Lights To Inspire

This is just a quick post about a few lamps/lights I came across that I think are pretty cool and intriguing. Looking at the images below you will see they make use of everyday objects and recycle them to their optimum potential. These show that being 'Green' and Recycling can be fun, cool, modern and exciting.

Solar Cities

As part of my current project, renovating an old Victorian house in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way, we visited a demonstration house that is owned by Dundee City Council in partnership with SCARF and Solar Cities Scotland. Together they have renovated it in a way that the house maintains itself and uses renewable energies. Here we were given a tour of the house and educated about each aspect of the energy efficient equipment within it; from the solar panels to the insulation. This house provides a focus for education, advice and information about domestic scale renewable energy and sustainable construction to households and the general public in Dundee and throughout central and the north east of Scotland. The aim is to showcase technologies, materials and methods of construction that can be integrated into existing housing. One of the main points that was emphasised today was the fact that before you start remodelling and installing energy efficient technologies into any building, you need to first understand how efficient it is as it currently stands. Then from here it is easier to improve its weaknesses, harness it’s strong points and incorporate new technologies.

Solar Cities Scotland aims are to develop and promote the use of renewable energy in all of its forms ; sun, wind, water, the earth and trees; to generate energy for Dundee. They have a campaign to “make Dundee Scotland’s green energy capital city with every citizen a green citizen”. The campaign is called ‘Dundee Sun City’.

To find out more information about this campaign you can visit www.dundeesuncity.org.uk

Recycled iBook

I thought this was pretty cool looking and in a way it brings a whole new meaning to recycling and an end of life use for products. Today we are constantly trying to use materials and products that throughout their whole cycle are more environmentally friendly and even have a use at the end of their life. This can't always be achieved of course but when I stumbled across this Apple iBook that had been turned into a clock, it shows that even things you may not think have a use once they stop working, do.

This is a fully working clock made from an Apple iBook; even the mouse has been incorporated as a pendulum.

The keys of the Apple iBook have not been wasted either as they have been transformed into cuff links.