Drool resistance just one hot selling point  

When environmentalists create a game for kids, you know it's going to be good times. Just because a toy is "traditional" and "educational" and requires "imagination" doesn't mean it can't be fun. So it is with ImagiBRICKS Giant Building Blocks.

Each set contains 3 colors and 3 size unit blocks that help little builders practice mathematical skills like addition, fractions and other things kids love. Watch your kids spend hours with this award-winning toy, creating life-size structures and probably gnawing on them a bit, too. But no matter, the blocks are strong enough to sit and stand on, yet lightweight enough for even the smallest preschooler to carry and stack and fling.

Made from 50% recycled cardboard, these colorful blocks have a smooth, drool-resistant coating for easy clean ups, and perhaps best of all, they don't elicit one single beep or blink.

Wherein we take every juvenile opportunity to focus on the "stripping" part 

As you might imagine there simply is not one single interesting image of weather stripping to be found. Anywhere. But if you Google "stripping" it's a whole different story. But my point is this: weatherstrip your house. One long, painful afternoon of double sided tape and bickering with your roommate/loved one will seem like a walk on the beach when you realize all the heat/money you're saving.

In fact, the experts say improperly sealed homes can squander 10 to 15 percent of your heating dollars. And if your place is like Shift HQ you could drive a fully loaded Prius through some of the cracks in our walls. Follow some of these easy steps and you'll be lounging in your Cozy Chic Robes mid winter sipping margaritas on the veranda.

Pitt Lends His Star Power to Bourbon Street

More than a year later, New Orleans is still struggling mightily from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina. On a recent trip to review the city and outlying areas with an eye toward helping the rebuilding efforts, actor Brad Pitt said he was shocked at the devastation that remains almost a year later.

“I was not prepared,” Pitt said, describing how he drove for miles and saw street after street of devastation.

Pitt, an architecture and environmental enthusiast sees an opportunity to rebuild New Orleans using energy-efficient building materials and appliances that would improve quality of life, particularly in low-income communities.

Teaming with Global Green USA, a national environmental organization, Pitt has organized a design competition that will choose the top five best environmentally friendly projects out of more than 100 submissions.

While the designs will be friendly for the environment, they may not have quite the same flare as previous city structures. But, he said, it’s time to look to the future.

“It’s impossible to replicate the past,” Pitt said. “The original designs are really good. They’re really efficient.” But, he added, “We can do better.”

Global Green USA is also providing technical assistance in green standards for 10,000 buildings in New Orleans. It opened a resource center in the city last month to give residents free design advice and information about environmentally friendly building products and strategies.

Pitt, who is a committed advocate for architecture recently narrated "Design: e2," a series about environmentally friendly architecture which aired on PBS in June.

"His involvement will allow us to educate more viewers than we had ever hoped about the importance of green building," executive producer Karena Albers said in a statement.

The six-part series focuses on worldwide efforts to build environmentally friendly structures through sustainable architecture and design.

For more information: www.globalgreen.org or www.design-e2.com

A Polygon as Paragon? Green Development at The Octagon on Roosevelt Island

Manhattan’s Roosevelt Island, (once named “Hog Island” for the prevailing export of the day) was once so dreary a destination that Charles Dickens (no stranger to gloom, himself) confined his stays to “within the shortest limits.” But times have changed, and the two-mile-strip off the East side now envisions a bright, sustainable-minded future.

It boasts a luxurious residential community — befitting of “island-life” — that simultaneously recreates the architectural grandeur of an historic landmark while thoughtfully incorporating eco-friendly elements; a perfect marriage of the past and the future.

Lead architect Bruce Becker, of Becker & Becker Associates, is no stranger to breathing new life into old spaces and has worked notably with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Times Square Hotel. For the Roosevelt Island project, he started with eight walls — all that remained of a charming octagonal building that historically served in various capacities as asylum and hospital. Locally produced materials were utilized in the construction of a new complex, free of volatile compounds, that promises to be 35% more efficient than traditional new buildings. Not only has “The Octagon” created a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, complete with 2-acre ecological park, but it also promises more “green” of another kind — extra money in residents’ pockets from energy and rental savings.

According to promotional materials, the community is “a place where people who care about the environment will be proud to live.” A place Charles Dickens might even find unreasonably sunny and charming.

For more information: www.octagonnyc.com

Sugar and Spice and Everything Green: the Lower Eastside Girls Club
Just imagine: 20,000 square feet of usable space (already amazing for New York City, right?), housed in a building made from environmentally-friendly materials — complete with green roof — and boasting educational, hands-on facilities designed to cultivate eco-leaders of tomorrow. Sound idealistic? Well, the dream is happily scheduled to become a reality for the Lower Eastside Girls Club.

The organization’s current capital campaign includes blueprints for a state-of-the-art ecology and science center, a screening room that will host environmental film programs and festivals, holistic health care facilities, and a green kitchen providing the ability for girls to make and sell healthy, organic foods (a.k.a. “Sweet Things”). Some of these programs/facilities already exist in the current space, but the new building will provide the capacity to conduct programs on a magnified scale — and within the walls of a structure sure to make a powerful statement to the community. Not only does the Girls Club see the importance of doing its part, but it also strives to enable its constituent young women to be environmental leaders. Already, a fair trade curriculum teaches about social ventures around the world, and the science center allows for the exploration of topics important to the planet. Girls can also develop their own video footage about worldly issues they find particularly engaging. (Is there a cool club like this for adults?)

In celebration of the organization’s 10th anniversary, the Lower Eastside Girls Club will be hosting a benefit on October 10th at the Prince George Ballroom — a location that recently underwent its own transformation and now provides assistance to the homeless. None other than legendary organic chef Mary Cleaver (www.thecleaverco.com) will be catering the affair — and if her prior menus are any indication, dessert is bound to be considerably more impressive than a few boxes of Thin Mints and Tagalongs.

For more information: www.girlsclub.org

A Step Ahead

It’s exactly this type of Italian ingenuity that produced the piano, the Ferrari, and the cappuccino: Gambarelli, a textile company in Modena, has created a ceramic floor tile that, while absorbing the pitter patter of feet, also absorbs air pollution.

The ingenious (and potentially revolutionary) Oxygena tiles are made of porcelain and infused with titanium dioxide, a natural compound that oxidizes polluting gasses when it comes in contact with sunlight.

The ultimate benefit to the environment remains unclear since the tiles are still in beta form. But in a recent test, car exhaust was pumped into a room lined with Oxygena tiles. Eight hours later, the gases had been completely absorbed. In repeated tests, the tiles proved they had the durability to continuously scrub the air of pollutants.

Despite costing a third more than comparative products, the attractive and sturdy Oxygena — which come in a marbleized gray and a shiny glass-like finish — has designers and architects swooning. The tiles have already been sold to a hotel in Greece and a school in Switzerland and are being considered for citywide use in Italy.

Pending further tests, Gambarelli will gauge the tile’s readiness in America, and while it may be premature to compare the tile to the masterpieces mentioned above, we could be looking at an invention as important and well loved as that other Italian brainstorm: the Jacuzzi.

For more information contact: info@oxygena.it