Tag Archives: environmental design

These biodegradable face masks made from rice paper can be planted, helping you and the planet breathe freely!

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One sight we’ve all gotten used to since around this time last year is the littered surgical mask. Since the 2020 pandemic started, we’ve seen them crumpled on the side of the street, tangled up in bushes, buried in garbage piles, caught on tree branches– they’re everywhere. One study even shows that with each minute of the day, three million masks are thrown away. Since we’ve already seen some of the devastating effects of the global climate crisis, the need to redesign face masks that don’t contribute to the world’s microplastic pollution levels cannot be overstated.

Marianne de Groot-Pons, a graphic designer, based in the Netherlands, started Marie Bee Bloom, a biodegradable face mask company, to give back to the earth after noticing all of the blue disposable face masks littered in the street corners and leaf piles. Marie Bee Bloom face masks are made from rice paper in a Dutch sheltered workshop and are filled with a mix of Dutch meadow flower seeds. Since the masks from Marie Bee Bloom are biodegradable, they can be buried in the ground once they’ve been used, then the flower seeds encased inside each mask will have their chance to sprout and bloom. De Groot-Pons’s hope in designing Marie Bee Bloom masks is that they’ll grow into plant life and flowers to help cultivate the earth and nourish the bees that call it home.

Everything about the mask is biodegradable and sustainably constructed too– from the stamped logo to the glue that holds it all together. The woolen cords on Marie Bee Bloom masks are handspun from pure sheep wool, which can be tightened or loosened around the ear with the connected adjusting piece punched out of repurposed vegetable egg cartons. The glue that holds the cord to the mask is made from potato starch. De Groot-Pons says that Marie Bee Bloom masks have not been tested for protection factors. However, they are just as safe to use as homemade fabric face masks. Besides, aren’t we all wearing two face masks nowadays anyway? Wearing a Marie Bee Bloom face mask is an easy way to help yourself, the earth, and the bees.

Designer: Pons Ontwerp

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Marianne de Groot-Pons created Marie Bee Bloom after seeing all of the littered blue face masks outside.

Made entirely from biodegradable material, even the cords are handspun from sheep wool.

The mask’s adjusting cord-piece is shaped from vegetable egg cartons.

Currently, Marie Bee Bloom ships to the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, but aims to ship worldwide soon.

Once you’ve used your mask and you’re ready to dispose of it, simply bury it in the ground and tend to it like you would other planted seeds. Then, watch it grow and wait for the bees.

The mask is made from rice paper and the cord is handspun from sheep wool, which is held to the mask with glue made from potato starch.

Wear the mask, bury the mask, sprout the seeds, watch the bees, and repeat.

The designer Marianne de Groot-Pons wearing a Marie Bee Bloom mask.

Inspired by origami, this collapsible syringe provides an eco-friendly alternative to reduce biomedical waste!

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Billions of needles and syringes are used each year, including needles used for injections made by those who are healthcare professionals and those who are not. When improperly disposed of, needle and syringe waste can create a serious biohazard since the inner tubing’s infected blood cannot be broken down or processed through recycling. This mass accumulation of waste might reach a peak with the global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, but one designer has already taken to the drawing board for solutions. Helix, a collapsible syringe, was designed by Daniel López Velasco & Ithzel Libertad Cerón López as a green alternative to the disposable devices used in today’s health sector.

A conventional syringe, those plastic tubes with the string-thin steel needle, requires the use of five different materials for construction including steel, polyethylene, rubber, resin, glue, and thermal dye. To make the construction process less laborious and costly, Helix is constructed from a single material: FlexiOH UV, a heat-curable type of silicone. To maintain Helix’s collapsible parts’ flexibility and the needle’s rigidity, the designers employed thermal-curing, a temperature-induced hardening process.

Inspired by the ability to compact lots of volume and space through the paper-folding art of origami, Helix’s crystalline, silicone structure is able to carry liquids for vaccines and be emptied once collapsed. Medication can be poured into Helix through a vacuum loading inlet located above the needle’s rigid plunger. Then, when ready for use, the rigid plunger sinks down and compresses the collapsible plunger, successfully and safely administering the medication to the patient through the rigid silicone needle.

In constructing Helix from a single material and giving it a compact, collapsible structure, the designers created a green alternative to the conventional syringe and needle, reducing its size by 30%. The issue of biomedical waste might be reaching a peak with the onset of 2020’s global pandemic and the upcoming vaccine rollout, but designs like Helix help streamline safe healthcare practices while maintaining World Health Organization and environmental standards.

