live in smaller spaces if we are going to make an impact on the environment.—Mr. Frangos is a Wall Street Journal staff report-er in New York.

Realizing that companies should do what they can to reduce their impact on the Earth and recogniz-ing that its own customer base is environmentally conscious, Sun Chips is working to become a leader in green business practices. Sun Chips’ “going green” efforts, which reduce the amount of fossil fuel used in processing its product and reduce the amount of waste in landfills from packaging, are beneficial for the environment.Solar Energy to Make Sun Chips

Sun Chips has one plant that uses solar energy, in-stead of fossil fuel, to make its product. The Sun Chips plant that uses environmentally friendly, clean sun energy is located in Modesto, California. This factory has a four-acre field of solar collectors, which have concave mirrors that absorb energy from the sun. The Sun Chips website states that “although Modesto is only one of eight plants we use to make SunChips snacks, for us it’s a small step in the right direction.”Sun Chips Compostable Bags

Sun Chips rolled out a fully compostable packing for its product in 2010. The compostable Sun Chips bags are made from plant-based materials that are designed to break down in 14 weeks when added to an active compost pile. Sun Chips advertises the eco-friendly packaging as “the world’s first com-postable chip bag.”

The environmentally friendly, compostable Sun Chips bags are made from plant-based polylactic acid (PLA). Since the bags are composed of organic material that is renewable, the impact on the Earth is reduced. The bags break down quickly, which creates less waste in landfills. Additionally, the use of petroleum products in packaging, which are not renewable and do not break down easily, is avoided.

The one downside of the compostable bags is that they make loud rustling noises. Sun Chips ex-plains that this is “because plant-based materials have different sound properties than the materials used to create our old bags.” Tony Knoerzer, vice president of packaging and sustainability for Fri-to-Lay North America, commented, “It’s walking a technological tightrope because we’re balancing the need to have [the bag] break down with the need to have good shelf sustainability.”

Read more at Suite101: Sun Chips Compostable Bags, Solar Energy Use: SunChips Eco-Friendly Packaging, Solar Plant Lead to Cleaner Planet.

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