MNN - Mother Nature Network

Apartment Therapy rattles off  list of your standard store-bought (Method, Mrs. Meyers, and the like) and DIY (lemons, white vinegar, etc.) eco-cleaning solutions. Honestly, nothing really new/mind-blowing to report here although there's lots of good chatter in the comments section.

 

Co.Design marvels at French sculptor/trash scavenger Marc Sparfel's amazing artistic creations made from old furniture dumped unceremoniously on the street by residents in his adopted city of Barcelona. Says Sparfel: "The neighbors [have] begun to leave me chairs in front of my workshop. This is my forest, my world where I walk with pleasure, always excited by the surprises the new harvest brings, where I hand-pick the best pieces, and choose the woods as if they were fruit on a tree."

 

The New York Times remembers Ada Louise Huxtable, pioneering architecture critic and ardent supporter of one of the more hideous buildings on the Eastern Seaboard: Boston's City Hall. Writes the Times: "At a time when architects were still in thrall to blank-slate urban renewal, Ms. Huxtable championed preservation — not because old buildings were quaint, or even necessarily historical landmarks, but because they contributed vitally to the cityscape. She was appalled at how profit dictated planning and led developers to squeeze the most floor area onto the least amount of land with the fewest public amenities." Huxtable, a Pulitzer Prize winner, died earlier this week at the age of 91.

 

Jetson Green is intrigued by designer Victor Vetterlein's (he of the edible desk lamp) Micro Office Systems Space (MOSS) concept, a somewhat sinister-looking prefab "self-contained auxiliary office unit" for backyards, driveways, and even rooftops that's clad with PV panels and constructed from various durable, sustainable materials. A personal wind turbine can even be affixed to the top of the unit. Designed to stamp out the carbon emissions and road rage associated with a daily car commute to work, a JG commenter gives an apt description of the bunker-esque MOSS: "Interesting, but looks too much like a survival pod or Darth Vadar's escape capsule." Obviously, that's it pictured up top.

 

Dwell waxes on the art of procuring vintage modern furniture from Craigslist.

 

TreeHugger offers a different take on this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Writes Jaymi Heimbuch in an excellent think piece: "There is one thing that is painfully clear to me each year I am here. We produce too much stuff to the point of redundancy and even ridiculousness. The consumer electronics industry is bound up in this truth: the myriad choices we are given as consumers of gadgets is pure illusion. Instead of freedom through modern gadgetry, we are unwittingly made increasingly unhappy by it." 

 

Curbed eyes a rather interesting property in Huntsville, Texas, that's recently hit the market for $89,900: Trash-happy builder extraordinaire Dan Phillips' Charleston House. Curbed shares all the deets: "The 935-square-foot home features floors made of wine cork, a fence imbued with empty wine bottles, and a myriad of '70s-style mosaics peppering the dark interior. Listen, upcycling is a fabulous thing—and everybody likes looking at homes composed of Heineken bottles or covered in gems, buttons, and glass—but sometimes it can be hard to see the line between eco-savvy, kooky artistry, and, well, Crazytown."

 

The Atlantic Cities examines a rather troubling report/forecast released by the U.S. Forest Service that predicts between 16 and 34 million acres of forest could be destroyed by the year 2060 to make way for the sprawl monster.

 

The New York Times steps inside the woodsy North Carolina home of non-crazy cat hoarder rescuer, bird-lady, and noted ceramicist Siglinda Scarpa. Dubbing her as "the Mother Theresa of Animals" art curator Roger Manley describes 72-year-old Scarpa's home as being "so calm and serene — like a spa for cats."