Photography courtesy of Viesso

Los Angeles has always had a knack for turning one man’s trash into another man’s table. Fortunately, custom furniture gurus, Viesso, know how to make it look great too. Constructed entirely out of reclaimed wood beams salvaged from rundown LA buildings, Viesso’s new Koper table is an eco-savvy cross between Jenga and a Rubik’s Cube. Fun, earthy, and versatile, the Koper has a certain charm not typically attributed to home furnishings. Viesso is something of a pioneer in furniture design, reconstructing the entire shopping process by encouraging individuality, efficiency, and smart innovation. Far from sifting through a showcase full of generic furniture, each table, sofa, and bed is customizable, offering earth-friendly options and materials. To further reiterate Viesso’s commitment to the planet, all products are manufactured locally. True to Viesso form, the Koper table ranges in sizes from 16” X 16” to 36” X 36”, with the option of a marble top. Custom tables start at $244.
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Steidl Books

The world is divided into three types of people: those who are conscious about the environmental damage we inflict on our planet, those who do not care, and those who are inclined to care but need some prodding. Sometimes it takes an artist to put things into perspective, to provide the visceral impact that can shock us into awareness. Edward Burtynsky’s new book, Oil (Steidl, $128), is just the ticket.
     Burtynsky has long been fascinated with what he calls “human-altered landscapes,” the vast vestiges of industrial activity. After a while he realized that oil production is the force behind many of these landscapes. Burtynsky began photographing human-made sites that have direct and remote relationships with oil. These include oil fields, refineries, car lots and scrape yards, and highways. The ten-year project resulted in a book containing a hundred panoramic shots from all over the world.
     This panoramic view is certainly an eye-opener. Let’s just say that whenever we take an exit from one highway to another, we don’t really think about the intricate anthill infrastructure of the roads. And, of course, some of us would rather not think about the mechanical ugliness of an oil refinery, the unfamiliar, repelling apparatus that we rely on for the modern world to function.
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In the 1800s, Brooklyn and Queens had the highest density of agricultural land in New York City. Today, the city landscape has changed, with total unused land of about 10,000 acres, all broken up into thousands of vacant lots, private backyards, and underutilized squares. Space in New York City is a highly valuable commodity. Walking down any city street, one can see urban dwellers creatively squeezing every inch out of the precious space they occupy. To BK Farmyards, a Brooklyn-based urban farming business, these structural limitations are the seedlings for a radical, community-based farming solution to food-sustainability issues.
     Contrary to our current chemical and land intensive agri-business model, it doesn’t take a lot of land to feed people — 250 square feet can feed 4-5 people for 6 months, according to BK Farmyards owner Stacey Murphy. BK Farmyards converts underutilized urban land, from private backyards to traffic circles, into edible gardens that grow crops, culture, and community. Their vision is large social change through use of tiny spaces: transforming the design and function of small plots into a decentralized, agricultural network connecting food producers, landowners, and consumers.
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As a follow-up to Anthony Smith’s mid-conference coverage of the climate talks in Copenhagen, check out this excellent article by journalist Mark Lynas on The Guardian website. This is a must-read for anyone baffled by the outcome of the talks (i.e., the lack of a credible, binding agreement) when so many nations seemed prepared, for once, to act. Especially interesting in light of how the early fallout has settled on Barack Obama. The title says a lot:
How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room.

As we watch the climate talks in Copenhagen continue toward their conclusion, many of us are left wondering if there is any legitimate potential for a real solution to the global climate crisis (or any global crisis for that matter) to be found in the process of international deal-making. Political debate and international diplomacy are, by their very natures, focused on the establishment of positions and the art of compromise, and as one of the more popular protest signs carried in the Copenhagen crowd so poignantly reminded us: “Nature Does Not Compromise”. As in, perhaps we’ll find a workable political solution for greenhouse gas emissions standards that all the nations of the world can happily agree to and we may establish a sizeable global fund for mitigating the damage to “at risk” societies and financing the implementation of new environmental technologies in developing nations; we might even get the whole of human civilization to give itself one giant collective hug. And yet the planet may not find our cuddly compromises the least bit convincing, and may in fact drop a hurricane on our heads or unleash a drought on our crops and a famine on our families and be done with us altogether.
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Check out this video of a bus ride through a forest fire in Queensland, Australia, set brilliantly to Tchaichovsky. Full-screen mode recommended.

