Caroma at Greenbuild: One Flush a Day – Gives an iPad 2 Away

It is not lost on us here at Modenus that sustainability might be seen as the ‘design-term-du-jour.’ We are happy to report that for many of the companies we love, sustainability is not just lip-service. Caroma planted their water-conservation flag years ago, and now, as the rest of the world attempts to catch up to them – Caroma just keeps on innovating.

Caroma has been a major exhibitor at Greenbuild for a number of years, and this year will be no different. With over 50 WaterSense approved toilets to their name, and now a new low-flow shower head, the world is their sustainable oyster. Continue Reading…

Dwell on Design – another three to see

Modwalls
Booth Number: 1030
www.modwalls.com
On Modenus

‘Making tile modern’, they say. Well they certainly make modern tiles. When you see their range, including their gorgeous glass tiles, a personal favourite, you can see why this is the name that springs to mind when so many designers look to source tile for client’s projects. We’ve heard rumours that they are bringing a couple of new lines with them to Dwell. Always good people to seek out. Say ‘hi’ from Modenus.

Native Trails
Booth Number: 220
www.nativetrails.net

A good tub is a guarantee of a place on any Modenus preview list. And this, my friends, is a very good tub from what appears to be a very good company. The tub is called Aspen and, like other Native Trails products, it is handcrafted using recycled material. I know I should be writing a little more about Native Trails here but, if it’s ok with you, lets just look at their lovely tub for a while instead. Ahhhhhhhhhh. Thank you.

Peter Francis
Booth Number: 715
peterfrancisdesign.com

According to the Dwell on Design website ‘Peter Francis furniture is designed by Peter Saloom’. So why isn’t it Peter Saloom furniture? If you go to the show you’ll have to ask. His, let’s just say Peter’s, furniture is made from solid Maple, it is uncompromisingly modern but has a simplicity and confidence about it which is appealing. Unmistakably American, there are traditional woodworking techniques deployed here.

This is the second of our Dwell On Design previews. Our top picks from the show out West.  More soon.

Hunting for a healthy floor – pleasantly surprised by cork

A guest blog by Françoise Murat of Françoise Murat & Associates

In 2010 we worked on an eco project that lasted six months. This was a complete refurbishment of a late Victorian house with ground and two floors above. Eco was not a choice but a necessity due to children suffering with life threatening health problems. Amongst other things we had to look at eco paint, floor stains, floor varnishes and other hard materials.

The kitchen was a complete gut and re-build. Apart from designing the kitchen we had to find a floor finish for the kitchen/breakfast room where this family spends 80% of its time and also the bedrooms and upstairs hallway in this detached Victorian house.

Hunting for the perfect healthy floor

For the kitchen our hunt began with ceramic, vinyl flooring, bamboo, carpets,recycled material, laminates, wood of course and even rubber amongst many other weird and wonderful things.

All materials had their own good and bad points and too long to go into here, but we tested and chose our final floor finish on: embodied energy, carbon emission for manufacture, shipping, durability, maintenance and of course it had to tick all the health boxes.

The clients did talk of cork on and off in the first few weeks of this project and my initial reaction was “oh my god it’s going to look like a 1950’s drab house with spotty floors”. But as a designer you have to keep an open mind….so we sent off for samples….and we were blown away!

Continue Reading…

On lighting, tables and plastic spoons.

Modenus loves interesting lighting. Our interior design blogs are full of them and this is undoubtedly an interesting light from Portuguese Studio Verissimo. But indulge me for a second while I have a quick rant about plastic spoons. I loathe plastic spoons. I loathe them even more than I loathe plastic shopping bags. They are designed to be used once and then clog up landfills. And the alternative is something much nicer to use that can be washed easily. Yup, plastic spoons, lazy and wasteful. So why the rant? Look closely.

Continue Reading…

On quality, style, fashion and being green – a short Modenus manifesto.

People talk a lot of rubbish about Green Design. We’re going to talk about Green Design and rubbish. What something is made of matters.  What energy is used to produce it, how far the raw materials and, indeed, the finished product is transported all matter. But the single biggest factor is will it last?  And that comes down to two things, will it fall apart or look tatty quickly and will you still want to be looking at it this time next month, year or decade. A British politician described ‘sustainability’ as not cheating our children. So here’s a thought – would your children want to inherit your furniture?

So here are the two Modenus rules for being green

• Buy well made furniture that will last
• Buy beautiful furniture that you will want to last

And at this point, a quick word about the difference between fashion and style. Fashion is temporary, style or class is permanent. Fashion is designed to be bought, admired and thrown away. It is the antithesis of sustainability. Style or class is enduring. That’s why the market for antiques and vintage is so strong.

