Deep-seated eco silliness

Swiss artist and furniture designer Michel Bussien is an environmental matchmaker of sorts — his recent creation the “The Growing Chair” offers humans a reintroduction to nature.
A fast growing Willow tree and a Russian vine is planted into a chair-shaped plastic greenhouse. The Willow tree forms around the chair supporting the structure and the vine helps hold everything together.
When the flora outgrows its lush greenhouse, it can be snapped open and removed.
Awkward introductions aside, this living chair shows that environmentalists maybe have a sense of humor??!
According to the artist’s Nature Manifesto:
“… To move further we need to incorporate the living matter that surrounds us. Let us use the complexity of living nature and include it in our creations. These creations will then redefine the way we reconstruct nature. Only then will we truly move forward…”
Then again, maybe not.

If you've got it, spend it!

While Angela Jolie collects orphans, her other half, Brad Pitt collects high-end (not child friendly) contemporary furniture. During his shopping spree at Design Miami/Basel he purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars of contemporary furniture.

Here's a sampling of what he purchased:

I can’t help but wonder what this stuff will look like after it’s been exposed to their child army. Kudos to Brad Pitt for keeping the high-end furniture market rolling!

A cure for chair butt?

Inspired by the playfulness of an orange peel, Varier Furniture is unleashing its Peel Club chair at NeoCon, June 15-17.
This chair is more than good looking—it’s a pleasurable experience for the body. Goodbye chair butt??! The organic shape allows users to vary their sitting position while lounging, reading, listening or plotting evil (my personal favorite).
The ergonomic chair has been wildly popular in the European contract market, selling more than 55,000 units in 10 months. To translate: If you don’t like this chair, then you’re not as sophisticated or cool as our chain-smoking, swatch car driving, and beret wearing brethren across the pond.
The Peel Club is made from 100 percent recycled materials and is available in eco-friendly wool and hundreds of color and fabric combinations.

Recession Smession: DVF boutique channels white hot glamour

Design maven Diane Von Furstenburg has never been afraid to take risks—including expanding her brand in a recession.
DVF recently teamed with Storetech+Co to create a posh, high-style shopping experience. The design focal point, a custom Swarovski chandelier features suspended crystal droplets against a contemporary white interior. The soft metallic finish absorbs and softly reflects a continuously changing color palette. Adding to the glamour are Venetian plaster ceilings and gleaming white terrazzo flooring adorned with exotic skin rugs.
Plasma screens are strategically placed to showcase DVF runway shows, and her designs and accessories are shown on floor-to-ceiling custom millwork throughout the boutique.

An ode to breezy summer days

After working in the world of loveless high-volume manufacturing, New Zealand native Jolyon Yates wanted to create some soulful and distinctive low-volume furniture.
In 2008 he started ODE, a venture that specializes in one-off distinctive, eco-friendly furniture.
I especially love his Breeze or Savannah Rocker. Its flowing surfaces lead the eye on an easy journey into a slower era. The Breeze is sculpted from Birch Plywood and stands approximately 1,000 mm tall by 520 mm wide by 1,000 mm deep. It’s finished with a strong satin lacquer to draw out the subtle natural colors of the wood.

Pimp my outdoor space: Green edition

Vacations are so last year.
According to a recent survey, almost one-third of consumers are staying home during vacation time and 59 percent are cutting back on vacations. Enter the staycation, a fancy term for hanging out in your backyard. Many retailers are hoping staycations will translate into increased outdoor furniture sales.
To help cut through wooden outdoor furniture greenwashing claims, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) has released its third annual Garden Furniture Scorecard. The Scorecard catalogs 16 retailers selling Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified garden furniture at various price points.
Retailers such as Cost Plus World Market, Crate & Barrel, The Home Depot, Lowe’s and Pottery Barn all scored 4 stars or better, which means that more than 70 percent of their tropical wood garden furniture is from responsible sources. This is the largest group of retailers to attain a score of 4 stars or better.

According to the NWF, The U.S. is the world’s largest single importer of wooden furniture from tropical timber-producing countries, with garden furniture representing about one-fifth of the wooden furniture market. U.S. imports of all tropical wood products have increased four-fold over the past decade. As a result, the once biologically rich forests of countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil are being depleted at an unprecedented rate.
NWF plans to continue its annual surveys of major outdoor furniture retailers to track the progress of making FSC-certified products available to consumers.