Randall words about Triclo:

Triclo is a conceptual design of what a tricycle can be in a urban environment. It uses an organic forms and contemporary trend. Balance in visual volume and mass. Using arrays and knots was the basis for the formal development and geometric design.

The concept was: low material vs. high volume

The design is targeted for a younger market but can be used by adults too. The idea was to create a tricycle with a diferent look to capture the attention of people and thus encourage exercise. At the same time the concept of design is important to not use much material in the product and reduce costs.

A tricycle is more than a bicycle but less than a motorbike, but this tricycle has almost a cab, this protects of the sun and rain to the user. Therefore, that is its advantage over a motorcycle that somehow is to approach a car. Maybe this way, providing superior comfort offered by a bicycle or even a conventional tricycle, is a way for people interested in using the product and increasing exercise in the population. The design is targeted for a younger market but can be used by adults too.

The materials were designed to be recycled once they finish their service life. There are variety of colors to suit all tastes.

Dimensions:
1800 x 1500 x 1100 mm.

Maximum capacity:
180 Kg.

Designer : Randall Marin

[Press Release]

Husqvarna, the global leader of outdoor power products, has developed a quiet, powerful and environmentally friendly ride-on mower for the future garden. The concept mower, developed by Husqvarna’s designers and engineers, is made of recycled materials and gives an indication how the future of mowing might come to look.

-Husqvarna Panthera Leo™ demonstrates our innovation capacity and ambition to develop high performing products with less environmental impact, says Magnus Yngen, President and CEO of Husqvarna.

Husqvarna Panthera Leo™ is a hybrid made up of two ride-on mowers, Rider and Zero-Turn. A battery that can be charged at any electrical outlet has replaced the traditional gas engine. Five powerful electrical motors partnered with a sound absorbing cutting deck, allow the Husqvarna Panthera Leo™ to glide effortlessly and silently across your lawn. The tree individually suspended cutting decks enables this mower to mow smoothly over bumpier parts of your garden, avoiding lawn scalping. The cutting decks each have razor sharp blades for a close cut finish and can be controlled to suit wide or narrow lawns (from 85cm up to 120cm).

All functions and are managed via paddles on the steering wheel. Via an LCD-display gardeners are told everything they need to know to achieve a perfect lawn, from how fast they are driving, cutting height, cutting width, remaining battery time, service needs and warns the user about objects that are too close. With the help of sensors, Husqvarna Panthera Leo™ can recommend the most suitable speed and cutting height for the perfect lawn.

Husqvarna is the leader in several areas in terms of products with reduced environmental impact. The Group’s new engines comply with the strictest exhaust-emission criteria in the US and Europe .

Features

* Equipped with zero-emission technology
* Produced from recycled materials
* Rechargeable Lithium-phosphate battery
* Plug-in product, charged at any electrical point
* Five brushless electrical engines, easy and clean to maintain
* Three separate cutters equipped with razor sharp blades
* Cutters individually suspended to glide smoothly over bumpy terrain and prevent lawn scalping
* Variable cutting width (85-120cm)
* Zero-turn functionality
* Lifting cutting deck (90 degrees)
* Ergonomic steering wheel
* Easy to control dashboard
* Cutting time 2 hours, overnight charging
* Detailed LCD display monitor (featuring cutting height, width of cutting deck, speed, service information, steep hill warning, objects that are too close)

Designer : Husqvarna

Designer : Dave Strydom

[Press Release]

DRAGONFLY, A METABOLIC FARM FOR URBAN AGRICULTURE

2009 : 800 MILLION OF URBAN FARMERS FOR RESPONSIBLE ECO-CITIES

The world of fast-food and frozen food is over! The urban keen interest of the beginning of our Century turns toward the garden flat bringing back the countryside in our overcrowded cities fighting from now on for a community urban agriculture able to contribute to the durability of the city and to rethink the food production.

