Above: DIY wooden toy car

Above: DIY scarecrow

Above: DIY sleds

Above: DIY bird feeder

Above: DIY stool

Above: DIY bench

-DIY Russia on folkforms

June 21, 2011

- http://www.njustudio.com/index.php?/project/hockenheimer/

June 15, 2011

June 11, 2011

Avoska, translated as “just in case” is a Russian net bag.  Avoska collapses to fit inside your fist and expands to hold 12 grapefruits. It is easy to wash and boxes edges do not rip it’s threads. Best of all, it prevents plastic bags from gathering in your kitchen corner or the world’s landfills.  With the popularization of plastic bags after the 90’s (after the fall of Soviet Union) avoska bags gradually went into disuse in Russia.

Above: Russia 1959. People carrying avoska bags. Photo: Carl Mydans.

Contemporary Russian folklore:  Once upon a time in Russia there lived a simple little net bag - Avoska. Everyone loved her.  People took her with them everywhere - to the store, farmers market and even birthdays. But then….plastic bags came and people forgot about Avoska.  To see what happens next watch this really adorable 3 minute film on Youtube:  http://www.youtube.com/avoska

Above: Boy hugging avoska bag from short “Avoska” film (See above)

Read blog dedicated to Avoski:  http://avoski.livejournal.com/

June 07, 2011

Space saving invisible bookshelves.  Minimal and simple! Book on the bottom acts as support for every other book on top. 

May 21, 2011

-http://treehugger.com

May 13, 2011

Palm reed (buri) is the matured leaf of the palm. It is a great material for hats, bags, slippers, window blinds, mats, brooms and baskets. 

Carefully handcrafted baskets made of palm reed, leather, and metal designed by Brooklyn-based designer from Philippines,  Stanley Ruiz.

-http://stanleyruiz.com

May 12, 2011

Jar lamp by UpCycle.  This lamp is made from re-using Avoca glass jar. A hole is drilled in the cap and a lamp fitting is offered through.

May 11, 2011

Book shelves made of plumbing pipes:

http://www.the-brick-house.com/2009/09/shelving-unit.html

May 02, 2011

April 17, 2011

DIY Panton Chair by Peter Jakubik incites users to make their own original fake famous chair designed by Verner Panton. All what you need is a picture of Panton chair, found log, DIY tools and passion for designer classics.

April 12, 2011

Great blog from Vancouver, BC - http://www.old-chum.com/

Autumn Workshop is a design and fabrication studio started by Brooklyn based designer Daniel Goers. The workshop designs products and furniture inspired by natural and found materials, often integrating plant and animal habitats.  Autumn workshop lamps are now on display until May 11 at Saffron* flower shop(31 Hanson Place, Brooklyn, NY)

-http://www.autumn-workshop.com

*Saffron is a boutique flower, vintage and handcrafted goods shop in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. They regularly present work by local artists amongst an exciting assortment of exotic plants and handmade items.

March 20, 2011

“The project deals with giving new life to damaged, out-of-use furniture. over the past year, I practiced furniture-healing through design. The cultural and personal history of each piece of damaged furniture served as a starting point for the treatment, which attempted to preserve each one of their stories. the intention was to explore with joy, the multiple personalities, and the defects that exist in old products, and to create a human and hybrid aesthetic language[...] I started exploring a visual language that deals with imperfections, and giving objects human-like gestures.” - Noam Tabenkin

Read more about noam Tabenkin’s furniture on Visual Syntex

February 22, 2011

February 19, 2011

Gamper Martino has been collecting discarded old/broken chairs from London streets over a period of two years and then spending 100 days reconfiguring the design of each in an attempt to transform its character and function.

February 05, 2011

A chest of drawers made from old suitcases.

January 15, 2011

January 04, 2011

“Vladimir” or “Pallet Mirror” by Karl Zahn is made using two partially destroyed shipping pallets. “The scars on the lumber tell a story of its travels. While the form is reminiscent of old victorian french mirrors, its origin is far from gold leaf” -Karl Zahn

December 19, 2010

The CitiCar was a small electric vehicle, first produced in United States in 1974 by a company Sebring-Vanguard partly in response to the mid-1970s fuel crisis. The CitiCar was a tiny golf cart sized car that could go at a top speed of about 39 mile per hour.  At about 4,300 C-Car variants produced, it still holds the record for most road-legal electric cars made in automobile history.

