Lately, I’ve been really intrigued by Slow Design, which is a cousin of the Slow Food, traditional skills, and voluntary simplicity movements, and the Zen Buddhist concept of wabi-sabi. The published Slow Design Principles (Strauss and Fuad-Luke, see www.slowlab.net) are couched in academic language, and the case studies cited mostly involve the design of objects or artistic installations. However, the principles and practices of Slow Design are tools that are useful to sustainable designers, decorators, and artisans of all disciplines. To summarize (and loosely quote) that document’s main points:

Slow Design:

• facilitates ’slowness’ and provides a balance to the industrial-consumerist model of design.

• seeks to shift the user’s awareness and attitudes about materials, processes, time, and natural environment. Read the rest of this entry »

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By Deborah Merriam of ecoDomestica reDesign

SCOOPED limited-edition pendant lamp, 1/20, colour: Spring, of discarded laundry detergent scoops, photographed without flash

I’m excited to have recently added handmade pendant lamps created from upcycled materials to my portfolio. (Most materials are “downcycled”, degrading in quality and value, as they are recycled into new products - an oft-cited example of downcycling is the recycling of paper fibres from cardboard into office paper into toilet paper. “Upcycling” is the opposite of this, creating an object of beauty and increased value from a material that would otherwise be discarded.) Read the rest of this entry »