Cool Hunting
| 09 June 2008view entries from: this week | this month | view previous day | view next day |
Cascadia Living Building Challenge and Leader Program
by Ami Kealoha
by Russ Lowe
Moving beyond the once revolutionary LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design) scope of strategies and requirements for building green, Cascadia, the Northwest chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council's Living Building Challenge meets once unimagined sustainability standards in areas of Site, Water, Energy, Materials, Indoor Quality, Beauty and Inspiration and Process and Leadership. Using a guideline of 20 prerequisites, the initiative supports buildings as not only self-sustaining structures but as those that harmoniously give back more than they take from the environments in which they're built. They're living buildings—literally.
Bringing to mind the age-old parable that "if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime," an educational component, the Living Building Leader program, aims to cultivate its own crop of green building pioneers that will enable unprecedented strides in the design and construction industry for generations to come. The Living Building Leader Program is, as Cascadia eloquently puts it, "a series of intensive, advanced eLearning sessions in green building topics, taught by experts in the diverse fields that underpin the multidisciplinary field that is green building." Aimed at green building pros worldwide, many of whom may have already acquired previous training such as LEED Professional Accreditation, the program supplements their green building chops in a way that will most certainly distinguish them in their respective fields of Architecture, Engineering, Design, and Construction.
Already spawning elegant designs such as Mithun's vertical urban farms (which won best of show last year), Cascadia's poised to be the standard-bearer for the next generation of green building.
Also on Cool Hunting: The Pharos Project
Jarvs Specs Necklace
by Letizia Rossi
Inspired by the iconic government-issue spectacles worn by Pulp front man Jarvis Cocker, the Jarvs Specs Necklace is both an on-trend accessory and a fitting tribute to the Brit-pop star. London-based jewelry designers Tatty Devine created the Jarvs Specs necklace as one of a series of eyeglass-themed baubles including a cat-eyed version and a pair created for artists Gilbert & George.
Available from Tatty Devine's online shop for £35.
Also on Cool Hunting Tatty Devine Piano Keys Necklace.
Papercraft Steaks
by Lost At E Minor
Seeing as rising food and fuel prices may make steak an unattainable luxury for all but the wealthiest people in the future, it's good to know that at least there will be papercraft steaks to fill that sucking void that will be left on our plates—much the way poverty-stricken peasants in inland China used to have wooden fish on the table during banquets. There's a raw version and a cooked version available for download, along with a side of carrots, a plate, and even paper silverware.
Clothing Designer Graham Tabor at the Hyeres Festival
by Brian Fichtner
This past April, New York-based clothing designer Graham Tabor participated in the annual Hyeres Festival of Fashion and Photography, a platform for emerging talent which takes place in the modernist Mediterranean Villa Noailles, designed by the architect Robert Mallet Stevens. Characterized by gaping perforations, torn stitches and layered elements alluding to membership within a post-consumerist warrior clan (click images for larger view), the collection includes elaborate masks and hanging ornaments by Kristin Victoria Barron.
Working with a handful of creative talents (Photography: Miguel Villalobos, Accessories: Kristin Victoria Barron, Hair: Chinatsu Nobe, Make-up: Fumii Nakagawa) Tabor has produced a seamless collection in which the body becomes eerily indistinguishable from the apparel. In an age in which we strive to define ourselves by the brands we wear, Tabor's collection imagines an antipodal wherein personal identity has been disfigured, or even subsumed, by our garments.
Graham and Kristin will be exhibiting the collection once more at the forthcoming men's fashion week in Paris.
Also on Cool Hunting: Priests and Twins
