Congrats Jill! (Inhabitat founder Jill Fehrenbacher launched a new site, Ecouterre) Focused on, well, eco-fashion of course. Good luck!

Some might think having your own coffin in your house is morbid, but not William Warren. In fact, the furniture and product designer created Shelves for Life, a build-it-yourself Ikea style bookcase that, after you’ve expired, can be reassembled into a coffin. Not only is it good for the environment, it’ll be one less thing your family has to worry about when dealing with your remains. The kits sell for $579 (or 350 GBP) a piece and come stained in a classic blonde wood which just begs for some serious customization. Creepy and awesome.

Singapore will be showing off an array of national achievements to the globe at Shanghai’s World Expo in 2010. With that date seemingly around the corner, it’s high time they got a move on crafting their host pavilion. While they’ve received a multitude of architectural suggestions, perhaps the most stunning entry in the pavilion design contest was provided by DesignAct. The architectural firm has created a masterwork in the form of a pixelated cloud skyscraper, entitled “My Dream, Our Vision.” The breathtaking mass of sculpture would consist of 3866 permutated cubes with varying shades of transparency, lingering above a constantly evolving field of green. The formation is meant to characterize Singapore as a progressive land where increasing modernity and reinvention reign supreme.

Via Inhabitat

The image of hybrid cars as boxy, efficient little travel pods is getting a makeover. At the Geneva Motor Show, Italdesign unveiled the Namir prototype, a 370-horsepower space rocket that can travel over 1,200 miles on a single charge. Namir is the world’s fastest hybrid to date, with a top speed of 187 mph, and releases lower emissions than any sports car on the U.S. market. We’re not sure if this particular whip is going to be available stateside, but it’s nice to see this trend forming.

Via Inhabit

As we reported to you in December, the Greener Gadgets 2009 Conference is a must for anyone interested in ecologically-friendly design. If the only green you’re lacking is in your wallet, Inhabitat is footing the bill for one lucky winner to get into the event taking place this February 27th in New York City. Head on over to their site, sign up for newsletter, and comment on your favorite of their greener gadgets for a chance to win.

Via Inhabitat

The Beijing skyline will be the subject of many establishing shots during this summer’s Olympics, but in the years to come all eyes might shift towards Tianjin. BoHai Bay in China’s third largest urban area will be the future home of the 1,174 foot tall SinoSteel International Plaza. Slated to be completed in 2011, it will become the city’s most dominating architectural feature. The towering hexagonal honeycomb structure was designed using an innovative and energy efficient form of climate modeling. It helps to regulate both the temperature and daylight thanks to the variations in the size of each cell’s window. Not content just to scrape the clouds, the complex designed by Beijing’s MAD architects will also feature an adjacent hotel that will have similar eco friendly design.

Via Inhabitat

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We came across Nori Morimoto’s light sculptures and were floored by their beauty and simplicity. Beyond their raw aesthetic value, Nori's creation of wood sculptures from sustainable sources adds a couple extra gold stars to his name. It is nice to see some progressive design getting back to its roots– literally. Now if he could only strike a deal with IKEA to get these out of the wild and into my living room!

Via Inhabitat

Of the top three places architects look for inspiration, we’d say nature would be number one (two and three are always “art” and “the dumpster behind Frank Gehry’s house”). For Orquideorama in Medellin, Colombia (yes, the same place where Pablo Escobar had his cocaine empire), flora is more than just a design concept: it’s the freakin’ design. What looks like wicker platforms are actually pedal shaped, steel-reinforced modular structures. Architects Felipe Mesa and Alexander Bernal wanted their garden to be a garden in every conceivable way, so as the plants propagate, so do the platforms. At the vertex of these cones are self-sustaining gardens that drink up the rain water that gets funneled down. t’s a beautiful, functional space, and makes us realize that our father has a lot of improvements to make on our old treehouse.

When Energizer came out with the Energi To Go — the battery operated chargers that can perk up your cell or iPod “on the go” — mobile tech geeks found it a fair solution to their energy crisis. But, the biggest problem with the device: it takes alkaline batteries. Good for Energizer’s profit margins, bad for Mother Earth. Which is why the USBCell is pretty brilliant. Tip back the positive terminal and you have yourself a little USB jack. If only our laptop ran on these AAs (and the Law of Conservation didn’t exist), you’d have an infinite loop of laptop power. Did we just blow your mind?

