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We’ll be having a launch party for the Reee Chair on September 10, from 6.30 until 9.00 pm in central London. This is our chance to thank the many organisations that have helped us to bring this new product to the market, since we started planning it in 2006, and show the finished product to our customers, press and partners.
Reee Chair
Scotland’s Innovative Craft group have organised an exhibition of sustainable products with One Eco Home for the duration of the Edinburgh Festival. They are showing the Grass cabinet as an example of sustainable furniture design.
Bamboo and straw domestic cabinet
You can now view Pli’s current range on the Architonic website: this is one of the best international resources for architects and designers to search and specify products for your projects.
Here’s how Architonic describes itself…
About
Even for large firms of architects it is difficult to keep track of the current wealth of materials, furnishings and fittings on the market, not to mention the constant flow of new designs. For private property owners and design enthusiasts it is all the more difficult.
Architonic provides the solution to this problem by constantly monitoring the worldwide market with its team of architects and designers, making it quick and easy for you to find the products selected by the team.Our aim: the best products, materials, designs and concepts for the best in architecture - always up to date, impartial, selective.
The result: more than 45,000 products from 4,500 designers and 1,400 manufacturers. Every single month more than 230,000 people visit the Architonic site, of whom 68% are architects, interior architects, and planners. About 60% of the visitors come from Europe, 20% from the USA and 20% from Asia and the Middle East.Architonic AG, which has its head office in Zurich is an internationally-based network consisting of architects, designers, IT experts and marketing professionals. With its contents and concepts Architonic focuses on the generation and distribution of knowledge and information among architects, designers, research and industry.
Over the last two days I attended the first two parts of a pilot programme on New Product Development at the London Metropolitan University. It is a module style course that helps start-ups, furniture designer/makers, and manufacturers pin points weaknesses and develop strengths in their product development. Pli being a company that focuses on effective product development both Christopher and I jumped at the chance to attend the free pilot of this programme.
Day One: Product strategy
We started with an introduction, then quickly moved on to the first module focusing on product strategy. Delivered by Matthew Lewis, from Furniture Works, we went through different elements of product strategy including, market placement and adding value to products. Some of these elements I knew well while others were gems of knowledge that cleared up various confusions I had been “living with” up until now.
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Eray Cayli spent a couple of months with Pli this summer, working on a life cycle analysis tool for product designers. Some of his blog posts on this site have sparked interest among other designers. He has been invited to speak at the Green and Thrifty event on Wednesday evening this week (18 June).
Eray has travelled from Istanbul to share his research and ideas at this seminar. If you will be in London and you have an interest in sustainable design, I highly recommend his presentation.
Note: you need to register to attend but there are some places left. Click the London Remade logo to register.
Here are the details:
Date: 18 June 2008
Time: 4 — 7pm
Venue: Rich Mix Centre 35 - 47 Bethnal Green Road,
London E1 6LA
Eray will be talking about Utility furniture. He’ll be comparing the design and product development trends of the 1940s with our own situation. I guarantee you’ll think differently about your priorities, opportunities and risks as a designer once you have heard what Eray has to say about his studies in mid 20th Century design.
The Green and Thrifty event has been put together by London Remade. There’ll be a panel of speakers talking about thrifty design and thrifty business. There’ll be an exhibition on site, featuring [re]design and others. There will be drinks and things to eat. There will be a rag and bone cart, so bring your electronics waste for recycling. There will be lots of interesting people to meet.
Green and Thrifty is part of the Love London festival, running from 1–21 June. Click on the image to go to the Love London website…
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Pli is offering a 20% discount on our Grass media tables through selected online retailers, including Nigel’s Eco Store. To take advantage of this offer–while stocks last–click on the logo.
The Grass media table is designed for modern home interiors. It combines sleek good looks with simply sustainable materials and an affordable price. Grab a bargain.
The ubiquitous Treehugger has invited Jerry Stifelman to write more on green marketing and how we are certainly not going to save the world one cliché at a time. His suggestions are wise and succinct, boiling down more or less to ‘it’s the product, stupid’. If ‘green’ messages are going to work in mainstream markets they must finally advertise products that are good stuff as well as good thoughts.
