February 4, 2008 5:07 PM
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Materials
A Japanese company, Mindscape, is selling a series of plant/furniture couches, chairs, and seats called "Peddy." These outdoor furniture pieces grow what looks to be a thick coat of grass over a semi-porous subsurface. The majority of the company site is in Japanese, but click through to their blog to see shots of the pieces growing. How's that for an alternative to plastic lawn chairs?
Inhabitat has
a nice post today on
Sun Bricks, a cool product that can bring a little sustainable mood lighting to your hardscapes. The pavers are the size of standard bricks and include a clear panel of LEDs over two solar panels, with no wiring, so they can be simply slipped into a walkway in place of standard bricks. Neat trick, and nice looking too. That said, they're 60 bucks a pair, which seems kind of pricey to us. What do you think?
"You can build sustainably with a material that is fireproof and can withstand an earthquake up to 8.5 on the Richter scale."
The New York Times has the details on Rastra, a building material popular in Europe and gaining ground in the States because of its great combination of sustainability and indestructibility.
Rastra is made of 100 percent recycled polystyrene, and "is fireproof, resistant to high winds and in laboratory tests has withstood a simulated earthquake of 8.5 on the Richter scale. Termites can’t eat it, nor can mold grow on it." To top it off, it's lighter than concrete--which is what it looks like.
But before you order up a pallet of Rastra for your next project, know that only one plant in North America makes the stuff, and its all on back order, so deliveries can take up to 12 weeks.
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