Strolling down the glitzy northern part of Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Street this week, something strange caught my eye among all the designer gowns and stiletto pumps. Garbage. Literally, garbage. No, not on the street. In the window display.
The garbage – which included aluminum cans and newspapers – was in the window display of Cotton, an Israeli organic cotton clothing design store. Since I knew about Cotton’s dedication to the environment, this didn’t seem so strange anymore. And as I walked right up to the window itself, the garbage didn’t look so trashy anymore. It actually looked pretty impeccably designed.
Shulayim – an interior design studio with an environmentally friendly focus – designed Cotton’s window display and offers a lot of other stylish and creative uses for our everyday trash.
Their limited edition of products includes light fixtures, furniture, and accessories that are made out of natural and recycled materials. Shulayim also follows green guidelines in the production of their designs in order to reduce their carbon footprint.
The light fixture below, called “Uga” (cake in Hebrew) is an example of the studio’s focus on reused and natural materials: the light is made out of a repurposed cake tin and natural luffa. And on the right – “Marzevase”: a fruit bowl made out of a repurposed tin roof eave.
Shuli Levin, the studio’s designer, also focuses on creating designs that can be recycled and transformed. When describing one of his designs, for example, Levin said that “the metal frame will last forever, but all the other materials can be easily replaced, thus achieving two goals: avoiding a heavily polluting process in the first place as well as converting it to a different creation as the end of its useful life nears.”
In creating designs that are meant to transform and change with their owners, Levin reduces the amount of un-trendy garbage that ends up in our landfills. Shulayim’s designs never go out of style.
But don’t stop here, Green Prophet has other great design stories.
Start with:
::Enlightenment by Arik Levy (lamps)
:: Inbal Limor Recycles Plastic Bags Into High Art
Author: Karen Chernick
Much to the disappointment of her Moroccan grandmother, Karen became a vegetarian at the age of seven because of a heartfelt respect for other forms of life. She also began her journey to understand her surroundings and her impact on the environment. She even starting an elementary school Ecology Club and an environmental newsletter in the 3rd grade. (The proceeds of the newsletter went to non-profit environmental organizations, of course.) She now studies in New York. Karen can be reached at karen (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