Via Inhabitat

Aside from the potential novelty that is eating potatoes with cutlery made from potatoes, Spudware is designed with the earth in mind; while it’s just as durable as plastic disposable utensils, its 80% potato starch/20% soybean oil composition allows the product a biodegration schedule of just 180 days. Right now I’m thinking about the scar on the bottom of my right foot I received a few years ago, courtesy of a broken plastic fork embedded in Californian beach. Chances are, if it was a SpudFork, that would never have happened…because it wouldn’t have been here in the first place. Spudware runs at $20 for fifty sets of knives, forks and spoons, and you can score yours in the US at Treecycle, in the UK at Vegware, and for wholesale inquiries, hit up Excellent Packaging and Supply.

Via Inhabitat

Stefano Merlo, an Italian designer, is behind this Edison-worthy bucket that collects light. In an interesting visual take on the ephemeral concept of storing natural energy, Merlo used photovoltaic panels to power a set of LEDs encased in the buckets housing. The panels collect enough organic energy during the daytime to give back at sundown in the form of an illuminated bucket, offering a nice glow for the year’s last outdoor dinner parties, as well as a subject of meaningful conversation. No word on whether Merlo has any intention to create more of these light buckets, but as a creative visualization of a complex concept, it seems probable that they could wind up getting the attention they need to back widespread distribution.

Via Inhabitat

Taisei Construction Corporation has designed a 13,000 ft, Star Wars-esque structure for possible development in Tokyo. The 6-square kilometer building would house anywhere from 500,000 to one million residents, follow contemporary green planning outlines, and would incorporate the means to protect its residents from the weather/air pressure conditions common to such high elevations. Of course, as one snarky Inhabitat reader points out, “Japan has a wonderful history of designing architectural vapourware,” and that much like “… all Japanese supertall proposals, this… will never be built.” That sentiment comes at somewhat of a relief, because the thought of spending 300-900 billion to build an enormous anthill sounds kind of creepy to me, but either way, the X-Seed 4000 demonstrates an interesting form of development, and certainly serves as a thought-provoking, futuristic concept of where time may take us.

This weekend, while retrieving a dog-slobber-drenched tennis ball wedged between my sheets, I wouldn’t have considered a constructive or attractive use for such things, besides a non-noisy chew toy for Stella and a reason for guys to stare at Maria Sharipova whilst claiming to have a “valid” excuse. +Remy/Veenhuizen’s Tennis Ball Benches, designed for the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam though, gave me a new appreciation for the humble tennis ball, as they now provide fun, striking — and apparently quite comfortable — seating for hundreds of museum patrons every day. Tejo Remy discussed this project (amongst others) on this year’s Reclaiming Design panel at HauteGreen in NYC, which you can catch in it’s entirety here if you missed it.

via Inhabitat

After two years of planning, Steven Holl’s vision for the Herning Center of the Arts is finally in motion. Breaking ground last month, the finished project will eventually house the Herning Art Museum, the MidWest ensemble and the Socle du Monde. The result will be one very eco-friendly, beautifully designed building — concrete- and mesh- based, somewhat reminiscent of a fabric tent — measuring over 60,000 square feet, and will feature an auditorium, both permanent and temporary exhibits, a restaurant, office and rehearsal spaces. Curved roofs will allow indirect natural light to illuminate artwork during the day, and both gray water recycling and geothermal HVAC heating systems will be implemented as well as reflecting pools and a green roof topping the structure’s parking lot. Just like the folks at Inhabitat, I’m a huge fan of Holl (some friends of mine got married at the Chapel of St. Ignatius in Seattle a few years back) and I’m really excited to follow the progress and completion of this latest super-innovative project.

While Josh gets nomadic on our asses (read: jet-sets) to Taiwan to see that part of the world in person, the rest of us are doing the best we can to see the sights the old-fashioned ‘internet way.’ Today I’d like to give a nod to the sustainable, Chinese Songjiang Hotel. It looks like something out of a Star Wars movie, or maybe off of an episode of “When the Earth Melts into a Molten Puddle of Shit and We Move to Another Planet,” but supposedly it’s going to become a reality on our own planet Earth. Sci-fi aesthetics aside, this Atkins designed hotel will be built in a huge quarry in the Songjiang District near Shanghai by (reportedly) 2009 (FYI: Atkins also designed Tianjin’s Pile of Boxes and Bahrain’s World Trade Center). The quarry setting allows for the incorporation of a wealth of Green features like reuse of an already exploited site, geothermal energy for electricity and heat, a green roof, and the shelter and natural cooling properties of the quarry itself; oh, and lest we forget… bungee jumping!

Via Inhabitat