On the roofs, terraces, balconies, in the hollow of the non-built public spaces, in the interior yards and the suspended greenhouses, the eco-warrior aspires to escape from its competitive and consumeristic universe imposed by the laws of the market. He desires to cultivate its immediate landscape so as to better take root in the ground by creating his own ecologic and alimentary biodiversity. The consumer becomes from then on producer and the garden inhabitant !

From the Parisian « worker gardens » to the « community gardens » of New York going though Muscovite « vegetable squares », eight hundred million of urban farmers, i.e. more than one human being out of ten, consume nowadays chlorophyllous products from these cosmopolitan kitchen gardens. These new gardens, aware of the emergency to reduce our fuel consumption and the necessity to modify our behaviour facing the climatic changes, decrease thus their environmental impact and build eco-responsible cities on a community way.

2025 : 5.5 BILLION OF CITY SLICKERS FACING THE FOOD CHALLENGE OF THE 21ST CENTURY

According to the PNUD (Programme of the United Nations for the Development), the worldwide urban population will go from 3.1 billion of inhabitants in 2009 up to 5.5 billion of inhabitants within 2025. Looking for a positive energetic assessment, the contemporary city aims within fifteen years at producing cleanly and intensively more energy than it consumes so as to pack this urban exodus! It develops therefore the urban agriculture to become food self-sufficient by recycling at the same time its liquid waste by phyto-purification, its solid waste in fertilizers by composting and by producing energy by biomass, photovoltaic cells and other renewable energies (thermic solar, photovoltaic solar, wind, tide-turbine energies…).

In order to avoid the asphixiation of the planet and the feeding of its 9 billion of inhabitants within 2050, it deals thus with reinventing the traditional energetic pattern between the city and the countryside between western countries, emerging countries and developing countries. This sums up as following: on the one hand import of natural and food resources, and on the other hand export of waste and pollution. The ecologic city aims at reintegrating the farming function on the urban scale by emphasizing the role of the urban agriculture in the use and the reuse of natural resources and biodegradable waste so as to close the loop of ecologic flows.

The urban agriculture can feed the city without any pesticide or chemical fungicide (whose toxicity is proved on the human being : cancer, sterility…), and make it less food dependant of its backcountry or other regions of the world. Organising the distribution of fresh products in short circuits, that means linked directly with the consumer, the urban agriculture complete thus the traditional agriculture. In addition to the nutritive quality of the produced and consumed food, the urban agriculture is also a growth lever of the urban unemployment market and the local economy. It is used directly as a social link in the conciliation of the primary needs of the newcomers with the challenge of their integration in the life of the city, fighting thus against poverty and exclusion. On the sanitary level, this farm approach presents also an interesting potential for the decontamination of polluted grounds and undergrounds as well as for he purification of the polluted atmosphere in CO2.

Due to the fuel crisis and climatical change, the rural agriculture of the western countries must answer to the worldwide food crisis of the developing countries and mainly Africa. Its role is from now on to produce (with an increase estimated of 60% within 2050) all the foodstuffs transportable by boat such as cereals or corn. This is based on the evolution of the science and the most advanced biotechnologies. In addition to this nutritious role, the rural agriculture is newly challenged to recycle its own culture rebus for the green chemistry in order to produce the bio fuel called “second generation fuel” using the energy of non-consumable materials from the plants, that means fibres such as celluloses.

DRAGONFLY, A NOURISHING VERTICALY CULTIVATED CENTRAL PARK

The architecture has to be in the service of this new agriculture and to design this new social desire in this context of ecologic mutation and food autonomy! The Dragonfly project suggests therefore building a prototype of urban farm offering around a mixed programme of housing, offices and laboratories in ecological engineering, farming spaces which are vertically laid out in several floors and partly cultivated by its own inhabitants. This vertical farm sets up all the sustainable applications in organic agriculture based on the intensive production varied according to the rhythm of the seasons. This nourishing agriculture is furthermore in favour of the reuse of biodegradable waste and the keeping of energy and renewable resources for a planning of ecosystemic densification.