Designers: Daniel López Velasco & Ithzel Libertad Cerón López

Entirely constructed from a single material, each Helix syringe is made from FlexiOH UV, a heat-curable type of silicone.

Inspired by the paper-folding art of origami, Helix employs a collapsible method for giving safe doses of medication.





The rigid needle of Helix is made from the same material as the rest of the collapsible syringe.

The silicone needle is strong enough to substitute the steel needle.

The rigidity of Helix’s needle and the flexibility of the syringe was achieved through a process called Thermal-curing.

Medication is loaded into Helix through a vacuum loading inlet located at the top of the syringe.

When in use, the collapsible syringe administers medication to the patient through a double hollow, allowing the medication to flow freely.

Without the need to remove the needle from the syringe before disposal, Helix can be disposed of completely.

Using banana peels as a sustainable building material, you can now make everything from eyeglasses to watch straps!

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Along with apples, bananas are the most popular fruits in the world. More than 100 billion bananas are eaten every year, with most of us consuming about 30 pounds worth of bananas every year– that’s bananas. But what happens to all the banana peels we toss out after eating the fruit? Generally, if thrown outdoors, it can take up to two years for banana peels to biodegrade. Sarah Harbarth, a designer based in Switzerland, saw the potential in turning banana peels into a sustainable source of construction material, calling it KUORI.

Harbarth was able to create four distinct products that are entirely compostable and made from banana peels. Harbarth’s first product shows a pair of eyeglasses that swap out a tortoise-shell frame for a banana speckled marble one. Then, in combining recycled PLA material with banana peels, Harbarth produced a 3D printing filament from which one can print anything they’d like. The third product Harbarth created through KUORI is the shoe sole made entirely from banana peels, solving the problem of micro-plastics rubbing off onto the ground as we walk in our street shoes. By replacing the micro-plastic that forms our shoe soles with banana peels, Harbarth created a sole that not only doesn’t disrupt the soil we walk on but feeds it as well. Lastly, in confronting the harmful practice of making leather goods, Harbarth designed a sustainable, vegan, and recyclable leather alternative, which she showcased in the form of a watch strap.

While the time it takes for decomposition to run its course depends on environmental factors, natural litter can have an adverse effect on critters that take to munching on fruit peels and therefore the environment as a whole. With all the bananas we enjoy every year, that same amount is then turned into waste. In order to lengthen the life cycle of bananas and combat the harmful and wasteful practices of making leather goods from animal skins, Harbarth was able to create goods like phone cases and watch straps entirely from banana peels. Upon recognizing the intricate ways in which we contribute to harming the environment through practices like leather making, 3D printing, and micro-plastic construction, Harbarth looked to using banana peels to produce goods instead.

Designer: Sarah Harbarth

By turning banana peels into an alternative building material, like leather, KUORI is sustainable, vegan, and saves resources.

“The result [of KUORI] is four products that are 100% compostable and made from the banana peel as an original food waste byproduct.”

In creating products out of banana peels like eyeglasses, KUORI feeds nature instead of taking from it.

“Due to the fiber composite of the Banana peel in the material, the resulting product has a higher stability compared to ordinary PLA.”

Most shoe soles are constructed using micro-plastics that rub off on the ground we walk.

“The resulting shoe sole is very elastic and returns to its original position. The material was poured into a mold and then hardened out.”

Confronting harmful practices like bleaching leather hides, KUORI offers a sustainable alternative.

“My concept represents a sustainable, resource-saving, organic and vegan, recyclable alternative to animal leather.”

This cabin is elevated by a single pillar above Finland’s dense forest for an immersive winter getaway!

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Dedicated to providing eco-friendly micro-hospitality solutions in far-reaching destinations, Studio Puisto is at it again. Following the success of their tiny, modular cabin design, ‘Space of Mind’, Studio Puisto, a sustainable interior design studio based in Finland, recently debuted the first prototype of cabins soon to be part of a larger hospitality project called Kivijärvi Resort. Once completed, the resort, situated near Salamajärvi National Park, will comprise of 25 cabins that vary in both design and structure to adhere to the ever-changing landscape of Finland’s dense, snow-covered forest, offering accommodations for guests looking for an elevated, yet immersive getaway in nature.

