designer in exile: Environment

Showing posts with label Environment. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Dwelling On Sprucing Your Dwelling? Thrifty Tips.

Decorating on a budget.

The conventional wisdom that apartments should be minimal, temporary-looking spaces is in no way an absolute - they can easily be made to have the feel of a well lived-in home. Apartment living is a great way to save money and allow for freedom of mobility. Sprucing up your abode cheaply will brighten your mood when you have guests, or simply let you enjoy it better on your own. Here are some ideas and resources to help decorate your apartment nicely on a budget, while also reducing your negative impact on the environment.

Sales and collecting: Yard, garage, and discount stores are the best place to find home furnishings for cheap. Furniture, wall art, and storage items don’t need to be bought brand new. You can find beds and couches and revive them with mattress covers and slip covers. Décor doesn’t even have to be purchased. Do you collect classic vinyl records, movie posters or have a collection of vintage bottles? Why not use them as décor in your apartment? Put them on display walls, in shadow boxes, or on a shelf to bring instant personalized home furnishings to your apartment. You will be surprised how collections can be an innovative focal point for a room.

A friend of my wife was on the Today Show this morning because she represents ranks of people called "hoarders." A lot of Americans seem to be holding on to sentimental things more today than ever, and not necessarily as the result of some newly declared nationwide neurosis. I use more sensitive sounding terms like "enthusiast," or "preservationist," or "collector" to describe them, especially since I'm married to one.

Websites and classifieds: Websites like Craigslist, Backpages, and other free online classifieds are a great resource for finding home furnishings. Not everybody can hold on to belongings these days. People are often moving out of their homes and need to get rid of items fast and cheaply. Here in Philly, one can find online "swap" groups like Philly Freecycle, which is part of a nationwide Freecycle Network started in Tucson in 2003 to promote waste reduction in Tucson's downtown and help save desert landscape from being taken over by landfills.

Other resources such as Estate sales are published in online classifieds as well. Estate sales often sell items from someone who has passed away, but they can also be from those who can no longer financially afford their belongings. Take advantage of these because you may discover one of a kind bargains.

The diy planet: It's quite likely that you and some friends may be able to assemble anything you put your mind to. Do it yourself tables, chairs, and entertainment centers can save you money. Ikea, for example, has décor and storage ideas for every budget, and every assembly skill level. They also claim to be eco-friendly because they use a certain amount of recycled materials and less toxic binding agents.

But if you're truly interested in saving the planet's dwindling resources, keep in mind that it requires energy to recycle, so the idea that a cheap, toss-away, recycling culture will get us all off the hook from further degradation of our environment is somewhat misleading. Recycling is good, but Re-use, re-appropriation, and swap is my recommendation, whenever possible. I often shop for antiques, vintage pieces or go to thrift stores, I bring my own re-usable cup to the coffee shop, and use an aluminum water bottle over recyclable/disposable plastic ones... Perhaps, someday, we'll see the return of the milkman and his refilled glass bottles at our doorstep, just like on Leave It To Beaver.

Nicely balanced palette of blues, browns, and neutrals.

To acquire pre-owned furniture, vintage shops like Vintage Modern here in Philadelphia offer a great assortment of quality home furnishings that haven't hit the often pricey 100-year antique mark.

If you prefer something new and can afford more than the Ikea variety, consider investing in furniture that will last for generations - I still utilize my father's beautifully crafted, hand-me-down Eames era desk from the 1950's. Places like Pompanoosuc Mills with its local showroom in Manayunk are great examples of new, built-to-last furniture - and their prices are not off the charts. They make good solid wood pieces, custom made from Vermont Forest Stewardship Council wood sources. They've been at it since 1973, and green before the term was ever conceived as a marketing ploy.

Add and coordinate color: A fresh, nicely thought out color scheme is likely to give to the most prominent indication that you've done a makeover. Adding color to your apartment with bed and bath accessories can change the atmosphere immediately. Coordinating bed linens, curtains, and an area rug can pull together a dull space with minimal effort and expense. Matching towels, bath rugs, and shower curtains will help you feel and look good in your bathroom.

Ikea space saver.

Efficient use of space: If you're downsizing from a larger space, or taking on guests - a reality of these tough economic times - there are several ways to help make the best use of those spaces. Loft beds are a cheap way to accommodate several people in a small space. Loft beds are reminiscent of bunk beds, which take advantage of vertical space. The items can be bought at furniture stores, garage sales, or check college dorm and apartment bulletin boards for quick sales. Even if you don’t have a lot of people in your apartment, the beds can be utilized to straddle a desk area beneath to save valuable space in your bedroom.

Under-bed storage and multi-purpose furniture, such as sofa-beds, or coffee tables that expand and convert into office desks, with filing chambers and more, are great for small space situations. And many of these can be found at affordable stores such as Ikea. A nice series of convertible coffee table/desks is sold through local American Signature Furniture stores.

