Ron Arad’s bike is up for the auction block: These wheels will add some spring to your ride. Unlike the car, which comes in many shapes, colors, and sizes, the bicycle has not been subject to as many design transformations and over the years has pretty much retained its classic shape. Here and there there […]
Industrial designer Michael Tsinovsky brought together Israel’s many local styles in his ‘asli’ furniture design. When it comes to consumerism, local is almost always better for the environment and for the local economy. Local is better when you’re buying produce at the farmer’s market, when you’re supporting local artisans and craftsmen, and when you’re purchasing […]
PET bottles hark back to their glass bottle predecessors using traditional glass blowing techniques. Plastic bottles have pretty nasty reputations for being bad for human health and the environment. Very few people are arguing that plastic bottles (and especially bottled water) are a good thing in the long run. Some companies, such as Israeli fashion […]
To all of you out there who used to make seashell necklaces on the beach as kids – did you ever think of making one of these? Beautiful beaches can be found all over the Middle East, but unfortunately many of them are plagued by unnatural waste. During the hot summer months it is a […]
Find a good spot and plop down in your picnic dress for an impromptu meal on the grass. Picnics are great because they allow us to appreciate the great outdoors (sometimes motivating us to take more efforts to protect it). But sometimes picnics are not so great because they result in picnic littering, or the […]
Candlesticks that have lost their partners find a home in this upcycled menorah. Most flea markets and second-hand stores have them – candlesticks either with or without their partners. Solitary candlesticks often tend to be left behind, since they usually come in pairs. But thanks to this menorah design from Reddish Studio (the same people […]
If you think these sunglasses are made from tortoise shell, guess again. Accessories may be one of the most important places for an ecologically minded designer to start. Accessories are the victims of quickly changing trends and fads, and so their unsustainable fashionable-ness makes their ecological sustainability greatly needed. We’ve seen other green designers tackle […]
Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub (chair). Designers often talk about “clean” design, with crisp lines and an absence of frou-frou decoration. But apparently there’s another kind of clean design – the kind that’s clean because it’s upcycled from objects formerly used to keep people clean, like a bath tub. The Bath […]
The seven modular folds of the Loop Chair grant it a twelve-fold function. Modular: constructed with standardized units or dimensions for flexibility and variety in use. It’s the “flexibility and variety in use” part that makes modular design so sustainable, because if one item can be modified and serve a range of functions then you […]
Finally, some eco-friendly shoes for the fashionable green men out there. We’ve seen an abundance of eco-friendly shoes here on Green Prophet of late – from Sharon Golan’s mix-and-match Shell 256 shoes to Daniela Bekerman’s “ze o ze” shoes that let you change the heels to fit your mood. But what’s an eco-friendly man to […]
From small-scale butterflies to large horses, Reuven Fields’ scrap metal sculptures breathe life into discarded pieces. It takes a lot of energy to mine metals from the earth, and significantly less energy to recycle metals into something new. But if you can upcycle used metal scraps into something else (such as an upcycled aluminum can […]
Click your heels three times and say: there’s no thing like eco-fashion! Eco designers (and designers who are interested in fun and whimsy) have been tackling the shoe issue for some time, finding ways to make them both more sustainable and versatile. Big shoe titans like Nike have created shoe recycling programs in order to […]
Avinoam’s sawdust benches and stools are made from the remains from someone else’s… well… benches and stools. The crunchy granola types out there may think of composting toilets right away when they hear the word ‘sawdust’, but not those eco-chic greenies out there. Sawdust, a highly available yet often discarded material, is full of possibilities […]
Mix and match the endless possibilities with Sharon Golan’s Mr. Potato-esque DIY shoes. When it comes to fashion, and sustainable fashion, shoes may be one of the worst offenders. Not only do shoe fashions change rapidly, but they also tend to wear out faster than our other articles of clothing. Shoe designers and producers have […]
Versace caved to pressure to stop selling “killer” sandblasted jeans. Will other brands follow suit? Blue jeans are getting uglier by the day. Around Christmas last year we wrote about environmental and social hazards associated with the “jeans capital of the world” in China. We’ve since discovered that giving jeans a distressed look, achieved by […]
Dror Peleg’s recycled plastic bike will set you “Frii” from flat tires. You won’t be able to do the Tour de France with this colorful bike designed by Israeli student Dror Peleg, but you will definitely capture everyone’s attention. Like this green toilet also developed in Israel, and Hashim Al Sada’s solar generator developed specifically […]
The modular toaster, designed by Hadar Gorelik, is sustainable by virtue of its intended long-term use. Sustainable design is often thought of in terms of upcycled or organic materials, but it is also about what happens to the designed object in the long run. Cardboard furniture, for example, is sustainable not only because it is […]
Hanging from the ceiling like an ivy plant, Omer Deutsch’s “Secondary Growth” computer design softens the harsh, plastic, traditional work cubicle. If you’re reading this right now, chances are you are a person who spends at least an hour or two a day on a computer (if not more). This has become commonplace practice for […]
Ecco Ukka’s funky fabric jewelry pieces are green, fashion forward, and comfy all at the same time. It’s not easy to make it cool to be green. Eco conscious designers – who believe that you can have sleek Prada-esque taste and environmental values at the same time – often have a hard time shedding the […]
Latin America, once a part of the Spanish Empire, is home to Trees Give Life, the Muslim ran tree planting project. Read more on the tree huggers in Mexico.
Echinodermus and Pissenlit–created by TILT. With towering trees made of light, flying acrobats, and psychedelic music, the Jerusalem Festival of Light seemed more like a big carnival for grown-ups than a forum for environmental art. Happily, many of the artists featured at the festival made sure to include sustainability and social responsibility in their designs. […]
Yesterday’s news finds new use in Tal Gur’s Daily Chair. The chair is perhaps the most culturally ubiquitous form of furniture, and so it is no wonder that so many designers try to put their own spin on it. Among local environmentally-friendly designers we have already seen Junktion’s upcycled bicycle and window shade chairs, Amir […]
Royally save resources with Green Queen’s eco friendly design products. Green Prophet has encountered several green royals over the past few years, between Jordan’s Queen Rania helping organic farmers and lobbying for environmental education, and H.E. Sheikh Abdulaziz Al Nuaimi (aka The Green Sheikh) penning a monthly column for this very site. But there’s a […]
Medical device industrial designer creates eco-friendly Amazonian vibrators. Award-winning designer, Ofer Zick, didn’t intend to be a green advocate when he founded ‘ThinkingOfYou – Erotic Icons’, but his grown-up T.O.Y. provides sustainable pleasure nonetheless (see the box below to learn more about what makes adult toys green). As an industrial designer, his specialty is medical […]
Enjoy taxidermy without the guilt, with a recycled (and recyclable) cardboard deer head. In centuries past, mounted deer (or other animal) heads were considered a type of trophy – an item that illustrated the skills and capabilities of the hunter who killed the deer. If a man had a deer head on his wall, you […]
