In Australia, the lackey country, politicians and other business rent-a-reptiles constantly parrot the dumbest US propaganda, eg that we can’t do anything about CO2 emissions because it would hurt the economy, as if we have a choice, as if we won’t be fried (along with our economy) by global warming as long as we ignore [...]
Describing a project as adaptive reuse is often no more than an attempt to give a bit more credibility to a boring renovation. It is further complicated by the difficulties inherent in bringing heritage buildings back into use. But occasionally there is an exemplary project where the restoration of a heritage building is successfully combined [...]
Repeatedly at auctions I have passed up tyre swans and more importantly tyre urns because they weren’t exactly what I wanted so now I find myself still swanless and none appear at auction anymore. I was forced to think about this when I came across this site selling bus brake planters. I have some planters [...]
The chairs in the next post are practical but not really aesthetic, too obviously sow’s ears pretending to be silk purses. Now notwithstanding the rusticity (I’m not big on rustic) I think this stool is quite beautiful. Maybe its the elegant simplicity of its manufacture by fire that appeals. You can even make a DIY [...]
Anyone who haunts auctions, dumps and recycling depots like we do (it’s the hunting and gathering instinct still there) knows how many old bathtubs there are out there. And until I came across Trashformaciones outdoor chairs I thought all you could do was leave them out in the paddock to water the horses. A comment [...]
All over the world people are snipping away turning rubber tyre inner tubes into everything imaginable, its one of the fashionable materials of the day. The Australian brand Haul is making bags from truck inner tubes that have been everywhere and also from plastic advertising billboards. We really like them. The pity is that they [...]
Since German reunification vast areas of East German public housing have been left empty after an exodus to the wealthier west. Most of it is plattenbauen, or “slab houses”, the GDR’s one-stop solution to its gargantuan housing problems. Made from prefabricated concrete panels, they were churned out fast and cheap in a handful of blankly [...]
Just what you’ve always wanted, a wallet made out of a milk carton. I like this one, even if it is really naff. Maybe because it reminds me of all the great brightly coloured stuff you get in Africa made out of tincans and plastic bags. Or maybe I just like folding bits of paper. [...]
No doubt you all know George Orwell’s injunction against sandal wearing socialists in The Road To Wigan Pier. Well, they reckon socialism’s dead but sandal wearing isn’t, it’s still happening out there…. It oughta be banned, but you never know, since we are now living at the arse end of human civilisation, tyre sandal making [...]
I can’t stand the peudo-mystical hippie crap that surrounds the natural building movement, it always smacks of identity politics rather than practical effort. But Builders Without Borders is an exception and I’ve included them here because of their use of packing pallettes for roof trusses.