Likewise, while visiting my mother recently in Chicago at her quaint, efficient condo, she demonstrated how her sunlit kitchen table could easily become an improvised office desk, when needed. This I found especially beneficial because it allows natural light onto the workspace, and brings the office into a generally uplifting environment - the hearth. It also solves the problem of her traditional office desk, as beautiful a piece of Chippendale style furniture you could imagine, from facing a blank wall. She prefers the kitchen table instead because it allows for a variety of seating focal points from which to choose.

There was a time when designers often drew distinct boundaries between eating, sleeping, and work environments. To some degree, events of the last few years have made us rethink those psychological aspects of space planning and proxemics - at least I have.

With the use of the right resources for quality items one can decorate an apartment without having to peel off a lot of Ben Franklins. There is always someone moving in and out of apartments and homes, perhaps more so than ever. These tough times have created many money saving opportunities and resources, as ironic as that might sound. You might as well make use of them to help your wallet and help the environment at the same time.--D.A. DeMers

Coming soon to designer in exile - the magnificent landscape design of Chicago's Botanic Gardens. Would Daniel Burnham be proud?

And be sure to visit my new site, Home Science, for professional energy saving advice on your digs.

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Image credits: Top dining room, share alike license, owner does not necessarily share opinions on this page. Classifieds, share alike license. Craft room, share alike license, owner does not necessarily share opinions on this page. Contemporary room, share alike license. Loft bed, share alike license. Ikea, share alike license. Eco-smart dining table, share alike license.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Image by vincent.limshowchen via Flickr

I wanted this post to be about rose bushes. Mostly about how to prune them so they will bud and blossom nicely in the coming weeks. If they don't get pruned and untangled from constraining vines, they may wither and die, which is a shame because roses seem to hold a key to our aesthetic, intellectual, and spiritual satisfaction. Pruning them gives me, in some measure, a great sense of hope for the future.

But as I started writing, I noticed something strange. I clicked on my internet feeds and saw that one of them no longer existed. It was the "green news" link to a major furniture industry trade publication. The journal is essentially the Vogue magazine of home furnishings, and one that virtually commands the direction of the industry. What's more, they have been part of a media conglomerate that owns a vast array of websites and publications related to the furniture industry and building trades.

That's a mighty powerful position to be in.

I looked deeper and noticed that nearly every reference to environmentalism had been purged from the entire database. It was Orwellian, as if I'd awakened to find the word democracy erased from the lexicon - something that mysteriously happened occasionally while searching the internet on business trips to China.

This all seemed inexplicable, until finally I reached a blog post on the publication's site that contained a remarkable conversation filled with boardroom chatter from industry professionals. The comments were as follows: "The profit margin is simply not large enough for us to promote these (environmentally friendly) type of products," and "it's time we begin putting profits before earth." I was befuddled, not just because of the hard-line business talk, but because in reality, the profit margin for these products has been steadily trending upward. The outlook is quite bright.

A source affiliated with the media group, who asked not to be identified, affirmed my knowledge on this matter, saying that the eco-smart product marketplace is thriving and very profitable, but that there are people within the furniture industry with agendas and interests different from that of the sustainability movement.

The timing of this coincides conveniently with the current mortal storm of thought that is dismissing the theory of climate change. In fact, look at what some of the great emerging minds in the anti-sustainability world are saying here on this recent blog, with provocative notions such as "Earth Hour" shows "the environmental movement's distaste for modernity," in which a blogger seems to claim that the Earth Hour protest was an assault on the sanctity of the industrial world, electricity, and the economy. With astonishing sincerity and pathos, he essentially equates utility companies with freedom. The message seems to be "don't tread on my electric grid."

I challenge these misinformed contrarians to examine some common sense concepts about this "daunting" brave new green world. Sustainability is ultimately about upgrading the quality of peoples lives. It is about reducing inefficiency and is a methodology of logic and ingenuity that both gathers from and informs human intellectual and ethical progress -which includes economics. Despite occasional relapses, the human race tends to move toward this definition of progress.

At a recent symposium at the Academy of Sciences here in Philadelphia, giant corporations such as Dow Chemical and others discussed the new mode of sustainability in corporate thinking from the top down, in contrast to the more commonly viewed grass-roots perspective. Big players are beginning to see the green writing on the wall. Keeping their workers healthy saves money. Being less dependent on the petrol-chemical market and being more energy efficient saves money. To think otherwise is detrimental to capital investment and the survival of the free market, especially as energy rates soar and resources are depleted. Even Walmart, as recent as last week, adopted major measures toward sustainability.

This is not mere green-washing, this is the bottom line. Ironically, some of these companies have even been low key about their moves to become energy efficient and green, because they fear a backlash from the new anti-green mob that is rising like the ocean levels. And oddly enough, I find myself in the awkward position of cheering on some multi-nationals I protested against years ago who are now taking steps to change.

In the end, both grass-roots and corporate sides must converge and for all the right reasons to make environmental sustainability truly sustainable. But meanwhile, who's gonna tell a multi-billion dollar company like Dow Chemical or Walmart that they can't go green? And why fight them?

Some occasional pruning is needed for this movement, that is undeniable - just like with my rose bushes. That can only help. But it surely that doesn't mean it is bound to wither and die...