Floor by floor, the tower superposes not only stock farming ensuring the production of meat, milk, poultry and eggs but also farming grounds, true biological reactors continuously regenerated with organic humus. It diversifies the cultivated varieties to avoid the washing of stratums of soft substratum. Thus, the cultures succeed one another vertically according to their agronomical ability to provide some elements of the ground between the essences that are sowed and harvested. The tower, true living organism, becomes thus metabolic and self-sufficient in water, energy, and bio-fertilizing. Nothing is lost; everything is recyclable to a continuous auto-feeding!

A BIONIC AND ENERGETICALLY SELF-SUFFICIENT ARCHITECTURE
The architecture of Dragonfly prototype suggests reinventing the vertical building (that outlined the urbanistic booming of New York City since the 19th Century) as structurally and functionally as ecologically and energetically.

To ensure the social diversity and a permanent life cycle (24h/24) in the tower, the mixed programmation is mainly laid out around two poles of housing and work places. Around housings, offices and research laboratories as well as the most private to the most public agricultural and leisure spaces are designed in gardens, kitchen gardens, orchards, meadows, rice fields, farms and suspended fields. The distribution of flows is made around a true safe spine spreading in loop the numerous elevators, the goods elevators and stair wells serving all the levels by separating simultaneously the inputs and the outputs recycled from plants, animals and human beings.

Architecturally, the functional organisation is represented by two oblong towers symetrically arranged in pair around a huge climatic greenhouse that links them and deploys itself between two crystalline wings. These very light wings in glass and steel retake the loads of the building and are directly inspired from the structure of the dragonfly wings coming from the family of “Odonata Anisoptera” whose transparent membrane is very finely nervured. Two inhabited rings buttress around these wings. Their organically chiselled exo-structure accommodates the inter-climatic spaces that receive the agrarian cultures. They buttress.

The whole set forms «double layer» architecture in bee nest mesh that exploits the solar passive energy at its maximum level, by accumulating the warm air in the winter in the thickness of the exo-structure, and by cooling the atmosphere by natural ventilation and by evapo-perpiration of the plants in the summer. Protecting thus the cultures from climatic changes in New York (from -25.5°C in the winter to +41°C in the summer), these plug spaces are useful to reflect on the agriculture not anymore in terms of surface area but really in terms of volume. Actually, whereas grounds nourish orchards, each wall and each ceiling are metamorphosed into three-dimensional kitchen gardens. The interior frontages of the housing and offices throw towards the skyline of New York the cantilever of their hydrophonic balconies with hexagonal section thanks to what it multiplies the culture layers by floors. The vegetation abounds, the earth is swarming of insects and animals are freely brought up in holding tanks by urban consumers with low income. The architecture becomes eatable!

Designer : Vincent Callebaut Architect

From Nicolas:
In a world where obesity and poor health is increasing the impact of physical activities cannot be exaggerated. It is a common acknowledged fact that the health of people is becoming increasingly poor and something dramatic needs to be done. By making the use of a bicycle much easier, the motivation for driving a bike shall increase, and consequently the result may be better health.

The design aims towards motivating people to use a bike instead of either using a car or refraining from moving at all. By designing a bicycle which takes into consideration the concerns of people who normally will find it difficult to use a bicycle to move around, these people will more easily become motivated to go by bike, because their special requirement is met. These people can be parents with infants or small children, handicapped or people with handicapped children or family members, elderly people who find driving a normal bike too insecure etc.

Designer : Nicolas Nicolaou

Text from Felix :
People in disaster areas need more than just housing. Both physical and psychological needs are often neglected. People find themselves displaced from their familiar environment and dwellings, and they are often traumatized. In this situation, individual survival becomes a priority and can result in brutalization and societal decline. The concept behind Sphere not only considers taking shelter from extreme weather conditions but also re-establishing feelings of security and companionship without a loss of privacy. The centre of Sphere has been conceived as a social place, where the inhabitants can constitute a community – a circle.

