Im always on the lookout for surveys and stats that tell us a little more about how we want to live, rather than the way we currently do- they can be a fascinating insight for any designer particularly those interested in the Future Home. Well this week its bathrooms. A recent survey of 1500 home [...]
Category Archives: Healthy spaces
Eco Homes – Detoxing for 2013
January 25, 2013 – 11:10 am
It’s a New year and time for a fresh start. I’m sure many of us have made resolutions to ‘detox’, but how about detoxing our homes? Or even better, Smart technology that will do it for us? Chinese based Ecovacs have created the Famibot. It’s main aim is to roam your floor and purify the [...]
Eco Homes need new ways to dry clothes – new research shows
November 7, 2012 – 4:08 pm
New research by the Mackintosh School of Architecture showed that 75% of the homes visited had moisture levels that would promote dust mite growth and the risk of breathing difficulties. This was largely caused by home owners drying their washing indoors in the winter months. In fact one washing load being laid out across a [...]
Biomimicry: What eco design can learn from nature?
March 30, 2012 – 9:36 am
As a designer, there’s really no greater inspiration than the marvels of nature. Increasingly we’re seeing science taking its cues from the natural world in an effort to solve complex design issues in a more organic way. Hopefully creating better spaces for us to live in. In a nutshell (nice idiom right?), biomimicry or [...]
Bored Of Cotton? Here Are Some Brilliant New and Unique Sustainable Fabrics For The Home
March 1, 2012 – 4:24 pm
It has has been said that the battle for greater sustainability in the home will be fought on a material front. I for one am always appalled at the hidden damage many conventional materials that we use create and am similarly thrilled to find new materials that tackle the same functional issues but without [...]
Eco Home Composting: future designs on home food waste
February 8, 2012 – 10:33 am
Ok, so my guilty secret is out. I really find it tough to recycle food waste and scraps from my kitchen. And I suspect I’m not the only one. It’s the smells coming from the compost caddy, the emptying into my enormous outdoor composter, and then getting stuck in to turn and farm this ready-made [...]
Eco Drying At Home: Hang Your Tumble Dryer Out To Dry
January 25, 2012 – 1:57 pm
Statistics show that of all our domestic appliances, tumble dryers are the most energy hungry, with power consumption ranging from around 2 kWh to 5 kWh per cycle. This can result in CO2 emissions of around 330 kg to over 800 kg per year. According to statistics, out of nearly 25 million households in [...]
Water, water everywhere but…how eco homes can cut their water use
November 25, 2011 – 12:14 pm
A recent survey carried out by Unilever suggested that the amount of water used in showers is significantly more than had been imagined. The survey, which was carried out by data loggers, compiled information from 2600 showers from 100 families over a 10 day period, suggests that average shower times are in the region of [...]
A Million Little Pieces: The Magic of Mosaics
November 1, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Patchworks are a key way to use materials in the world of eco design. And I just love them. Simply put, they offer the opportunity for small, otherwise unusable parts of material to have a new and useful life. Whilst big slabs of materials might look bold and impressive, they are also inefficient as they [...]
Vertical Environments – Not Just Tall Stories
October 26, 2011 – 8:42 am
Recently I was asked to get involved with a TV proposal looking to create an urban vertical farm from a disused tower block – codenamed ‘Pigs in Penthouses’. Sadly the show didn’t get commissioned, which is a real shame as it was brilliantly bonkers. But it’s thought provoking just how much aerial space has yet [...]
