www.homedesignLA - Top interior designers show their support for mother earth with a new dedication.

June 2, 2010 - PRLog -- From recycled glass and plastics to reclaimed wood every room of the house is getting a palette of “new” materials to keep it environmentally friendly, more energy efficient and still as stylist as ever.  Plant fibers like bamboo, rattan and other kinds of woven straw are being welcomed by top designers for high end window blinds and shades.  Organic materials lend a earthy and elegantly modern  texture to any room.

The newest green alternatives certainly don’t stop with reconstituted plant fibers.  The environmentally conscious consumers have driven the design and manufacturing sector to get more creative; In this cycle everyone wins.

“While using green alternative elements in design has been growing in popularity, there is still a large segment that feels like environmentally friendly design must mean incorporating 1970s throw backs like grass cloth.   When really, sustainable design can be adapted to any decor style from the clean sleek modern to a warm elegant traditional feeling using beautiful components like wild silk, reclaimed veneers, and recycled glass and plastics.  It also can be easily done to suit any budget,” said New York Interior designer Laurie Friedman.

Recycled polypropylene drinking straws put through an innovative weaving process to emphasize quality and low maintenance care turn into sumptuous weather-resistant rugs.  Soda bottles, flip-flop remnants and various plastics have all found new life as fade, moisture, and mildew resistant lightweight rugs with dramatic patterns and trend-setting hues.

An element taking on new life to beautify the present certainly isn’t a new concept.   Famed designer Eleanor McMillen Bown said “Taste is relative, but to be positive and vital it must respect the past, accept the present and look forward with enthusiasm to the future.”  However there has never before been such a consumer demand for respecting the past and reclaiming her treasures.

“The younger generation, as they’re graduating and going out in the workforce and traveling, they’re demanding these environmentally sustainable building types,” says Rajesh Chandnani, director of strategy at WATG, one of two design firms that created the green room that  won top honors in a first-ever “green” hotel room design competition in Las Vegas in mid May.  The competition was sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council, the American Society of Interior Designers and the Hospitality Industry Network, judged by designers and executives representing hotel brands such as Fairmont and Marriott.

While some of the materials presented in the competition were obviously recycled, like an old door reclaimed creatively into a chic table, other material was much more subtitle such as the smooth floor of pressed wood scrap and the concrete sink flecked with glass and stone.  “The variety and uniqueness of all these emerging materials is fantastic.  It gives designers the ability to satisfy their client’s desire for environmentally friendly components while not sacrificing style, texture, and color because the palette of products available is growing every day,” said Friedman.

While the brass tacks of eco-design like practical low flow shower heads and water efficient toilets have been around a while they are now trending toward new engineering which means consumers have the luxury of standard fixtures with all the efficiency of their eco-friendly counterpart. The catch? Up to a 30% increase in the cost of material.  However, it is expected as demand for green grows those numbers will come down.

“The trick is to incorporate environmentally friendly upgrades that are also pleasurable for hotel guests,” said Eileen Slora, executive director of interior design for Canadian-based Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, who was a judge for the Hospitality Design Expo.

Distinguished New York designer Albert Hadley has been quoted as saying “Design is coming to grips with one’s real lifestyle, one’s real place in the world.  Rooms should not be put together for show but to nourish one’s well-being.”  

Coupling Hadley’s old school wisdom with the mantra of the new generation, coined by artist Zoe Murphy “Love what belongs to you.”  the design world has a new tilt.  While the new sustainable designs are getting deeper and more affordable there is still an abundant market for decorators to collect unique treasures in the second hand market as a way to recycle beautiful items and give them new life.

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