Funny how my mind wanders sometimes. And since this post has become as loaded with earthy metaphors as Chauncey Gardner, let us get back to where we started - helpful tips on caring for roses in your garden. Here's some great advice from 5minute Videos. So enough of this gloom and doom, let your garden bloom, bloom, bloom! --D.A. DeMers.

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(Update: all links to "green news" for the publication mentioned above have been recently restored. The publication is now under new ownership, and I have chosen to keep it anonymous since it is not the central focus of this post).

Image credits: Pink Rose Bush, Martha Washington, CC License 1.0 . Frank Gehry recycled cardboard chair, CC License 1.0. All others by D.A DeMers, and free to use under CC license 1.0.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

He Who Taketh Shall Giveth Back

Last year the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story on how the high market price for metals was triggering another era of metal "harvesting" in the city. One incident described a situation at a Port Richmond scrap metal recycling center where the manager turned away a customer who wanted to sell a particular brass object: A funeral urn.

The man said there were more where that came from.

"I said, 'Yeah, but you have to dump the ashes,' " the manager said in an interview. "They're stealing everything they can get their hands on."

In these economically troubled times you'd think people would be doing just about anything to get some extra money - and they are. But even decades ago when urban blight and drugs first began to plague American cities, stripping buildings of copper pipes, wires, even rooftops, for cash was widespread throughout these old industrial Philadelphia neighborhoods. The exponential leap in price of scrap metals in recent years has made it especially common.

Fortune Magazine, for all its glory, printed a veritable how-to guide on how to pick and choose the choice items in the publo-sphere with a feature titled The Dark Side of Metal Madness. The article included listings of expected prices one could get for the items from copper wire to beer kegs to manhole covers - most of which it is assumed would be dismantled and hauled away illegally.

According to the magazine, the price of copper, aluminum, lead, tin, and zinc since 2005 has been up 95%, which has prompted a rally in a different market barometer. Call it the petty larceny index. In 2006 more than 24,000 manhole covers were stolen from the streets of Shanghai. And while brass urns started disappearing from grave-sites in Philadelphia, that same year, at a high school football field in Washington, D.C., 750 pounds of aluminum bleachers went missing.

Copper hit a peak of $3.66 a pound on the COMEX exchange about a year and a half ago. Likewise, aluminum, zinc, bronze and stainless steel all have been commanding high prices. These may seem like novel facts until one more novel fact is added; that is, a lot of public infrastructure is made out of these metals. Enterprising folks have been literally ripping off anything that isn't nailed down - bleachers for example. Beer kegs aren't being returned, and some police departments can't get ammunition.

CHICAGO - JULY 17: A sign advertises prices p...

Verizon, the telecom provider, has been bleeding from every pore. Vandals stole over $300,000 in copper from their cell phone towers in 2007, and that was just in California. In Michigan, Anheuser-Busch noticed the disappearance of enough of its stainless-steel kegs to take action: the beer giant persuaded the state liquor commission to triple the required security deposit from $10 to $30, because a lot of kegs appearantly weren't coming back.

For petty thieves the rewards can outweigh the risks. While a manhole might fetch just $20, a single catalytic converter, wrestled from an SUV, is a metals trifecta. It contains platinum, palladium, and rhodium worth $150. For professional thieves the big hauls, like truckloads of copper wire pilfered from construction sites, can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars.

To some degree this crime boom is cyclical. The silver bubble of the early 1980s led to multimillion-dollar heists from the London Metal Exchange's warehouse and in New York City's Diamond District. But the current crimewave, which began four years ago and has escalated since, has been markedly worse.

The illegal metal plays are not without risk. In New Hampshire recently, two thieves were electrocuted while pilfering copper wire from a transformer.

One key aspect of the recent wave is that the US has been shipping $61 Billion in scrap to China each year. That demand, along with the soaring price is what really made the recipe for the rise in metal theft. However, that may well be starting to subside due the price of shipping as gas prices remain high - a point economist Jeff Rubin makes in his new book Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller.

Likewise, now it seems people are looking for other materials to re-appropriate, and many of these materials are not so intrinsically tied to global trade. For example, the photos below by architecture/urban researcher Bob Powers document the scavenging bricks from abandoned buildings in St Louis.

And though an unsupervised removal bricks from the foundation of an abandoned building is not advised by this writer - especially for safety reasons - a better, more inclusive process of salvaging such materials could be valuable for historic preservation and ecologic sustainability - for example cities with old, historic structures.

European countries often utilize vintage bricks, called "seconds" (second hand bricks) as part of planning by local councils when constructing new buildings or preserving existing ones. Without this constant reuse of building materials some of the most beautiful buildings would have been long ago ruined with a poor choice of materials.

Pipes and fittings made of stainless steel

While much of the theft aspects of urban materials harvesting grabs the typical crime-obsessed news headlines, many people fail to recognize the virtues and increasing importance of its legal side, such as people who scavenge public alleys for aluminum cans or discarded iron. In Philadelphia, like many cities, the city does not have enough resources to do this on its own - these citizens often function as a resourceful, natural part of the recycling loop, and not just shadowy figures in the night.--D.A. DeMers.