The winners of the Observer ethical awards seem to bear out this simple truth. Finisterre, the ethical fashion category winner, is a great little company that stands out for me for its customer service and product quality. I bought one of their jackets last year and I soon forgot that their fibres are recycled and their suppliers fair.
Natural Collection, the winning online retailer (which does not, unfortunately, sell furniture) commented at the 2006 awards that they already have the ‘green’ customer’s attention: their website is aimed at mainstream customers with a green interest.
All this good sense brings me back to Pli’s principle: we don’t like ‘green’, we like ‘transparent‘. After an enjoyable day answering tough questions from potential retailers, I’m learning to keep the conversation focused on the benefits for the customer, not so much of the big picture stuff. Nobody’s going to kid them into selling something their customers don’t need. Why should they?
I heard about Yves Baher about 3 years ago. For me, the jury was out until I saw how he was involved in the OLPC (one laptop per child) project.
In this TED talk he talks about designing value into a product. The style of design was a reaction to his first job designing “skins” for computers. He has now set out to really capture the users needs when designing a product. He takes you through an interesting array of case studies showing how design shouldn’t just be an addition to the project, more a set of values that runs in parallel to the product development.
Pli’s latest products are now available through the UK’s leading online sustainable furniture retailers. A group of new and established retailers are offering eco-friendly furniture and homeware for competitive prices and we are really pleased to have been chosen as a supplier to so many already this year.
You can find selected designs from our Grass, Reee, Hoop and Twist ranges at Nigel’s Eco Store, One Eco Home, The Greenhaus and Hidden Art. More retailers will be stocking our products soon and we will be announcing them over the next few weeks.
Lighting is a hot topic when it comes to energy conservation. There has been a big push to move to CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) energy saving bulbs: this is great step in the right direction but there are some real exciting prospects for the future of lighting.
LEDs (light emitting diodes) have had a big name in energy saving circles for a while now and they have been seen as the number-one contender to be the light source of the future. They are efficient and long lasting, if a wee bit expensive. Now, however, there is a new kid on the block, Luxim’s LIFI bulb, and if it lives up to the hype, the LED bulb’s time may pass before it ever really began.
Check out this clip or read this Treehugger article for the low-down.
Making smart decisions about which electronic appliances to use will make a big difference to how planet-saving your home is. One of the bigger breakthroughs in power saving electronics over the past decade is the LCD TV. Along with the benefits of its larger picture and slim-line design, they use 3 times less energy than an equivalent size CRT TV, while using a third less energy than Plasma TVs.
I love a tidy house, yet I am not the tidiest person in the world. My solution consists of having less stuff so there less to tidy. I set a rule up to help me organise a room; if it can’t be tidy within 5 minutes (10 minutes with a dust and a vacuum) some stuff has to go. This is all well and good, but what effect does my aversion to clutter have on the planet? Maybe this article on the Unclutterer Blog will help me answer my question.
Unclutterers are tree-huggers
A person who abhors clutter — and knows that it saps energy and detracts from the more important things in life — already has the first and most important of the three “R”s down pat. Reducing your personal consumption also reduces the amount of “stuff” you’re contributing to the waste stream. Without all that excess baggage, maybe you won’t need to move into a power-guzzling McMansion to house your worldly goods.
Here is a cool use of old paper-backs by UK Designer Lucy Norman…
Lucy Norman’s usage of recycled materials is key to her art. She has focused on designing a range of products under the slogan “Rethink, Reuse, Rebook”, combining a concern for the environment and the reuse of waste in a way that is both stylish and commercial. Another variation on green and re-cycled chandeliers, this one is made of recycled books which cannot be sold as no-one will buy them. Ordinarily they would have to be land filled which is costly and detrimental to the environment. Instead she created “Light Reading”, a quirky (and flame retardant) chandelier made by folding pages of books and hanging them around a ceiling light. The Paperback Partition is also made from unwanted books, and is an aesthetically pleasing room divider, providing good heat and acoustic insulation.
Here is the Link via Treehugger
Inspiration posts