This place offers the opportunity of regaining contact with others, cooking and simply getting together in a social way. In this way, every Sphere becomes a germ cell for a community.

Every Sphere contains nineteen tent units that can each accommodate up to three people. Partition walls can be unbuttoned in order to create larger units for families. The inner layer of the tent is made of light, breathable material. This layer is independent of the outer layer, which consists of hard-wearing canvas. The stakes are made of fibreglass and plastic, and guarantee the stability of the whole construction. The design as such is long lasting and can be recycled if required.

Designer : Felix Stark via IGreenSpot

NUVU: RESHAPING THE CITY

Within just a few years, cities all over the world will be at near bursting point. If mankind wants to retain the level of personal mobility it currently enjoys – and if the city is to survive – the only way forward is for a radical rethink of the type of cars driven there. One solution could be a car like Nuvu, designed for the city of the not-too-distant future.

“Nuvu is literally a ‘new view’ at the future of the city car. It is electric, of course, but as far as Nissan is concerned, for tomorrow’s city cars that is a given. No, the most important aspect of Nuvu is the interior design which provides great comfort and space in an intelligent package designed to make best use of our crowded roads and limited parking slots.”

François Bancon, General Manager, Exploratory and Advance Planning Department, Product Strategy and Product Planning Division, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.

At a glance

- 2 +1 seating in compact 3m package
- Unique platform for Nuvu
- Zero emissions from EV drivetrain
- Drivetrain previews production EV due soon
- X-By-Wire control for all dynamic functions
- Extensive use of natural, organic and recycled materials
- An urban oasis complete with its own tree inside, which…
… provides shade for the interior, and
… generates solar energy via its ‘leaves’

Overview
There is about to be a seismic shift in the urban landscape. Within the next five to seven years, some 55 percent of the world’s population will live in the city, threatening total gridlock. Unless something is done, the irony of the phrase ‘personal mobility’ will be self-evident.

Look around at the cars in a typical city traffic jam today and the vast majority will have only one occupant and four empty seats. Some might have two occupants, a few three. But find one with four occupants or more and you’ll be doing very well.

Today, we buy a family car knowing that we’ll only ever need to use it to its full potential one or perhaps two percent of the time. Tomorrow, things will be different. Tomorrow, things have to be different.

“There is a new generation coming up who, finally, are questioning why we do the things we do. They are asking themselves, for example, why they are buying a large car when they know that for 99 percent of the time they will be in it on their own,” says François Bancon, General Manager, Exploratory and Advance Planning Department, Product Strategy and Product Planning Division, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.

“It is our job to provide personal transportation that is better suited to people’s needs and to what the environment – in all senses – can cope with.”

Nissan’s vision for the future of urban transportation is encapsulated in Nuvu, a ‘new view’ of the type of car we will be driving in the middle of the next decade. Compact – it’s just 3 metres long – Nuvu is a concept vehicle with unique 2+1 seating. It is aimed at urban dwellers who don’t want to compromise on their personal freedom or their comfort, yet who appreciate that ‘something has to give.’

Nuvu is agile, easy to drive, even easier to park. And it is, of course, an electric vehicle (EV). As Bancon says: “We believe zero emission vehicles are one of the key solutions for tomorrow’s city car.”

Nuvu is described as a moving oasis, a haven of green tranquillity in the urban jungle. To underline this message, Nuvu incorporates a witty representation of its green credentials: across its all-glass roof are a dozen or so small solar panels. Shaped like leaves on a branch, the power they generate is fed to the battery using a ‘tree trunk’ within the car as a conduit. Nuvu also uses natural, organic and recycled materials within the cabin.

Nissan has already announced plans to introduce an all-electric car in Japan and the US in 2010 and to mass-market it globally in 2012. Nuvu is not that car, though it does share some of the technology that will feature in the planned production vehicle. Rather, it is a concept of how a Nissan EV might look in the near future.