December 17, 2010

Parquet Table by Bouf. Easy shipping and assembly. Good design but also great do-it-yourself idea…...

December 15, 2010

Antonello Fuse coat hangers made from old recycled chair backs.

December 06, 2010

Sandcomb seat from reused cotton by DKSD, Dutch interior and product design studio. A lightweight, yet windproof seat when filled with sand. Part of ‘portable’ furniture series. - http://www.wraf.nl

Beautiful exterior cladding panel design by DKSD inspired by…herring!
Below is a new exterior cladding panel designed to protect buildings from rainwater and also retain it. This slightly bowl-shaped panel harvests rainwater and funnels it to tanks for internal storage. The water is then used for the building’s heating, cooling and sanitary installations.  The scale-like surface and pearly colours give the panels their nickname ‘Hollandse Nieuwe’, referring to Dutch fresh herring and two brand new Dutch designers!

November 30, 2010

Above: Ben Edwards and Juliet Moore

Made from discarded wood from various sources. Sanded and finished with linseed oil, putty and wax.

-http://edwardsmoore.com/

November 11, 2010

Handmade snowballs made from rubber and seeds by Everyday Design.

Above: Artist David Hammons selling real(100% snow)
snowballs on the streets of New York.

October 18, 2010

‘Whatever’ flower pots are a terracotta pots by brooklyn designer Jason Miller. The pots are made out of clay but are inspired by plastic bottles, metal cans or coffee cups people often use when they do not have a regular flower pot at hand.

http://www.millerstudio.us/

October 14, 2010

Pillows from recycled old wool sweaters, jackets or shirts. (Image from Katy Elliott)

Sofa cover from reused jeans fabric. (Image from Design Milk)

September 19, 2010

Above: Shelving/vase system displaying thistles, dried plants and exotic flowers.

Daniel Goers is a local Brooklyn designer, architect and artist who has a show right now called Scrap Ecology at Brooklyn coffee shop K-Dog in Lefferts Gardens.  All pieces are made from reclaimed materials except some lighting components. Daniel has been collecting scrap materials and remaking them into beautiful designs and sculptures for some time now. His other great project is in collaboration with artist Jennifer Wong called Birdtown. Fifty birdhouses were built from recycled materials and installed in Fort Greene:

http://myrtleavenuebirdtown.com/

Above: Daniel Goers and Jennifer Wong.

Above: Birdhouse from Birdtown.

Scrap Ecology aims to rearrange the raw materials of our urban and natural environments into objects with new meaning and purpose. These materials include abandoned shipping pallets from Red Hook, wood cutoffs from carpentry projects, recycled packaging, discarded architectural samples, donated plant stems and foraged specimens from Prospect Park and the mountains of Harriman State Park.

http://dgoers.com

Why reclaimed materials?

New York is a great place to find raw materials to build with.  every day the streets are filled with “trash” that can be so much more. But maybe the best reason is that material is free. The reclaimed material also tends to have more character.

Do you enjoy living in New York? Would you if you had an opportunity move somewhere where there are more trees and less garbage?

Of course, New York is a great place to be a designer but my sculptures do hint at the desire to be closer to nature.  I would love to live in a barn in the mountains but in the meantime I will work to bring nature to people’s homes here.

Above: Lamp made from glass jar moss terrariums.

Why do you think using reclaimed materials is popular today? 

It’s just marketing for many people. I like to believe that myself and many other designers simply see some intrinsic value and potential in the waste around us. What was once a shipping pallet can become a hundred new things, so why cut down another tree?  More people come to this realization and the ‘green’ movement will become less about marketing & more a part of the collective conscience.

September 10, 2010

How to make sofa out of pillows?
This cusioned sofa by Christiane Hoegner “uses the smallest element of a sofa - the little pillow on top - as main component.  Usually used to adjust and customize your personal comfort level, it is now multiplied and piled up to the shape of a sofa” - Christiane

Dad pillows by Christiane Hoegner made from button up shirts. Great idea for DIY project and a way to reuse old shirts!

Another beautiful pillow inspired sofa and stool:

Hanabi by MottoWasabi can be freely transformed according to different needs and seating situations and it is also possible to form a sofa by combining several Hanabis together.

August 24, 2010

Disposable tin food containers transformed into ceramic and reusable by Lorena Barrezueta.

July 22, 2010