Google X, the tech giant’s top secret experimental branch, recently announced that it will take over Makani Power, a startup that develops wind turbines that fly through the air like a kite, rather than being mounted on massive poles cemented into the ground. The acquisition is just one of many significant investments Google has made into renewable energy technologies, and indicates that airborne wind turbines might soon be ready to move out of the experimental phase and into commercial reality.

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Eighteen year-old Justin Beckerman isn't your ordinary high school student. Instead of planning for prom night, Beckerman is taking rides in a one-man submarine he built from the ground up. Referred to as the teenage Thomas Edison, the New Jersey resident spent one month designing and five months building his nine-foot-long submarine. The submarine can dive as deep as thirty feet, giving Beckerman plenty of room to explore Lake Hopatcong—in between crew team practice and homework, of course.

 

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A floor lamp, bedside lamp and reading lamp all in one, S7 is a versatile new lighting design by Structures. Founded by sailor turned designer Nicolas Pichelin, Structures developed the fascinating and flexible LED lamp to have an interchangeable head which can be rotated 360 degrees. This ultra versatile lamp is being sold by Ameico is one of our green picks from New York Design Week this year.

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The Retyrement Plan is a collection of outdoor weatherproof furniture items created from old, discarded automobile tires and recycled plastics. Anu Tandon Viera creates a woven upholstery of recycled plastic wrapper waste over a ‘frame’ of tires salvaged from old scooters to discarded trucks. The “virtually indestructible” ottomans are part of a collection that includes occasional chairs, pouffes, charpais and floor cushions made from well-traveled wheels, salvaged fabrics and reclaimed wood and bamboo.

+ The Retyrement Plan

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Moooi just unveiled its gorgeous new Heracleum II chandelier, which is blossoms with dozens of low-energy LED leaves. The hanging lamp was designed by Bertjan Pot and it incorporates Mooi's "Electro Sandwich" technology, which enables the LEDs to draw low-voltage current from the frame without the need for extra wires. Click through the images to discover this gorgeous LED luminaire, which was inspired by the plant with the same name.

 

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This year the International Contemporary Furniture Fair during New York Design Week featured over 500 exhibitors, and there was far too much green design goodness to pack into just one post - so we're bringing you a second serving of the best sustainable furnishings, products and lights from this year's show. From the world's smallest chandelier to 3D printers and off-grid hot tubs, read on for our favorite finds from ICFF day two!

 

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Few homes address their surroundings while leaving such a small impact on the natural environment as the Multicellular House by Japanese Architect Koji Tsutsui. The owners of the Mill Valley, California home opened their doors to the public recently as part of AIA San Francisco's annual Marin Living: Home Tours event, offering visitors an opportunity to walk through the unique space. The house consists of 10 boxes that are joined together like a small village cascading down the side of a steep hill. Click through the slideshow below to take a tour of the home.

 

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Long gone are the old-fashioned chandeliers outfitted with incandescent light bulbs and enough ornament to put a Christmas tree to shame. Group-Two Design recently brought their ultra-modern LED chandelier to this year’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair, and the futuristic fixture turned heads with its cutting edge design. Still paying homage to the shape of a conventional chandelier, the new form is a minimalist and energy-efficient interpretation of an old classic.

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Nervous System took inspiration from the shapes and patterns of nature to create an app that lets users design their own “cellular” wooden coffee tables. Once a customer is happy with their online design, Nervous System uses a CNC router to carve it out of plywood. The Inhabitat team stopped by their booth at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) this week for a look at their first official prototype and we have to say that it’s pretty darn cool!

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Approximately 27.4 billion disposable diapers end up in US landfills each year, and once there, they take about 500 years to decompose! If you want to stop contributing the the problem with your baby’s diapers, (and maybe even potty train early) cloth diapers are a great option, but getting started with cloth diapers can be a bit intimidating for newbies. Inhabitots editor Julie Seguss recently got a tutorial in cloth-diapering by Carolyn Sutton of Charlie Banana to learn about the basics, and we made this handy video so that you can follow along step by step, and learn how to get started with cloth-diapering. Click here to check it out!

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By now, you’ve probably heard of the High Line, but did you know that there is also an underground park called the LowLine proposed for downtown Manhattan? It may have seemed like a pipe dream at first but with many residents backing the project and New Yorkers in awe of what a subterranean park could mean for the city, the LowLine is picking up speed and could soon bring an amazing new public space (not to mention added revenue for the city) to the Lower East Side . Inhabitat’s very own Editor-in-Chief, Jill Fehrenbacher, recently caught up with the LowLine team, James Ramsey and Dan Barasch, to pick their brains about what could be New York’s next design landmark. Click through to see the video, and learn more about this incredible initiative.

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Now in its third year, Wanted Design has risen to become one of our favorite annual events during New York Design Week. Whereas ICFF confounds the senses with hundreds of booths, Wanted Design presented an expertly curated collection of groundbreaking designers - and we were thrilled to find an abundance of sustainable designs on the show floor. Read on for some of our favorites - from David Trubridge's sparkling LED Light Rain installation to Joe Doucet's electroluminescent Hadron Light, Fabrica's fun and funky recycled furnishings and beyond.

 

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Tucker Robbins showcased these simple yet beautiful pendant lamps made from repurposed fishing baskets at this year’s ICFF. The woven lamps give new life to disused fishing baskets made by local craftspeople in Sulawesi, Indonesia.  Each natural rattan lampshade can be lined with or without rice paper to give the lamp a brighter or more diffuse glow.

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Full color 3D printers not high-tech enough for you? How about one that can work in the anti-gravity conditions of space? Meet Mataerial, designed by Petr Novikov and Saša Jokić. Instead of extruding filament in layers, the machine pushes out polymers from a nozzle, much like a tube of toothpaste. The new technique, which they call “Anti-Gravity Modeling,” allows the polymers to harden in mid-air while also keeping the printer from clogging and adding strength to the printed structure.

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You might have thought that using milk crates as furniture was a long gone memory from your college days. Allow us to reintroduce you to the storage and siting solution making a comeback courtesy of Newark, New Jersey design firm Combo Collab. The XTOOL offers a stackable storage solution complete with plywood seats and legs for outdoor and indoor use. We were able to get up close and personal with the designers who we spotted at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair after having completed a successful Kickstarter campaign late last year. Click through the gallery to see how these stools stack up against your old college crates.

 

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