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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
Here’s an announcement from our friends at Birmingham City University’s Institute of Art & Design…
Sustainability specialists will be converging at the ICC in Birmingham at 12 noon on Monday 15th September for an interactive debate. The focus of the debate will be looking at issues facing up and coming managers and future leaders in the development of green strategies in the work place. The event, organised by Birmingham City University, follows research into attitudes and influences in developing green policies, reviewing how individuals can pro actively apply green lifestyle choices in the workplace.
Grrreen Debate
The Big Debate chaired by the BBC’s special correspondent Richard Bilton, will feature Peter Ainsworth, Shadow Environment Secretary, leading blogger for treehugger.com, Leonora Oppenheim (expert in eco design) and Birmingham Post and Mail environmental correspondent Patrice John.
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Day 6 of the NPD course was delivered by Michael Gutierrez PERA/Supply London. He was focusing on the legislation and liability that comes with being a manufacturer/designer/distributor. I am beginning to realise from this and the previous intellectual property modules, that design is as much about having a good lawyer as it is about innovation. Saying that, the key to getting the best bang-for-your-buck from your legal assets seems to be using them early in your development process. If you can afford legal cover/advice at the front-end it can save you a lot of money if things turn to custard. This is what lawyers like to call “risk-management”, because legalities are going to get your money at some point. It is best to give the beast a sacrifice rather than taking a chance with it eating you alive.
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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Searching online for information on eco-friendly patents, I got sidetracked by blog posts from a design team at Nokia which is publishing research into sustainable mobile communications technology. This is interesting for us at Pli although we make chairs not phones. The links started with a press release about the Homegrown project.
Following up, I started by reading the comments and presentation materials posted by the Near Future Laboratory which led me to Raphael Grignani’s work on Homegrown and also on Remade, another Nokia project.
Have you ever wondered about the ’stuff’ you buy? Where it comes from, or even why you even bought it in the first place? If you have then Annie Leonard has some answers for you. Her video ‘The Story of Stuff’ is a clear and concise breakdown of how we are consuming the planet in the name of ’stuff’. Click image for the link.
The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.
I’m interested in the Eden Project’s Waste Neutral initiative, which has formed the basis of the giant Cornish greenhouse and education centre’s waste and procurement strategy over the last couple of years. In fact the conferences and discussions we have attended at Eden have inspired us at Pli to think more systematically about how we can help ourselves and our customers, to balance the waste we produce with the waste we might be able to reuse.
It’s a tricky issue: there are so many sources of waste and it all goes off in different directions for disposal. Just about the only point where it could all come together to be quantified and evaluated is in our own home - hardly the ideal place. Sometimes my own kitchen feels like it’s overflowing with all the waste I’m carefully separating as I go, often to cram a lot of it back together in a big blue plastic box for Southwark Council to take away. I could hardly say I’m on top of it all.
So I was fascinated to learn in Time Magazine about RecycleBank - a pleasing example of some entrepreneurial person putting himself in my shoes and working out what he can do to help me out.
For a while now, we’ve been using some research from WRAP (the UK Government’s Waste & Resources Action Programme) to compare the weight of our furniture with average weights for different UK furniture categories. It’s part of a project we are running to reduce weight in all our products as we update our designs.
The data we’re using comes from the appendix of the Household Waste Prevention Toolkit, which is a handy document aimed at local authorities. The toolkit (which is a PDF document) contains practical action points and supporting statistics. It’s very detailed and it could help to inform your thinking on domestic or community waste reduction… (click on the image)
The TED video is a follow up to the “inconvenient truth” presentation that catapulted Gore to environmental stardom in 2006. This new set of slides reemphasizes the urgency for action to prevent global warming. According to Gores research, things aren’t getting better but are worse than first thought. However in the face of all this ‘doom and gloom’ Gore draws inspiration, reveling in the fact our generation now has a mission worthy of its existence. He shares the idea of future generations looking back and saying that we were the generation that stood up and took action. For me personally it was a pretty inspiring talk and definitely gave me a little twitter. It is 30 odd minutes but if you have a spare lunch break I recommend giving it a watch, it will pick up your afternoon.
The idea of Cradle to Cradle design has been around for a while now, see article Cradle to Cradle is 6. Since 2002, the ground breaking work by William McDonough and Dr. Michael Braungart has made a a huge impact on the materials industry. Material ConneXion, one of the biggest material databases in the world has recently begun collaborating with MBDC and EPEA to create the first Cradle to Cradle materials library.
A GLOBAL PLATFORM FOR CRADLE TO CRADLE DESIGN
Given today’s demands for more socially and environmentally conscious products and materials, it is important for companies to positively define their global impact and be leaders in environmental performance. Recognizing the value of each other’s expertise, Material ConneXion, MBDC and EPEA have joined forces to create the leading global platform for developing innovative, sustainable and Cradle to Cradle materials and products.
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The breaking news were delivered by German weekly newspaper Die Zeit: Philippe Starck is “fed up with his job and plans to retire in two years”. The renowned designer went on further to claim that “design is dead and his work ‘unnecessary’”.
Well, there are people who hate the French designer and others who adore him, as is the case with star names in any business. Some of those tree huggers out there might even be celebrating. Blogs are filled with outraged people arguing that they will not accept Starck’s confession, for he has done so much damage and made so much money out of it. I will approach this piece of breaking news from another angle. Read more »
Inspiration posts