feuerwear: recycled fire hose bags

Feuerwear from Germany has a beautiful color range for their collection of upcycled firehose bags. From bright vibrant red, soft faded orange to clean white, the used fire hoses give each bag wonderful character. Feuerwear manufactures messengers, handbags, organizers, filofax's, shoppers and fanny packs. With indestructible durability, these bags would make an awesome gift for the holidays!

Thanks Veshengro

elvis & kresse: recycled firehose bags

Elvis & Kresse from Amsterdam, utilize waste fire hoses turning them into chic red handbags, toiletry bags wallets and belts.

top cardboard designs

Kids On Roofcustomizable dollhouse
Fuchs & Funke Red Papton Chair
Everyday Studio tiger head
Die Fabrik777 Chair by Stefan Hölldobler
Color Me House
A4A Design Italy
Ann Woods castle
Farm Designs UK Giles Miller lamp and screen
Cardboard Safarimoose trophy
Cardboard Safari skull
Frank Gehry's cardboard chair deserves mention as he was one of the first Architect/Designers to utilize cardboard for a high end design piece.
Leo Kempf
Gray Pantsscrap lighting
Cat Cocoon

Most of these cardboard designs have been blogged about before on Haute Nature, just type 'cardboard' in the top left search blank.

beatriz milhazes: brazilian art

Beatriz Milhazes,
Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1960, entered Rio’s renowned Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage in the early 1980s. She emerged on the Brazilian art scene in the midst of what was known as “the return to painting” of the Geraçao Oitenta (the 1980s Generation), which followed the more conceptualist art that dominated the country in the 1970s.

Her technique is part monotype and collage, first painting the motifs and drawings of her work on translucent plastic sheets. She then applies them to the canvas and peels the plastic off, superimposing images and colors in a variety of combinations. During the transfer process, part of the motif sometimes tears, leaving portions of itself behind. The laborious process leads to rich overlaid images and translucent silhouettes.

Milhazes has recently branched out into arenas of theatre sets, site-specific installations, and design work, including fabric and tapestry. The artist has stated: “I am seeking geometrical structures, but with freedom of form and imagery taken from different worlds.”

garbage warrior: pre-screener

Gotta see this movie about Earthship construction around the world and trying to get a bill passed for experimental architecture that is environmental and energy efficient--you can rent it on Netflix.

haute nature: staghorn trophy: sean & stacy kelley

True garden brilliance in these mounted elkhorn & staghorn ferns by California based artists Sean & Stacy Kelley! Their project is meant to illustrate our disconnection with nature. I completely love antlers, so this version is an animal friendly must for my living room!!

john male: animal friendly animal rug

John Male is on the animal friendly front with this inventive non-animal hide rug. I love that designers like Sean Kelley and Jason Miller are creating such aesthetically pleasing, decorative animal alternatives for the home. The animals thank you.
Rug available at Studio John Male.

teahouse symbolism: a1 architects

For many lucky enough to possess one, their backyard is a place of solace. This Tea House by David Maštálka of A1 Architects in Prague, was built as all tea houses are for the slow appreciation of the mundane aspects and beauty of life. Built from oak & burnt larch facing, it was constructed in a mere 35 days.

The Teahouse as a typological kind follows the Japanese tradition of minimizing space and is intended as place the meet with guest at a cup of tea for a spiritual release. The tea house meant for ideals of harmony, closeness, ritual, hospitality, etc. are aspects of life we often forget with our busy schedules, but which we should all incorporate into our lives daily.

Many people possess a backyard studio or shed, but few build such a glorious tea room.

From Wiki: According to the Nihon Kōki (Latter Chronical of Japan), drinking of tea was introduced to Japan in the 9th century, by the Buddhist monk Eichū, who had returned to Japan from China. This is the first documented evidence of tea in Japan.The ideogram for word tea house translates into three different definitions — all metaphysical. First, 'Abode of the Void' obviously refers to the Buddhist concept of nothingness, of the vacuum, and the aesthetic principle that the pavilion must exist for itself alone. When not used for tea rites it stands empty and idle. 'Abode of the Fancy' implies a personal relationship between the tea room and its designer. It is not built for permanency or posterity, but to express the Buddhist teaching that just as the body is a temporary temple, so the 'hut' is fleeting, a temporary thing, a resting place. The thatched roof suggests perishability; the slender pillars the fragility of life; the bamboo supports suggest lightness; the use of ordinary materials testifies to non-attachment. 'Abode of the A-Symmetrical' is also basically Zen, which is the philosophy of Becoming — a dynamic, endless process. Symmetry suggests completeness and the 'aping of an abstract and artificial perfection.' In the tea room or the Japanese house the decorations are always off-center, the balance occult; sets come in threes and fives; one never finds the artistic representation of a person on display...

Photographs: Ester Havlová

upholstery arts: biodegradable sofas

Upholstery Arts is a completely biodegradable sofa! Using FSC-certified wood, 100% natural latex, 100% natural wool, non-toxic fire protection, non-toxic glues, stains and finishes & ecological textiles; this has to be the greenest sofa around!