Our Favorite Things: Week One!

by Maggie Flickinger

If you receive our enewsletter, you may have seen “Our Favorite Things.” This is a weekly-ish grouping of some of the exciting places, products/systems/materials, people, or projects that are on our radar. It’s a fun way of keeping you in our loop!

Disclaimer: We’ll be doing our best to keep these in the realm of sustainable living, but once in a while if something really knocks our socks off, but lacks an environmental bent, it could make the list!

Our Favorite Things Week OneSEED stands for Social Economic Environmental Design, and represents a new design metric for buildings and communities.  We read about it via Residential Architect magazine after it was unveiled at their Structures for Inclusion conference.  We’ve always been interested in this, being a triple bottom line business, and have recently been exploring it in our Twin Buttes Ecovillage development.  We can’t wait to check this out, and think you should, too!

Our Favorite Things Week OnePlanet Reuse is a nascent “matchmaking” service for designers and architects searching for used / reclaimed / recycled building materials.  Post your excess materials, or browse postings for materials you need, and Planet Reuse will help you broker an exchange!  We’ve seen everything from light fixtures to old barn beams, and requests ranging from milk crates to corrugated metal roofing.  As with an P2P exchange site, users equal success, so sign up to be part of the change!

Rosa LovesOur Favorite Things Week One is a tshirt design company with a cause.  They identify community issues, design a shirt to express the issue, and proceeds from the sale of the shirt go directly to the cause.  Their first story was Glenda, and she got a new walker from Rosa Loves.  Since then, they’ve helped families and organizations worldwide with growing goals / gifts.  Lovely little detail: The shirts have their stories printed inside.  We love this company – it truly embodies the hope we share, that design can tangibly and positively affect our surrounding communities.

Our Favorite Things Week OneWe’ve admired Maya Romanoff’s earthy hemp wallpapers, and his new Meditation Series is simply stunning.  A handcrafted Nepalese paper created from sustainably farmed loftka is extruded with chopsticks to form an organic honeybomb texture.  Reminiscent (in a good way!) of a papery wasps nest, the covering has a subtle shimmer from mica flecks.  The bonus?  A partnership with Aid to Artisans will divert sale proceeds to artisans worldwide.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the first installation of “Our Favorite Things.”  We’d love feedback on what you’d like to see more of!

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