Ecological Furniture

It is possible to lead a “green” lifestyle right down to the furniture in your house. While shopping for ecological furniture, two important factors to consider are materials used and manufacturing techniques.

Choosing furniture made of ecological materials is probably the most obvious way to buy ecological furniture. Recycled or reused wood, steel, leather, or other fibers uses existing materials, and water-based glues and stains reduces added chemicals that can be harmful to both you and the environment.


Bamboo has been recognized and praised for being the fastest growing woody plant in the world, while proving to be very durable yet lightweight. Cork is also regarded as a sustainable and environmentally friendly building material. Cork is the bark of a species of oak tree that can be harvested without damaging the tree. The bark grows back over time, and can be harvested several times throughout the tree’s life. Cork is also easy to recycle and is very fire resistant.


Choosing furniture based on manufacturing techniques is also a method of choosing ecological furniture. Some furniture companies minimize waste by only producing custom-made products on an individual basis, thereby eliminating the need for a warehouse and eliminating the possibility for un-sold furniture. It is important to think about every step in the manufacturing process.


To minimize your ecological impact, think about where the wood, leather, or other fibers in your piece of furniture were grown or processed, and how long and under what circumstances they made their way to your living room. Did they travel across the country? Across the world? Choosing local materials from local craftsmen can reduce your carbon footprint.

Thinking of a few simple factors in your next furniture purchase can make an impact on your quality of life and the health of the environment. What will you buy next?

By Anne Consroe

Ecological Beds: Bora Bora

Ecological furniture and japanese style bedAnte and the structure The ante is realized in tamburato with chassis in wood massello of fir, covered with panels in plywood impiallacciati in walnut aniegré. In the Structure the panel is in MDF E1 class. These materials allow to offer the characteristic principles of lightness, stability and resistance. The backs are in multilayer with thickness 6 milimeter, impiallacciati in walnut aniegré and mounted and joined. Its use of the multilayer, thanks to its peculiar igroscopicità, concurs with superficial the backs do not swell or crumble even if with contact with humid. For more information go to Mazzali.

Ghost Chairs

Three hundred of Philippe Starck's transparent Ghost chairs sparkled under chandeliers in front of this year's Interior Design Show in Toronto. Forget office-style stacking seats. This was function with a heady dose of fashion."That chair is the perfect expression of what's going on right now," said Calgary-based interior designer Monica Stevens, who had flown into town for the recent four-day event. "It's a bergère, but it's acrylic. It's a sign of the times. It's the minimal shape, but it's luxurious."Call it nouveau traditional. But there's nothing staid about this new interior design aesthetic. It's about reinterpreting tradition from a contemporary perspective: A Louis XVI chair becomes thoroughly modern in clear polycarbonate; a wallpapered den looks perfectly 21st- century with a wallpapered ceiling, and an otherwise low-key sitting room reverberates anew with lemon walls.David Shah, trend expert with international publications such as Textile View and Viewpoint, called the mood "glambaroque" in a recent Newsday article. "It's an eclectic mixture of colour, pattern, shape, material. . . . It's about clutter. It's about putting lots of things together; it can be rococo, baroque, mixed with something personal. It's full of surprises. It really harks back to the excesses of the 19th-century boudoir. It's a new smore: http://www.dexigner.com/jump/news4474.html

Float

Float is designed and manufactured by the German mathematician and designer Max Longin. Urban and sensual: float - an innovative bed. Uncompromising and extravagant: the appearance of float is minimalist and playful at the same time. Seemingly floating the sleeping plain is held by the wooden rods and stainless steel bows. The bows themselves rest in oak cones. The construction of the bed is based on the idea of the central point of rest to which everything leads in a pliable and soft way. The bed can be dismantled into several parts. The separate parts of float also form the transportation case. You couldn't be more ecological! Innovation till the tips of your toes: For the connection between the wooden rods and the steel bows simple and effective elements have been developed.

Ball Chair by Eero Aarnio 1966

The Ball Chair - or Globe Chair as it's called sometimes - was designed by using one of the most simple geometric forms - the ball. Cutting of a part and fixing it at one point Eero Aarnio comes to a remarkable result - a completely unconventional shaped chair:
A Ball Chair is a "room within a room" with a cozy and calm athmosphere, protecting outside noises and giving a private space for relaxing or having a phonecall. Turning around its own axis on the base the view to the outer space is variable for the user and thus he is not completely excluded from world outside.
The Vitra Design Museum notes in his brochure on the Ball Chair miniature: "It is something between a piece of furniture and a piece of architecture and at the same time embodies both the mobile and the established, the fixed." - You'll find this miniature at the Vitra Design Museum's Shop.

Art Furniture by Design

Art Furniture by Design is about uniquely designed, fine hand crafted furniture. Furniture which reflects a passion for clean simple and elegant design. Furniture whose design is inspired by the finest crafts people of the 19th and 20th century. Art Furniture by Design is about respecting strict principles of craftsmanship and the love of labor. Exploring craft design, the most predominate characteristic is the lack of frivolous decoration for the sake of adornment. Form is indeed function. With this in mind, there are many avenues of design to follow all of which lead to an honest expression of purpose and a statement of ideal. A well designed piece of furniture should not just occupy space, it should define space. Each furniture piece, regardless of what it may be, is unique and tailored to the wants and needs of the client. Every piece of furniture is begun from a drawing with the clients ideas, needs and aesthetic preferences addressed.

The New Leggera Bathtub from Ceramica Flaminia

The new Leggera bathtub from Ceramica Flaminia is a design that will arouse curiosity in all who see it. Resembling a crisp white cloth held taut by four invisible hands, the Leggera stretches out invitingly… the vision of designer Gilda Borgnini. The lightness of the design, and the thin surfaces of the bathtub allows for a sense of freedom from the usual boundaries. The outside and inside of the bathtub are less marked, melting into one another with a sensation of airy relaxation. A stainless steel shower pole pierces through the porcelain effortlessly, as if it were indeed cloth. The tub’s shape and dimensions are ideal for reclining to your full length, undisturbed by the normal restrictions (even if you are very tall), and are likewise also perfect for containing any splashes from the shower. Soak and shower to your heart’s content in the new Leggera bathtub by Ceramica Flaminia.