By Justin on March 5th, 2010, 9:45 pm 0 Comments

I’ve been collecting a bunch of great ideas lately, but haven’t had the time to post them, so I thought it was about time to get them up here, again as reference points, context, and markers for projects we’re hoping to do and general inspiration.

First off, an idea that Josh once imagined, in some fashion anyways, a green house made from recovered windshields.

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Tagged: architecture context design plant plastic bags recycle windshield

By Justin on July 8th, 2009, 1:34 am 0 Comments

As recommended by Jodi, I now have a respirator that specializes in protection against: paint & pesticide vapors, solvents, glue, thinners, particulates, and mists.

There’s still a ways to go with preparing the planters, but hopefully by next week we’ll be able to start planting.

In other news, an awesome brainstorming night with Cristina—so many great things being planned for the coming months!!!

Tagged: BCL plastic bags safety

By Justin on July 1st, 2009, 3:42 pm 8 Comments

Another day spent at 406 Pelissier. Working with these plastic bags is really time consuming, but it will be worth it. The projects we have in mind are taking longer than we may have initially aniticipated, but that’s been the case with everything we’ve ever done.

The banner is growing steadily, but we’re hoping for a final length of somewhere near 18 feet. We’ve also scouted a location, but we’re still working on the message for the banner itself.

Our continuing work with the planters is going well, as we’re about 1/3 of the way to the grand total of planters we’re hoping to make. Also, the test planter is doing well, with some wildflower seeds sprouting already. With the planter being indoors, it has certainly helped to keep the soil moist, but also (and as we had figured long ago), the first and second design iterations of the planters were drying the soil very quickly due to the use of newspapers. With the plastic bags, the soil seems to be holding moisture much better. We’ve been careful to create drainage holes, but we probably need to integrate this into the design more effectively.

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Tagged: banner BCL planters plastic bags research

By Justin on June 25th, 2009, 11:08 pm 8 Comments

Another great day in 406 Pelissier. We got lots of brainstorming done and continued our planning and work with plastic bag recycling projects.

It’s been a fantastic three days, and being able to work in such a concentrated way in just one week has been really helpful in pushing forward on some new ideas. We came up with a good plan for some “must do” things over the next few months, more details soon!

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Tagged: BCL downtown ironing planning plastic bags projects research

By Justin on June 23rd, 2009, 11:55 pm 14 Comments

Today was another great, amazingly fun and productive day in 406 Pelissier! We did a lot of material tests, figured out some more details on our book, met some new people, and generally enjoyed having a dedicated workspace.

It’s going to be very hard to give up this space.

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Tagged: BCL downtown plastic bags projects research Windsor

By Steven on June 16th, 2009, 6:18 pm 0 Comments

Justin has some process shots, and those will probably be posted at some point, but I figured I’d go ahead and share the product of five or so hours of ironing inside-out plastic grocery bags. So far, I’ve made some envelopes, a box, and some random swatches to see if leftover scaps can be fused into a solid sheet (they can). Eight layers (four bags or one bag folded on itself twice) yields a stupidly strong, Tyvek-like material that can be fused to itself (that is, you can fuse seams to make envelopes or pouches or fuse multiple, smaller sheets together to make a piece of material any size). Uhm. And you can also weave strips together and fuse that (top left), but that doesn’t really have much in the way of practical applications.

And there’s these guys:

Each pouch is made from a single bag, and the one on the left is actually compostable (if any of you are Bulk Barn shoppers, you should hang onto those). I do ever so wonder what we’ll do with biodegradable plastic (read: mold-proof) pouches with rare earth magnets embedded in the back…

Tagged: materials planters plastic bags projects recycling research WHATCHOO KNOW 'BOUT PLANTERS?

By Justin on February 10th, 2009, 1:36 am 1 Comments

Made from reused / fused plastic bags, 600 plants, and used TV aerial towers for the support structure, this living wall made by Adam Harris and Parimal Gosai is currently on display at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel. The show, Come Up To My Room, is showcasing a bunch of fun and engaging design and some bad art.

[via designboom]

Tagged: green indoors living nature plants plastic bags wall