repurposeful.com

The Revolutionary Zipcar

Zipcar was ahead of its time. Everyone's familiar with the concept--Zipcar membership allows you to reserve and essentially share a neighborhood car for an hourly or daily price. Smart and sustainable each Zipcar takes 15-20 personally-owned vehicles of the road. When you multiply that by 5000 it yields a big number. In San Francisco (of course!)

 Zipcar includes a plug-in electric hybrid in its fleet. The company was founded in 1999 by a 42-year old mother of three, Robin Chase. She'd just learned about the concept of car sharing from a friend who'd traveled to Berlin. As the March 5th New York Times Magazine feature notes Chase began in 1999 but seemed to have 2009 in mind. Her "savviest move was to tap into her constituency’s desire for an old-fashioned sense of community." We urbanites long for that.

Putting the Garden Back in Garden State

This is a great building I am lucky to work on--a LEED-registered converted coconut manufacturing and storage facility called Garden Street Lofts in none other than Hoboken, NJ. I can vouch for the functional and thoughtful design, as well as the high ceilings and space galore, unheard of by Manhattan standards. How's this for compare and contrast-- the terrace spaces alone off one of the Penthouse's is 1400 SQ FT! Now you can hear how great it is straight from Inhabitat. 

Read & Repurposed

A sampling of cute, not too crunchy, furnishings and accessories that repurpose magazines and newspapers.

The Pulp Bulletin Board from Uncommon Goods allows you to slot memos in between the magazine edges or rock a traditional push pin. Designed by Adin Mumma and retails for US$20.

Modern Furniture's Recycled Magazine Wall Mirror is chic and one of a kind, crafted by artisans in Indonesia. Hate to send you here, but since it's out of stock, you can find a similar product at WalMart that retails for US$38.88.

This Translations Wastebasket courtesy of The Container Store is kitschy chic. Let's also be clear that the fact that it's repurposed from Japanese magazines makes it super cute. US$24.99 and found in the Earth Friendly Organization section.

 

Finally, made from recycled newsprint these Recycled Newsprint Pencils from the MoMA store's Destination : Seoul collection. Designed by Hyunjung Park these pencils (US$5 for non-members) are part of a MoMA-exclusive collection highlighting designers from South Korea.

Repurposeful Fashion: Preloved

Love the retro-chic look of Canadian designer Preloved's collection, constructed from reclaimed fabrics. Courtesy of Inhabitat. For a menswear option, I LOVE Alter in Greenpoint from an earlier post.