The box that is no box at all. fuseproject, working with Puma, have redesigned at one element of shopping in the shoe world. Check out fuseproject’s other designs, it’s all pretty beautiful, and always under the helm of Yves Behar:

Béhar brings a humanistic approach to his work with the goal of creating projects that are deeply in-tune with the needs of a sustainable future, connected with human emotions and which enable self-expression.

Behar/fuseprojects is notable for his work in the design of the laptop in question for the ‘One Laptop Per Child’ project, among other projects which he discusses here:

As with any occasion on which a designer discusses their work which is aimed at being environmentally and socially sustainable, especially when discussing projects aimed at ‘developing nations’ he makes many points both intentional and inadvertent which point out the good and the bad aspects of Rich White Designers doing work “for” the Poor Brown Folk of the world.

But as i said: it’s all pretty beautiful, and coming from an honorable impetus. Perhaps i’m over critical because he’s doing something very similar to what i would like to be doing.

incidentally, is there anybody out there? comment on this post if you’re reading. i see the stats, and it seems people are still looking at this thing, but i wonder who you are (probably just my mommy).

Thanks Mark.

Beautiful and disturbing photography of the evidence of our pollution from around the world here.

The following idea reminds me of Mr. Fusion, from the the movie Back to the Future part II; it is an entry concept for the Automotive X Prize, which is not only carbon neutral in it’s use of trash as fuel, but claims to be carbon negative. This is achieved in a process by which the fuel, gasified to create ’syngas,’ yields Biochar, a substance which can be used as a fertilizer for agricultural purposes. (The connection to the 1989 film is that Doc’s time machine DeLorean was run by a Mr. Fusion nuclear energy unit. At the beginning of the movie, Doc poured beer and then tossed the beer can into the devise, which then powered the car’s travels through time and the skies.)

It’s a nice idea in theory, but it is not without it’s flaws. Many printed paper products contain carcinogenic materials, which would not exactly make for a safe fertilizer.

More about the team’s proposal at Worldchanging.