If you’re interested in helping Bklyn’s environment and using your roof for something tasty like veggies, check out the green roofing workshop by Green It Yourself and Eco Brooklyn. They offer intensive and semi-intensive classes from $300 to $600.  For basic info, look into their free class on August 8th. Additionally, if you’re interested in green roofing as a profession, check out greenroof.org to learn about the industry and becoming accredited.

Instructables is a great site for D.I.Y. types. One of their recent posts teaches you how to make a bench from cardboard, which has actually become a material of choice for many designers lately. The builder of this bench mentioned that he was inspired by the work of Brooklyn’s very own Scrapile.  Aside from being an easy project, this tutorial also has a sustainable benefit if it’s done with reclaimed cardboard.  The author also testifies to the bench’s strength, saying that it can support three adults. But just keep it keep away from water. Visit the tutorial here and download a pdf with instructions.

SCRAPILE ‘s benches made with repurposed scraps of wood from New York’s woodworking industry. Visit their site here.

Last night I came across Daily Routines, a rather fascinating blog about how writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days. While I always assumed that the creative mind works best late at night, some of the interviews illustrate the contrary: both Gerhard Richter and Gio Ponti started the day around 6 a.m. Winston Churchill, who was actually a writer by profession,  awoke at 7:30, but worked from bed until 11 a.m. Here is an interesting piece on Le Corbusier. Enjoy it with some morning coffee:

Le Corbusier’s working hours were implacably regular. During my four years at the atelier, he worked at the rue de Sévres from two in the afternoon to around seven. The hour of 2:00 P.M., I soon learned, was holy. If you were a minute late you risked a reprimand. At first Corbu arrived either by subway (a convenient, direct metro line connected his Michel-Ange- Molitor station with the atelier’s Sévres-Babylone) or by taxi. Later on he started driving his old pistachio-green Simca Fiat convertible. In his last years it would be the taxi again. The process of returning home revealed quite a lot about Le Corbusier’s character. If the work went well, if he enjoyed his own sketching and was sure of what he intended to do, then he forgot about the hour and might be home late for dinner. But if things did not go too well, if he felt uncertain of his ideas and unhappy with his drawings, then Corbu became jittery. He would fumble with his wristwatch – a small, oddly feminine contraption, far too small for his big paw – and finally say, grudgingly, “C’est difficile, l’architecture,” toss the pencil or charcoal stub on the drawing, and slink out, as if ashamed to abandon the project and me — and us — in a predicament.

By Daniel Sommer, Contributor

Following in the footsteps of other New York public arts projects such as Christo’s The Gates and Olafur Eliasson’s Waterfalls, Brooklyn based sculptor Joan Benefiel held an opening reception in the Hudson River Park last night for The Hudson River Project. As founder of Figuration sculpture studio, Benefiel’s latest project aims to perch translucent resin figures on top of abandoned river pillions on what was once Pier 42 on Manhattans west side. Each sculpture will be cast out of bright orange resin, and will glow with ambient light. The Hudson River Pilings Project was created with permission of the Hudson River Park Trust and will be officially unveiled later in the summer.

Benefiel’s figures that will be perched on the pilings were on display at the New York Academy of Art early this year.

Via NY Times’s The Moment Blog.
Photo by David Heald, © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York Model of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Herbert Jacobs House #1, Madison, Wisc., 1936-37; developed by Situ Studio, Brooklyn.

In “Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward,” an exhibition currently on view at the Guggenheim Museum, the models of Wright’s designs are attracting as much attention as the exhibition itself. Perhaps the most notable model is that of Wright’s Herbert Jacobs House #1 of 1936-37, the first of the architect’s pioneering open-plan, energy-efficient Usonian houses. The basswood model takes the house’s components — from its window frames to its innovative copper-piped radiant-heating system — and explodes them, so that they seem to hang in midair.

See the exhibit and watch an interview with Situ’s architects.

This and the exhibition’s five other models were designed and made by Situ Studio, a four-year-old Brooklyn multidisciplinary firm known for its cutting-edge approach to digital design and fabrication technologies. It’s current projects include fabricating a bamboo and birch lobby for One Jackson Square, a soon-to-be-completed building by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. The Guggenheim curators chose Situ because they were determined not to go the usual architectural-model route and they even put a clause in Situ’s contract forbidding the use of those fuzzy little hobby-shop trees. Given the museum’s ramped floors, the architects also decided to forgo the usual flat plinth on which most building models sit. Situ’s Wright models seem to grow out of the Guggenheim’s curving parapet, or cantilever off its walls just above eye level. The tabletop terrain model of Taliesin, Wright’s Wisconsin home and studio, functions as a contoured screen (complete with Monopoly-scaled versions of the property’s structures) for the projection of historic landscape reports and plot maps. The display — to which Situ is still adding data — demonstrates the depth of the young architects’ research. They admitted that before embarking on this five-month project, they had only a cursory knowledge of Wright. “He’s not taught in architecture schools like Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier,” said Bradley Samuels, one of Situ’s partners. Wes Rozen, another partner, added, “He’s more difficult to analyze.”

vaya bags by renegadecraftfair at last year’s show

The Renegade Craft Fair is this weekend (June 6 and 7) from 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. in McCarren Park (by the track, not the pool). The event is FREE. Over 250 stellar, super-talented and hardworking craftspeople will be selling affordable products, designs and artwork.

Giramundo Swivel Chair, Recycled Multicolored Yarn

A couple of weeks ago, Time ran an article on how DiCaprio, Julia Roberts and the set designers from ABC’s Ugly Betty are buyers of Environment, a furniture store known for their minimalist lines and eco edge. Environment, is an interesting company because they’ve managed to successfully merge and market the concepts of high end and sustainability. They have two showrooms in California and one near Union Square that’s worth a visit. Like the chair above, most of their products are made from sustainable materials. One of their sofas has been upholstered with canvas from Brazilian truck tops and many of the tables are made from reclaimed Peroba harvested from derelict houses, barns and buildings in Paraná, Brazil.

Marison Dining Table, Paroba, Natural Finish

Organica, Enviornment’s publication. Learn about the company and its mission.
Click here to read.

This document focuses on their commitment to sustainability. Click here to read.

Environment
876 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
t 212-780-0051 f 212-780-0061
Mon-Sat 10-7 Sun 11-6
nyshowroom@environmentfurniture.com

Penny Bonda’s blog at Interior Design, just turned me onto an app by Sherwin Willimas that takes a photo, analyzes the color sheme, and then matches a specific color to a paint. Of course there’s a button that gives you directions to the nearest Sherwin Williams store, but this program may be helpful to a designer who needs to nail a color. The app that Penny reviewed is actually for Benjamin Moore and was due out today, but wasn’t listed in the iPhone store. Give the phone a shake, and that program gives you a complete color scheme to choose from.

This site’s stats show that a lot of visitors are searching for plans to build modern furniture. In response, I’ve added a new widget on the right hand side that lists places where you can buy them. If you’re in Brooklyn, Tools for Working Wood, a store I just visited to buy wood bleach, has some interesting books on how to build modern furniture. They also have a very comprehensive selection of high end tools.