Land and Sea Winners Announced

7th May 2008

iDA celebrates winners of Land & Sea Competition for sustainability at cocktail reception

The winners of the first International Design Awards' Land & Sea

Competition for sustainability have been named!

Judging of the work was rigorous. Exceptional work in architecture and the design of interior, products, graphic and fashion came into the IDA offices from about twenty countries, revealing a global emphasis on not only sustainable materials but also seamless, productive and inclusive integration into the social and cultural fabric of the project's community. Criteria included materials, holistic philosophy, feasability (if conceptual) and overall carbon footprint. 

Winners will be celebrated at a cocktail and hors d'oeuvres reception at

H.K. Lounge on Sunday, May 18. The event is timed during the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York: around the corner from the trade show at Jacob Javits Conventoin Center, the event promises to connect an international assembly of designers and consumers impassioned by sustainability and the feasability of green design. 

Congratulations to the 2008 Land & Sea Competition Winners, as follows: 

Architecture, Land: Garden Spots, by Stefanie Werner. Werner has proposed a plan to turn green a ubiquitous unused urban surface: the back of billboards. 

Architecture, Sea: Lillies, by Peter Richardson. The lillies are a

conceptual integrated energy-generating system of lilly-shaped discs

placed on rivers in order to harness the power of solar energy on a large scale.

 Interior, Land: Les Indiennes, by Mary Bergtold-Mulcahy. Mulcachy is a

textile designer who works with artisans in South India with

SKAL-certified organic cotton, all-natural dyes and wood block prints:

helping the village & over 50 families. No electricity is used in the

process.  

Interior, Sea: Icehotel bedroom, by Daniel Rosenbaum at Rosenbaum Design, Sydney, Australia. Each year a group of international artists and

designers are commissioned to design and build from ice Sweden's Icehotel bedroom suites, luxury suites, a church, ice bar, lobby and reception, ice art exhibition space and an ice theatre that seats up to 300 people. At the end of winter the entire hotel melts away; an entirely new Icehotel is built each following year. 

Product, Land: SWIFT Rooftop Wind Energy, by Jorji Frederiksen of

Renewable Devices. The SWIFTT is the world's first specifically rooftop

wind turbine with patented technologies for unprecedented safe, efficient and near silent operation. 

Product, Sea: Frontrunner by Joey Ruiter, JRuiter + Studio: a futuristic

look at recreational sea travel.  

Graphics, Land: Scott Abel of Definable Design, an intern graphic designer at Pentagram in San Francisco. 

Graphics, Sea: Cahan Assocates created the annual report for The Gap,

outlining the corporation's increasing devotion to fair trade and

sustainable production practices.  

Fashion, Land: Eloise Grey, for her collection of ladies' coats in organic

tweed from the Isle of Mull. The fabrics support the continuity of

knowledge of fine weaving and circle of life that organic practices

sustain: embodying respect for the makers, the land, the art of weaving, tailoring and the process of trying and buying.

 Fashion, Sea: Jenny White of Eco-Boudoir, for her collection of clothing that solely involves fair trade and sustainable materials and production processes. For example, she uses vegetable tanned leather as a bi-product of a free-range goat and deer farm in Germany.

 Student Awards 

Architecture, Sea, Student: London's Sabba Khan, who designed a coastal building to function as an Oyster Garden: a place where the harvesting and cultivating of oysters is regulated and monitored. The shell-like structure sits on the sea bed, while the spaces within fluctuate andrespond to the tidal patterns of the river. 

Graphics, Land, Student: Vincent Lo, who created a campaign to unify theRestriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive standards for the manufacture of electrical and electronic equipment, restricting the use of lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls, and polybrominated diphenyls.   

International Design Awards Jury member Melissa Sterry, CEO, Societás said: 'The Land and Sea Competition entries clearly illustrated how the

designers, architects and inventors of the world are embracing the

challenges presented by climate change, habitat destruction and the impact of mankind's consumption of the world's natural resources. Sustainability is central to 21st Century design and all of the world's most innovative and inspired designers are illustrating that it is well within their capability to come up with the solutions we need to tackle environmental issues. What stands out about the winning entries across all award categories in the Land and Sea competition 2008 is an understanding that good design is about problem solving and function above folly for its own sake'.

Winner of the 'Fashion: Sea' Award Jenny White at Eco Boudoir said of her win 'I feel very privileged to win the IDA Land and Sea for Fashion. When  I first started my MA researching eco textiles, most people did not understand my passion for sustainability within design. I think they

thought I was mad and slightly obsessive...I hope now that Eco-Boudoir

will be able to influence and inspire other young designers and consumers that sustainable fashion can be genuinely sexy and luxurious and is truly the only way forward.'

Take the Tree Challenge

25th February 2008

Would your business like to save thousands of pounds on all its telecoms bills and plant hundreds of trees (at the same time) for free?  The UK’s only environmental telephone company, Green Mobile has issued a ‘Tree Challenge’ to all businesses with an environmental/CSR commitment:

“We will beat your current BT business landline and mobile bills by 10% or plant 10 trees on your behalf” says Adrian Potter, MD of Green Mobile 

Take the challenge and find out how good (or not) your current telecoms deals are in 2008.  Green Mobile offers market-beating landline and mobile rates (below) but they also donate 4% of business customers' on-going phone bills to the Woodland Trust, the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity, in order to plant trees. Indeed, the Woodland Trust is recommending this offer to their business partners and any interested organisations. 

Join up and it works out that one tree is planted for every £125 your company spends on its phone bill (plus 3 trees are planted for each new mobile phone contract) – you’ll also get a yearly ‘total trees planted’ certificate. However, going ‘green’ does not mean costing you more. Green Mobile believe they will win their challenge because they offer:

• 20% off BT’s standard business landline rental and select service charges
• 1p per minute for local and nation landline calls
• Mobile shared minute packages from £45 per month
• Cashback or new/refurbished handsets
• £2 per month contract free mobile phone option 

There are no catches or gimmicks.  For peace of mind your company is not put under contract for landline rental or call charges. Your phone number, BT set-up or services all remain the same e.g. BT engineers still fix your lines.  Green Mobile line rental charges and call rates will not go up after a couple of months. To save you more money you also get:

•  Unlimited free calls between Green Mobile landlines
• Unlimited free calls between Green Mobile mobiles
• Unlimited free calls from shared minute mobile packages to Green Mobile landlines 

It’s easy to take the challenge. Simply go to www.greenmobile.co.uk and fill out the short Green Price Challenge form, or call their friendly and knowledgeable staff on 0845 233 0000 to request your copy.   What have you got to lose? If they can’t beat your telephone bill, they’ll plant 10 trees on your behalf. If they can, join and you will save money and also plant trees!