SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Furniture made of recycled paper

They are attractive, solid, colourful and entirely made from recycled paper. What more could you want, except to see them on sale quickly throughout the world?

Robust, stylish, modular and sustainable, the ZBoard range of storage and furnishing units are also very easy to assemble. No tools required! And what's more, they have the unique feature of being made from recycled paper. Dreamed up by a Californian company that has achieved success with practical, sustainable furniture, the ZBoard range is available in a number of versions. They can be transformed into simple storage units that can be placed against a wall, or positioned in the middle of the room to divide it in two... And there's no need to be a DIY whiz to assemble the various ZBoard units. You don't even need any tools. No hammers or drills. Just a little tube of glue is all it takes to assemble the various parts of the furniture.

http://www.waybasics.com

Living on water to better understand the land

By definition, living on water brings you closer to the natural elements. Starting from this principle, the architect Joanna Borek had the idea of launching the Tafoni project.

Whether they are canal barges converted into homes, or abandoned oil rigs reused as aquatic tree-houses, floating homes are an idea whose time has come, as they bring us closer to the natural elements. Among the most recent projects is one by American architect Joanna Borek. Her concept for a floating home involves dividing the space into three zones: kitchen, living area, bathroom/clothing storage. The front part of the boat is occupied by a living room and the rear area by the bedroom, and both these rooms obviously have magnificent view of the water. There are no full-height internal walls except those of the bathroom and dressing room. The central section consists of a fully-glazed sunroom housing the kitchen, eating area and the main entrance to the home. The spirit of Joanna Borek's project is similar to that of the Gewoonboot developed in Amsterdam by the small public housing company Deltawonen, with toilet water coming from a rainwater tank, no mains gas or electricity, solar panels on the roof linked to accumulators for storing the electricity and, for heating, a system to recover heat from waste water.

http://joannaborek.com
http://www.designboom.com

Good & Green travelling

Published in the Netherlands, the "Good & Green" city guides aim to introduce you to towns through their ethical, organic and well-being aspects.

Published in Dutch and English, the "Good & Green" guides contain a series of useful addresses, covering shops, institutions, accommodation, restaurants etc., all of which have to satisfy the same criteria to be listed in the guide: being green, respectable and sustainable. On sale at just under 20 euros, the "Good & Green" guides will delight city-break enthusiasts weary of more traditional guides. For each address listed, the guide provides the usual practical details, such as opening times and web address, but also instructions for how to get there using public transport. For each sales outlet listed in the sustainable shopping section, the guide goes as far as to give the commitments the shop respects (fair trade products, ban on products manufactured by child labour, contributions of profits to environmental programmes etc.).

http://www.goodandgreenguides.com