Photography by Chris Jordan

Halfway between the U.S. and Japan lies an island of albatross that have unintentionally become plastic consumers. Lighters, small toys, golf balls, toothbrushes, and bottle caps imported from the nearby Pacific Garbage Patch are among the birds’ staples. Rupturing this surreal symbioses are Chris Jordan’s Midway photographs. Taken only weeks ago, the images depict decaying carcasses of albatross chicks gorged with plastic. Intolerably beautiful (a phrase taken from another project of Jordan’s depicting our collective environmental impact), the photographs are visible consequences of our everyday lives.
     Nestled in the North Pacific, Midway Atoll is a collection of three small islands that are home to seventy percent of the world’s Laysan Albatross. A once-flourishing ecosystem, the islands are now covered in plastic, brought there by adult albatross that mistake it for food and feed it to their young. Consisting on this diet of human garbage, forty percent of all albatross chicks die every year from starvation, suffocation, or poisoning. What this means for the future of the albatross is hard to determine: “But to find lethal quantities of our plastic trash inside baby birds on one of the remotest islands on Earth — it’s like a diagnosis for our planet,” Jordan remarks. “It’s a warning sign of a far bigger and more frightening issue.”
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Images courtesy of Newscom

China is no stranger to making headlines for environmental issues. Two years ago, toxic toothpaste and lead-laden toys were being exported from the country. Last year, a report issued by a German energy institute claimed that China’s carbon dioxide emissions had reached 6.8 billion tons, an increase of 178% over the country’s 1990 emissions levels. But with increased international attention on carbon emissions and climate change, China is cleaning up its act and making headlines for the right reasons. Beijing’s Central Business District is getting the green treatment, making China the first country in the world to have an entirely green business district.
     Green-minded and eager to play a larger role in our ever-evolving future, 2009 marked a year wherein China vowed to increase its alternative energy production and even hinted at goals to become a key player in eco-friendly car manufacturing. It’s an image (and lifestyle) upgrade the country direly needs. So when internationally renowned architecture/engineering/urban design firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill submitted its green re-design plans for Beijing’s Central Business District (CBD), the Chaoyang District Government and the Beijing CBD Administration Committee took notice. Seven leading firms around the world were invited to participate in the international competition; SOM outdid the other six with their environmentally focused proposal.
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Gestalten Books

The next time you’re in Luckenwalde, Germany (population 21,000) make sure to visit the local library. It’s weird-looking. The town’s former train station was rehabilitated and repurposed by the firm FF-Architeckten. The children’s section is housed in a modern addition: a tilted rectangle covered in gold scales. The scales are supposedly meant to resemble dragon skin — the same dragons chasing around maidens and knights in the fairytales kids are reading inside. The old train station is plain and traditional; the new wing is anything but. So does it jive? Sure! It’s saying, “This new shiny area is for children. That old gray building is for grandpa.” And any addition with a clever message is good enough for us. It was also good enough for editors Robert Klanten and Lukas Feireiss, who chose it for their book, Build-On: Converted Architecture and Transformed Buildings (Gestalten; $75). Considering that a modern addition on a beloved older building is one thing that will get the average person really pissed at (or at least talking about) architecture, it’s a subject worth exploring and cataloging.
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Photography by Ulrika Krynitz

It’s been great to see a growing number of eco-lodges offering a more sustainable holiday alternative surface over the last years. As much as they all deserve recognition for their environmental awareness it’s hard not to get excited when stumbling upon one with that little bit of extra. One like The Wood Hermitage, located in the leafy Holaved forest in the south of Sweden. The Hermitage — surrounded by lakes and the mountain Omberg — has welcomed guests to its spartan facilities since May 2007. Offering simple luxury, the lodge mixes traditional Swedish craftsmanship with Japanese-influenced interior design. The small handcrafted wooden huts and cabins — some of them with grass covered roofs — work in harmony with the surrounding environment. All houses except for the main cabin were built using trees felled by the storms Gudrun and Per in 2005 and 2006. The use of electricity is sparse — there is only enough for running a single 15W light bulb in the kitchen and the solar panel in the bathing house. Both the sauna and the wooden bathtub are wood-fired. On top of such a cozy living space, The Wood Hermitage also embraces the local food trend, with all the food coming from their own garden or nearby farmers.
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