In the longer term, Nissan foresees a future based around a line-up of zero emission vehicles regardless of their size, category and usage. Nuvu – or its production equivalent – is just one element of this emission-free future.

Nuvu in detail
The central thrust behind the development of Nuvu is not its motive power but its layout and use of space. Nuvu has been created for a city of the future, one that’s even more crowded than today.

That’s why it’s compact on the outside yet roomy on the inside. Built on a unique platform, it’s just 3 metres long and sits on a wheelbase of 1980 mm but is 1700 mm wide and 1550 mm tall to create a large and airy cabin.

Interior package
These dimensions provide all the interior room needed for the vast majority of city journeys. Nuvu has two regular seats and a third occasional chair that can be folded down when required. But, unlike some two-seater city cars currently on the market, it is a thoroughly practical proposition with an integral luggage area providing sufficient space for a typical supermarket or shopping expedition.

“It is a real car,” says Bancon. “There would be no disadvantages to using a Nuvu everyday. For the vast majority of users, three seats are more than enough most of the time.”

The packaging is designed to give priority to driver comfort with C-segment levels of space and the flexibility to invite one or two passengers on board. Cabin layout places the regular passenger seat beside but largely behind the driver’s seat, allowing the passenger to stretch right out. Ahead of this seat is a third occasional chair which, when not in use, is folded away into the dashboard assembly. But even when the third seat is in use, there remains sufficient legroom for both passengers.

In the interests of saving both weight and space, the third seat has a centre section made from hardwearing yet comfortable netting. This hammock-like approach also has the benefit of allowing cool or warm air to circulate around the occupant’s body for extra comfort.

Shopping bags, briefcases and smaller items of luggage can be stowed behind the driver’s seat while if the driver is travelling solo, larger items can be stowed in the passenger footwall.

City car research
“We did a great deal of research into how people use their cars in the city. We found that for 90 percent of the time, the driver was alone. For five percent of the time there was one passenger and for four percent of the time there were two passengers. You can do the math to find out how often four or more people were in the car!” says Bancon.

“We gave the second seat much more room than normal because when you take one passenger in your car it is usually someone you love and you want to make sure he or she is being carried in outstanding comfort,” he adds.

Natural materials
Many of the materials used inside Nuvu reflect an increasing concern for the environment. The floor is made from wood fibres pressed into laminate sheets and is studded with rubber inserts made from recycled tyres for grip.

To create a light and bright interior, the windscreen and roof merge into one extended panel running virtually the entire length of the car. But undoubtedly the most unusual feature of the interior is the ‘energy tree’ which rises from the luggage compartment floor to the roof behind the driver’s seat.

Solar panels
The energy tree is shaped like a thin trunk. As it reaches daylight it branches out under the glass roof providing occupants with protection from bright sunlight… just like a real tree. And providing a visual reminder of Nuvu’s green credentials, covering the branches are dozens of small solar panels shaped like leaves.

The panels absorb energy from the sun which is then fed back down the energy tree and used to help recharge the battery and provide an extra power boost for the electric motor. As well as being genuinely green energy, it is estimated that the power generated via the solar panels will save the equivalent of one full overnight charge from mains electricity each month.

Driver controls are as simple as possible. All the major functions – steering, braking, transmission and throttle – are ‘By-Wire’ while the steering is controlled by an aircraft-style steering yoke: with just one turn from lock to lock, the steering is very direct for agility and manoeuvrability in the city. Nuvu’s turning circle is just 3.7 metres. Thanks to its wide track and the use of 16 inch 165/55 tyres mounted on lightweight, almost transparent, wheels, ride comfort, stability and agility is of the highest order.

There are two pedals – for stop and go – stalks for minor controls and a digital instrument panel with dials for speed, distance covered and battery range. The instrument panel itself is formed of layers – rather like an onion – and like the energy tree is another example of design inspired by nature. “We call it bio-mimicry,” says Bancon.

