One of the most popular articles on Green Design Girl is the one I’ve posted below, written over a year and a half ago, which answers the question that I am quite often asked: How did you become involved in green design?
Above photo of Quik House by Adam Kalkin
I just discovered the amazing prefab Kithaus units on Treehugger and I feel like a kid in a candy store. Well, more like a child in modular Lego Heaven. Imagine being able to quickly add on an extra guest room, a zen escape, a gardening shed, a yoga pod, a jamming space, an artist studio to your existing home? Or in a sustainable pinch, have it be your home?
My utter fascination with prefab homes, offices, emergency shelters [anything and everything prefab] and sustainable design, started during my years at Parsons School of Design. Living in NYC, I was surrounded by water tanks on the rooftops of every building that I peered at. I saw them from my apartment’s fire escape, from my school’s studio windows, from aboard the many flights returning to NYC after holiday breaks. They were everywhere.
I had always loved the industrial aesthetic, the lofts of Soho, the art direction of Blade Runner and Brazil, the works of industrial landscape photographers such as Toronto’s Edward Burtynsky. So being intrigued by these water tanks seemed natural. This led to an urban exploration of silos, shipping containers, breaker panels [my Dad’s an Electrician; I had seen them my whole life] and a trip to the Andrée Putman-designed Hotel im Wasserturm in Cologne, Germany. This is a hotel/restaurant magnificently converted from a traditional brick water tower, once the tallest in Europe. As a new design student, I immersed myself in industrial exploration.
At school, I was inspired to somehow recycle and refurbish all of these industrial objects in my design projects, aiming to make them thought-provoking and feasible for everyday use in homes, hotels and restaurants. I didn’t realize at the time that I was embracing the ideas of “sustainable design” or the “reclaiming” of objects and materials, and surprisingly, of the many architect professors that I had, not one of them even mentioned the eco potential or eco merits involved in these ideas.
That was in 2002. How far we [and eco media coverage] has come in a short 6 years, with Parsons’ parent New School University now doing an excellent job of actively promoting eco.design and sustainable living via their fantastic Sustainability Committee. Furthermore, GreenDesignGirl.com is now proudly syndicated on the Parsons Sustainable Design Review site, which is another smart addition to the super green efforts of New School University and its impassioned students. It’s an exciting time at the New School these days and I’m sure that their profs would be raving about my converted shipping containers now! Well, maybe not raving…
During my research for one of the many projects that kept me awake for 3 days straight, I came across a German architectural company called Graft Lab Design. They blew my mind with their innovative work. They were the first design firm that I had seen take on freight-size shipping containers and modify them for interactive everyday use. In short, they were re-configuring shipping containers and completely refurbishing the inside of each unit with comfortable padded leather walls, bench seats, tables, sleek shelving units [including a wall-mounted bar], etc.
In a project for the office of Neue Sentimental Film in Santa Monica, California they created a sophisticated meeting space, within an existing office, using connected modified shipping containers! I thought I had found my design soulmates. Thanx to Graft Lab and my design school experiments, my love for prefab + sustainable design was born. First in the form of converted shipping containers [with which they’ve built entire housing communities in The Netherlands and beyond], and then on to all kinds of modern prefabricated units. I am pre.fab.fascinated [in case it isn’t clear by now.]
What are Graft Lab up to these days? More of the same eco.design goodness that I would expect, but on a much bigger level, as part of Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Nola initiative in New Orleans.
So what was it that prompted this reminiscing of my junior experiments in sustainable design? Ahhh yes, the brilliant prefab Kithaus! My ultimate dream studio space. My future pre.fab.u.lous oasis. A green design girl can dream, can’t she?
~
Pix below: Graft Lab’s design for the Santa Monica offices of Neue Sentimental Films, including photos of the converted shipping containers discussed above. Graft Lab worked with award-winning Production Designer/Art Director Jan-Peter Flack on this project, who has created videos for the likes of R.E.M., Janet Jackson and Madonna’s “Rain”.
The shipping containers used as a meeting space within the vast office.
Inside the shipping container meeting space.
Another view inside the shipping container.
The sleek coffee bar in a closed position.
The opened wall-mounted coffee bar.
A dramatic central stair case in the main office area.
View of the individual, elevated office spaces.
View of the meeting spaces tucked under the elevated offices.
Just when you thought the space couldn’t be any cooler.
[original post date: Feb. 9th, 2008]