And with that, there follow five of our favourite pieces of furniture on Modenus, all items we believe some one’s lucky children will be delighted to inherit. Continue Reading…

A different sort of brick in the wall by Chooi-leng Tan

We rather like this. British based designer Chooi-leng Tan makes a variety of brick modules to create habitats for plants, animal and even water features on the sides of buildings.  We’re not going to rebuild our house just so that we can do it but if you are planning a new project it’s certainly one to consider. Continue Reading…

Little houses make a big impact – micro homes from Dwelle

How much fun can you have in 24 square meters? Or, if you don’t want to take up that much space there is a smaller version which takes up just 13 square meters? UK Manchester based architects Dwelle produce these gorgeous little structures which pack in more than you could imagine. Originally the company was called “Sheds for living” but later re-branded, wisely we think, as Dwelle, making their little abodes Dwelle.ings.

Intended to be ‘off grid’ and carbon zero, they can come with wood burning stoves or renewable energy sources such as solar panels and you can, should you wish, connect them to main utilities. Continue Reading…

Wilderness, mountains and David Trubridge

David Trubridge says that he does not design to fulfill a practical function. He says that he designs to communicate, to tell a story, to relate what he finds in the mountains and wilderness and what it is to be human.

He is clearly not enamored with much that claims to be eco-friendly design and, on his web site rails against the utilitarian. He also rejects trends and fashions and  design which seeks originality through ‘ the clever, witty or ironic ‘. These are rejected as gimmicks like one-liner jokes that may be laughed at once but are quickly forgotten.

So where does this leave us? Artists tend to trust their work to speak for them. We leave you to judge the extent to which David achieves his aim of  bringing cultural nourishment into people’s lives without using up precious resources and energy.

Continue Reading…

Scott White – Honest furniture from a straightforward man.

Scott White, of White Design is disarmingly honest and straightforward. He makes no bones about how he came to be a furniture designer and, on his website, is totally open about some of the hard times he has been through.

The same is true of his furniture. Based in Albuquerque, he likes to meet people in their homes, talk to them about the furniture they want and then make it for them. It’s an approach that has brought him something akin to a family of customers. One of his clients, a well known athlete went as far as to buy Scott a top of the range road bike when he learned of his enthusiasm for the sport. Others simply show their appreciation by telling friends about his highly functional, beautifully made furniture.

These are Scott’s Dana Dining Chairs, made from sculpted cherry and in many ways typical of Scott’s work. The function comes first and dictates the design. It’s then executed with an extraordinary degree of care resulting in a piece which is clearly hand made by a craftsman.

This is the C Table. It’s simple, elegant and fun. It was Dwell magazine’s product of the day. A day doesn’t seem nearly long enougth.

And these very elegant creations are Guitar Pick Side Tables in black walnut.  They almost seem to flow, the creation of a man who loves his materials.

And again, a beautiful use of wood. Baltic Birch Chest of Draws with recycled white oak. 15″ X 24″ X 60″. Many of the furniture makers we meet tell us about how green their products are.  Scott makes what he prefers to call’ sustainability’ at the heart of his work. He says he makes furniture for people to keep, furniture that won’t end up in a land-full site.  His wood is re-purposed or local from America’s mid west. He doesn’t want to be using up oil by transporting materials half way around the world and back again. 90% of the metal he uses is recycled. The wood which is left behind from his furniture is made into accessories and even jewelry.

Regular readers of our blog may remember Freddy Hill from Bomb Factory Furniture, proud owner of a 300 lb great Dane. Well, Scott also works in a disused armaments factory and this is Sadie, who, he tells us is the sweetest thing you are ever going to meet. Maybe the ‘Designers and their dogs’ feature we threatened is something we are really going to have to do!

Product spotlight – so sexy, so curvy, so….concrete by 910 Castings

I simply have to update the post I wrote below since our Master of Concrete just sent me another piece he’s just created:

I give you the “Chinese lacquer drum table in concrete”, and if all that weren’t enough….it’s cast in one piece. How? Where? Why? Well I happen to know where and I can’t say that my memories of 910 Castings’ workshop are fond, I’ve never been so cold in all my life. As to why? Do we need a reason for  pieces as cool as this? And how? Who cares. I want one!

At long last I get to write about a budding product line that is very dear to my heart. During a journey from cast-on-site concrete (yes the glorious business of casting parking lots), to concrete building materials and then onwards to pre-cast concrete counter tops and now concrete furniture, Boom Bechkowiak has refined the aggregate and the art of pre-casting concrete and now masters a material that is fickle and often misunderstood . He harnesses concrete’s ability to be a chameleon of sorts through carefully researched mixtures and selection of  just the right surface to cast against in order to create smooth, often glasslike surfaces that appear to be weightless and yet are as strong as you would expect concrete to be.

The wave sink, has to be my favourite piece in his new collection. I swear it’s concrete, really, it is.

The S-table. Notice how it not only makes the obvious S-curve but has twist towards the bottom as well. Boom I have to ask, do you sleep at night trying to figure out how to make the mold for such a thing? I can’t begin to imagine…getting all light headed just thinking about what it would take.

And the coffee table in the collection is so new it still needs a name…ideas anyone? More organic than the other two and visually heavier but you have to love the intricacy of the interwoven columns.

All concrete pieces are custom made. Prices available on request .