Rear view/parking monitor
Two screens on the dashboard display the view behind the car – there are no door mirrors to disturb the airflow, but small cameras – and double as monitors for the Around View Camera which give a bird’s eye view of the car when manoeuvering or parking.

Saving energy was the guiding force behind the use of low-energy LED head and tail lamps, while Nuvu’s heating and ventilation system filters and cleans the city air as it passes through the vehicle. Not only does it produce no emissions at source, but Nuvu actually helps clean up the city environment.

Exterior and interior design
“Nuvu’s design is further clear evidence of Nissan’s continued desire to challenge convention and to explore all the possibilities that the EV could bring us. In many ways it was inspired by our two most extreme EVs of recent times: Mixim and Pivo 2.

“Significantly, though, Nuvu delivers a more realistic interpretation of two of the most important aspects of its forerunners – the ‘Friendly Innovation’ found in Pivo 2 and the ‘Sports Dynamics’ central to Mixim

“The result? We have designed a radical concept car that with just a few changes could go into production tomorrow,” explains Masato Inoue, Chief Designer, Product Design Department, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.

Developed by designers at Creative Box Inc. – Nissan’s design think-tank – Nuvu’s green house has flowing lines with gentle curves inspired by nature. The distinctive shape of the door glass on either side gives the impression of a hot air balloon that’s being gently inflated by pressure from within, while tropical fish inspired the profile of the side window graphics as a whole.

This contrast between the natural, fluid shape of the greenhouse and the strength implied by the solidity of the lower body gives Nuvu a feeling of quality rarely found in a compact car.

Colour and materials
Nuvu’s visual impact is further enhanced by its unique body colour. Developed by Nissan Design, the shade is officially called Soft Feel Sandy Gold.

Matching the ecological values of an electric vehicle, the moulded plastics and synthetic elements found inside a typical production car have been replaced by natural materials and organic alternatives, such as the wood fibres and rubber from car tyres used for the flooring. The result helps create a relaxed, warm atmosphere within Nuvu’s cabin.

During the design development stage, key targets were to develop an EV that encompassed obvious modernity with engaging ambience and a playful aspect – hence the energy tree. “You don’t need to be a car lover to fall in love with Nuvu,” adds Bancon.

EV drivetrain
Nuvu is more than a styling concept of a future EV. It is a fully working mobile test bed for much of the technology that will be used in Nissan’s production EV to be launched in 2010. For this reason elements of its technical specification are being kept secret for the time being.

The electric motor used in Nuvu is mounted at the rear of the vehicle and drives the back wheels, though neither its exact specification nor the power and torque figures are being released at this stage. A driving range of 125 kms and top speed of 120 km/h are being made public, however.

Li-Ion battery
Similarly although it can be revealed that the batteries used are of the latest laminated lithium-ion type and have a capacity of 140 Wh/kg (watt-hours per kilogram), the total capacity of the batteries and number of modules are not being disclosed at this stage.

Nissan began research into high output Li-Ion cells as long ago as 1992, but today development is carried out by Automotive Energy Supply Corp. (AESC), a joint venture company set up by Nissan and NEC Group.

Unlike a conventional lithium-ion battery with its bulky cylindrical cells, the laminated Li-Ion battery as used in Nuvu has thin laminated cells and fewer components overall. This boosts its power by a factor of 1.5 at the same time as halving its physical size. It also remains twice as efficient as a conventional cylindrical Li-Ion battery even after five years or 100,000 kms of continuous usage.

Another bonus of the compact cell construction is that a thin modular design is possible with a commensurate improvement in battery cooling efficiency. Higher power outputs are achieved through material improvements made to its lithium manganate positive electrode and carbon negative electrode. The use of chemically stable spinal-structured manganese for the positive electrode also helps ensure safe operation.

Its compact size allows the batteries to be mounted under the seats and the vehicle’s flat floor, thus helping to keep the centre of gravity as low as possible.

