Design & Architecture

Images courtesy of Krylon

When it comes to DIY projects, spray paint is super convenient. It covers just about anything, it won't chip off and it protects objects from the elements. It's also a quick and easy way to get a perfectly smooth finish on textured objects. Sadly though, spray paint is full of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and other toxins that are equally bad for the planet and human health.

So Naturally Savvy was happy to discover Krylon's H2O Latex Spray Paint, a 100 percent acrylic latex formula that eliminates some of those harmful chemicals. But it isn't exactly perfect. Here's why:

Recent Comment by tcolberg : "Thanks for the review. It's nice to see postings about products that allow us to get i..." [read]

Cars & Transportation

Image: Press-Office City of Müenster, Germany

And That's Just Space...
They say an image is worth a thousand words. In this case, it really is. You can write about urban planning and air pollution and traffic congestion, but the three photos above show you at a glance the difference between these three means of transportation. And space isn't everything: Cars also cost more money, pollute more, increase risks of obesity and all kinds of diseases, etc.

materials

The low cost of vinyl windows helped make McMansions possible

In March, 2005 John Laumer wrote a defense of vinyl windows: Look Out Any Window; in March , 2006 I suggested that he was wrong in A Year Ago in TreeHugger: A Defence of Vinyl. In March, 2007 I ate some of my words in Vinyl Windows: John was Right and I was Wrong. I Think. after the US Green Building Council concluded that they really were not that much worse than any other kind of windows. In the two years since, I have concluded that they are evil, not only because of their manufacture and the disposal issues but because they are butt ugly and ruin buildings.

But this time I leave the issue in the capable hands of one of the best design writers around, Alice Rawsthorn of the International Herald Tribune, who turns her eye toward vinyl windows and finds them lacking.

Design & Architecture

Getty

When we watched in awe as TVCC, a Rem Koolhaas-designed hotel, went up in flames a month ago -- apparently the work of an errant firework -- Beijingers weren't just watching one of the most spectacular building infernos in recent history, a disaster that cost a firefighter's life, millions of dollars in damages, and perhaps sky-high pollution levels. It was also easy to see it as a vivid omen -- as auspicious a symbol of China's coming year as the Olympic flame was of its triumphant ascendence to the world stage last year.

But to pick up a theme that's becoming popular these days, what if this pyre of economic and architectural ambition were actually fertile ground for rethinking how cities grow, in China and elsewhere?

less is more

G10 Design have come up with the Hammokum, an interesting idea for a sort of hammock balcony that clips on to the facade of your apartment. The designers start with a very TreeHugger principle: "Remember: the least you have the freer you are!"

chairs

Australian designer Simone LeAmon a fascination with "machismo of moto culture." She makes the Lepidoptera chair from textile remnants from Autofab, an Australian automotive textile manufacturer.

Design & Architecture

There are a lot of good reasons to build on stilts without a basement; it disturbs the ground less, reduces flood risk, can be a lot cooler, or can preserve tree roots. The latter appears to be the main reason that Andrés Jaque Architectos did it for this house in Ibiza (which they call Never Never Land)- the trees grow right through it.

interiors

Michael Falco for The New York Times

Times are tough all over, and even the normally over-the-top New York Times homes section is getting the message. The theme today is the Three Hundred Dollar Makeover, full of tips that one might find in Craft or Make but the Times? It is hit or miss- making a "rug" on the floor with duct tape? And really, nobody has painted stripes on the walls since the seventies.