Offering a synergy for design, global talent and local materials, downloadable design is a concept TreeHugger can really get behind. We’ve touched on this idea before [www.sundancechannel.com], but it certainly deserves more attention; after all, we live in a download-happy, digital world, so there’s no reason why we can’t extend that beyond downloading pictures from our cameras and messages from our email, to furniture we sit on and clothes we wear. Sound crazy? It’s definitely not; it’s just one of the ways we can see that’ll make for a greener future.

Okay, so, first of all, what the heck is “downloadable design?” Think of it as “an iPod for your whole life.” Rather than using an outdated infrastructure of centralized manufacturing matched with inefficient distribution and shipping and topped off with oversized, overblown retail, which you have to drive to, the design — a table, a chair, a garment — comes directly to you, via your computer. You get to pick exactly what you want, from a world of possibilities.

Once you’ve picked out whatever it is that you need, email the plans down the street to the local craftsperson; they take the plans for what you want, and deliver the pieces for you to assemble a few days later. The slow boat from China is a thing of the past as you can choose local, sustainable alternatives to having pre-assembled, bulky materials shipped from half way across the globe. As with the iPod model (if you don’t want the whole album, don’t buy it — simple as that), your ability to choose and hand-select everything makes for a more efficient process.

Okay, all of this sounds great, but does it really work? (Hint: oh yes, it does.) Above is d e sellers [www.desfurniture.com] “Emergency Stool,” which just needs to a table router and a flat sheet of plywood to go from computer screen to real life. Stay tuned as we delve a bit deeper into the concept (and practice) of downloadable designs.

So far this week we’ve been chatting up cork as a great sustainable material, which it is, when used correctly and enjoyed in moderation. Of course, materials use isn’t all there is to sustainable design or engaging in green behavior or buying green stuff; production methods and the way things are built play a big (if not bigger) role in where our stuff comes from. One of our favorite methods (and one we’ve mentioned before [www.sundancechannel.com]) is bent plywood, also known as bent ply. But what makes it so special?

There are two sides to this method that come together to make a really effective, efficient material. Let’s start with the necessary raw material: a tree. While the sustainable use of trees involves geopolitics and considerations galore, at their root (ha-ha), they are a renewable resource; if you cut one down and plant another one in its place, it’ll grow back. Wood is also an excellent way to sequester some carbon dioxide, since trees breathe the stuff in and then don’t release it again until it’s burned or biodegraded; while the wood is in use, it stores the greenhouse gas and keeps it out of the atmosphere. So wood is a good material to start with; next comes the way it’s processed.

Once at the mill, plywood, yet to be bent, can be “shaved” or “sliced” from the round tree, rather than cut into blocks, boards, and other usually square or rectangular timbers. Since trees are round, this process leaves lots of off-cuts, scraps and other bits ‘n pieces that aren’t very usable. When harvesting plywood, the shaving/slicing process mentioned above can use much, much more of the wood, because the plywood comes off the tree much like a paper towel from a roll; this leaves very little waste behind and puts to use almost all of the available wood.

After the sheets are harvested, and the second half of the production starts up, we can really see how the material can boast such efficiency. Instead of being milled, cut and re-cut and then joined, bent ply furniture carefully bends the sheets of plywood so that entire pieces of furniture can be built from a single (or maybe two) sheet. Again, cutting is minimized so as much of the wood as possible is used; Peter Danko’s work, pictured above, is a great example of the modern beauty and clean lines that can be derived from this process. After all is said and done, the bent ply process is somewhere between 8 and 10 times more efficient than other more traditional furniture-making techniques, and if you can get eight bent ply dining chairs, for example, for the amount of material it takes to make one chair otherwise, that’s a good thing, right?

Stay tuned tomorrow for some of the best of the best examples of putting bent ply to work.

We noted yesterday that design — that is, products like furniture and architecture — that packs flat makes a lot of sense, and is generally a better way to do things. It requires fewer resources to manufacture and produce, is more space-efficient for shipping and allows for quick ‘n easy modularity, for when you’re on the go. If your furniture should fail you, and break, the modular pieces also make it easy to replace just the one broken part, rather than the whole piece. Here are some of our favorite examples of furniture that packs flat.

1) Our Top 5 picks for flat-pack [www.treehugger.com] include a London-based company [www.treehugger.com] who manufacture everything to order (cutting out the need to ship and store furniture before it’s bought), this groovy garden chair [www.treehugger.com] made from one sheet of sustainable plywood, and a “heavy metal” chair [www.treehugger.com] that’s created from a single sheet of perforated (and bent) steel.
2) Designer d.e Sellers came up with the “Emergency Stool” [www.treehugger.com] (pictured above) a single, mobile sheet of plywood (that would make a pretty interesting wall-hanging) but comes apart to create a handy bench. The laser-etched, international instructions (see ‘em on the big piece in the middle) make it a “snap” to put together, as it requires no tools or fasteners.
3) The Knockdown Bookcase [www.treehugger.com] is a great modular option that does the job without glue, hardware or even an instruction manual. Each piece is identical and just slips together to create a modern, modular bookshelf, and the design variations are limited only to what your imagination can dream up.
4) Factum furniture [www.treehugger.com] is sustainable, foldable, and mailable — that’s right, it’s just like getting a package through the mail. It is produced using recycled cardboard and printed with a variety of designs. The patterns are diverse and fun, from floral to the periodic table to the London Tube system.
5) In the same vein, the Papton chair [www.treehugger.com] from Berlin-based Fuchs + Funke goes from flat panels to functional chair in a couple quick fold & fit moves. The structural, geometric result is a real lightweight, weighing it at just two kilograms.

6) German designer Nils Frederking has bowled us over with his folding chair and table [www.treehugger.com] that seem to defy ordinary furniture physics with their deft foldability. Words don’t do the designs justice; you have to see the video [www.treehugger.com] to get the full effect.
7) The designers at Because We Can like to have fun with their work, which is easy to see in the Tree Stump Coffee Table [www.treehugger.com]. Aside from being flat-packable, the table uses sustainable materials and CNC (computer numerically controlled) routing to create the design with a minimum of offcuts and wasted material.
Combining design and engineering experience that includes Indy 500 winning racecars, composite aircraft, consumer products, and industrial equipment, Scott Bennett’s Housefish now specializes in modern, contemporary furniture. Their newest product, called Key, starts with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified maple veneer plywood, which gets a low-VOC finish before flat-packing for shipping.
9) Davidgraas has integrated brilliant packaging design into his flat-pack furniture: the package is the product, as the zero-waste design uses everything in the package to create the product.
10) Lastly, just for fun, there’s the Grass Chair (below), a flat-packing, true do-it-yourself project that allows you to grow your own furniture; you may have to see it to believe it [www.treehugger.com].