A quick charge from empty to full should take between 10 to 20 minutes while a full charge should take between three to four hours from a domestic 220V socket.

Typical users
“The people who will be drawn to a car like Nuvu are many and varied,” says Bancon. “It is a cross generational car and not a signature vehicle for one generation.

“There will be common threads, however. They will be early adopters but more importantly they regard themselves as urban citizens. They don’t just work or live in the city; they are part of the city. They want a car that somehow expresses who they are and which reflects their personal ideology.”

Conclusion
Although clearly a concept vehicle exploring aspects of future vehicle design, Nuvu nevertheless embodies many messages for today. Its clever interior provides ample headroom, legroom and comfort for most everyday needs without occupying more road space than it needs.

The use of recycled and natural materials underlines Nuvu’s environmental message and while the energy tree might be considered as a piece of whimsy, the use of solar energy is an entirely sensible and practical technological solution to aid an emission free future.

“Nuvu is a concept car, for sure, but it is an entirely credible vehicle,” says Bancon. “It is light, clean and easy to drive. It is practical and a sensible size, yet it is also embodies an element of fun: the future doesn’t look so bad, after all.”

Designer : Nissan

From the website :

There are several already made Braille products existing in the market. However, other than heavy and large in size, most of them are also highly priced. B&D messenger was designed to solve these problems. We intended to design following aspects: Cost effectiveness and Functionality. General Braille display or TTY system that are available right now are too expensive in price. To reduce its cost, B&D Messenger is built with an open source platform, Arduino and Processing. Currently, in order to keep the price low and affordable, a basic B&D messenger still runs by a connection to a computer, however if the user seeks portability a wireless connection can be made by ordering an optional Bluetooth module that can be easily attached on to the micro controller. In addition, by running under the Internet, no cost will be needed for sending and receiving messages. Small and Light. To accomplish this objective, all of the adopting materials we choose are lightweight. The triangle shape is chosen to be consistent with the other existing devices and the design was limited in accordance with the LCD size. Do-It-Yourself. B&D Messenger is designed to have a less complex construct. The case should be easy to make and ensemble with a recycled hard paper attached inside the kit. All basic electronic parts come with customized and presoldered state.

Designer : Jaeyoon, Kang and Noriaki Okada

Treepac story after the jump …

Press Release :
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, paper products are the biggest single component of community waste, with 85 million tons generated in 2006. Though much of this is recycled, the sheer volume compelled the team at product development consultancy Essential to examine their own consumption habits. Frustrated by their findings, the team devised a solution—the Treepac. Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) judges took notice and honored the concept with a Silver International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) in the Ecodesign category.

Treepac is a reusable shipping container intended to replace cardboard boxes. The structure is made entirely of sustainable wood-based polymer cellulose acetate, Treepac is used like cardboard packaging but is designed to enable and encourage people and companies to improve their environmental footprint. The more times each pack is used, the greater its positive effect on the environment.

“When we examined our everyday use of cardboard, we became aware of the quantity of packaging materials we should recycle, appalled at the amount of material we couldn’t, and frustrated by an inability to reuse most of it,” said Design Researcher Dave Siedzik. “We were disheartened that recycling cardboard is a completely inefficient process.”

The Treepac concept mirrors the good features of cardboard boxes while adding new attributes that lower the overall environmental impact of packaging. Essential researchers, designers and engineers estimate that a recycled cardboard box can have up to eight uses but must be reconstituted in an energy-draining production facility each time. The Treepac, on the other hand, can be reused again and again.

Developing the Treepac is one way the Essential team aspires to create a positive environmental and social impact through their work. “By thinking of new opportunities to reduce overall energy consumption while not fundamentally changing the current shipping and delivery infrastructure, the Treepac concept has the potential to both improve the industry and help the environment,” said Founding Partner Scott Stropkay.

Designer : Essential Design

Designer : Kate Jaclin via HomeTone