The resort’s first completed cabin is called Niliaitta, which refers to the traditional storage structure built at the end of a high pillar, used by the Sámi people to store food and equipment, keeping it safe from the grasp of hungry or curious wildlife. In order to immerse guests of Kivijärvi Resort in the elements of nature as safely, but also as close as possible, Studio Puisto installed a floor-to-ceiling window that stands some distance from the cabin’s deep gable roof. From Niliaitta’s front-facing window, guests enjoy the most dominant landscapes as the cabin’s location was purposefully selected to offer the most unobstructed views of Finland’s forest and nearby body of water. The cabin itself is painted twilight black to disappear into the darkness come night, but the warm, wooden panels that line Niliaitta’s interiors provide a cozy refuge that glows with relaxed, ambient lighting.

Maintaining the forest’s original terrain was a top priority for the architects at Studio Puisto, which meant that Niliaitta’s location was strategically decided upon based on whichever location required the least number of trees to be cut down. Since the whole structure rests only on a single pillar, there was only minimal contact with the natural environment and landscape during construction – the final structure requiring the removal of only a few trees. When sourcing their material for construction, Studio Puisto avoided plastic, opting instead for wood to build the cabin’s frame, walls, roof, and base. In a similar pursuit of sustainability, Niliaitta was insulated using eco-wool, a natural type of thermal insulation that traps air in millions of tiny air pockets found in the insulator’s fibers.

With both hospitality and sustainability at the forefront of these designers’ plans for Kivijärvi Resort, Niliaitta currently offers all the luxuries found in high-end hotel experiences including, a ventilation unit, air-source heat pump, water heater, and electrical switchboard. Then, a bathroom, spacious shower, as well as a kitchenette can all be found in the rotating core in the middle of the cabin in addition to the more mechanical luxuries mentioned above. Water, sewer, and electrical lines run to Niliaitta under the cabin’s external staircase. Offering guests with these conveniences of daily life was just as important to Studio Puisto as was the cabin’s elevated immersive nature, “The idea is that by simply retreating away up in the air, we feel immediately detached from our everyday worries happening on the ground.”

Designer: Studio Puisto

This modular cabin uses industrial zinc to help Costa Rica meet its Carbon Neutral by 2021 pledge!

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Costa Rica is widely celebrated as one of the most environmentally progressive countries in the world, pledging in 2015 to become a carbon-neutral country by 2021. Naturally, in order to uphold that pledge, Úbáli Tropical Living, a Costa Rican architecture firm committed to sustainable hotel tourism, designs eco-friendly modular cabins for various terrains that have been conceived and constructed in order to decrease carbon footprints typically caused by tourism.

Úbáli, which means chameleon in Bribri, designed their first modular cabin, called Kabëk, specifically to befit mountain living. The first model for the Úbáli Tropical Living’s eco-tourism initiative dons an inclined roof, which allows the modular house to tuck right into mountainous terrains and offers travelers the chance to fully immerse themselves and their stays in the quiet of the wood. The modular cabin has a simple design layout of four walls that enclose a bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom, and dining room. The construction process also promotes frugality in regard to both time and money in that its modularity and simple layout caters to the prospect of easy and relatively affordable replication. Prepared for the most extreme of climates, Kabëk is assembled using industrial zinc, an extremely durable material that reforms nicks and blemishes thanks to its own hydroxyl carbonate protective layer. Additionally, industrial zinc’s levels of low toxicity are ideal for modular homes situated in natural settings. Industrial zinc is recyclable, durable, and an eco-conscious option for roofs. For example, rainwater that flows off Kabëk’s roof does not collect any hazardous waste on its way to the ground’s soil. Kabëk’s transportability is inherently green as the construction process preserves the natural settings on which Kabëk is situated. Furthermore, the materials used to build the modular home – industrial zinc, gypsum, and Densglass – form an ecologically sound structure that can withstand irregular changes in weather.

Once buyers attain land and construction permits, the building process takes just about two months to reach completion. In addition to the environmentally sustainable qualities and money-conscious design concept, Kabëk comes with installed septic tanks and the properly outfitted facilities needed for longer stays. The home is equipped with essential lifestyle products and tools in order to maintain convenience for a trip that otherwise brings you one on one with the mountain’s bare, albeit restorative, necessities.

Designers: Pablo Esteban Valle and Arthur Micheron x Úbáli Tropical Living