Welcome to the Smart Stuff environment and ecology section with some of the world's smartest gadgets, inventions and ideas for environment, ecology and green living.

Smart city add-on seating.
This prototype for an add-on city light post seat was presented in the Greenhouse section of the Stockholm Furniture Fair 2006. The Greenhouse was where the not-yet-established young designers showed their ideas, and this was where many of the most interesting ideas were found. We think this is one of them. Both smart and eco-friendly, it makes use of light-posts already in place to create additional seating space in the city. Designer Daniel Jacobsson is a senior at the Department of Technology and Design at the Växjö University. The two seats provides opportunity for two people who know each other to interact, or two people who do not, to rest without rubbing against each other. An additional feature of this idea is that it provides lighted seating at night. See more of the young designer's ideas from the Stockholm Furniture Fair on our new design blog Cool Finds.

16 February 2006

Some light for those that have none.
Here's a smart project to bring solar powered lighting to those, whose lives do not consist of flicking off-and-on illumination from the grid. With the Portable Light project staff and students from the University of Michigan, alongside architect firm Kennedy & Violich are seeking to offer affordable electric light to the nomadic Huichol people from Mexico’s Sierra Madre mountains. Solar panels, high brightness light emitting diodes (HBLEDs) and traditional weaving are all being combined into functioning prototypes. One such design has been a folding stool, that children can sit on and drape soft lit fabric over their knee while they read and write at night. More on Portable Light. Via Core 77.

28 January 2006

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Kitchen composter.
The NatureMill automatic compost machine is designed to sit right there in your kitchen. It may not be pretty, but you could always hide it under the counter or something. On the other hand it is not uglier than the average computer case... Anyway, it promises let you save more than two tons of landfill during its lifetime in a home with a family of four. Plus it generates your compost automatically without the worms and the fuss. Just put food and paper on top, and scoop out the compost from the bottom. From NatureMill for USD 399:-. Via Cool Hunting.

27 January 2006

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Not a playful Freddy Kruger kit.
We can see how it looks, so we might as well start by clarifying what this is not. It is not a Freddy Kruger kit. And it is not a new sort of sex toy. (What ever made us think of that?) Never mind. Now for what it really is. These little Fingermax finger things are actually little paint brushes. For kids or adults. The inventors, German design firm Büro für form, Hopf & Wortmann, claims the finger brushes give the wearer the most in both ergonomics and control. If this is true or not, we cannot say. We will have to try them ourselves first. But maybe Hopf & Wortmann have a point. We found them at the University of Delft website on their exhibition on sustainable design, Re-f-use.

26 November 2005