Secret Still

217 volumes of a wooden library of “books” made in the early 1800’s are on display in Alnarp, Sweden. Each “book” is about a specific species of tree, but about is not quite the right word. In fact the covers of each book are made from the wood of each specific tree and the spines from the bark including the lichen and fungus that grow on that bark. The inside contains dried leaves, dried flowers, fruits, seedlings, a piece of root, cut branches, and seeds. The inside of the spine contains a written description of the tree and its uses. There’s more information as well as some amazing photos on this site from Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

The Wooden Library in Alnarp

Green resource and all around interesting site Inhabitat has a really nice article up today about William Kamkwamba. Name doesn’t ring a bell? I’m not surprised. Positive press usually gets filtered out in favor of the horrific. I heard about him a little bit ago thanks to my close watch on the TED conference. William, without any training, taught himself all he could out of books borrowed from a school library. One of the things he learned was how to make a windmill, which he did, out of found materials. He used the windmill to support his family’s moderate power needs and continues to do so, improving the windmill whenever possible. His little project garnered him enough acclaim that he was invited to be one of 100 speakers at the international TED conference. Not bad for a poor kid from Malawi. Plus I think he’s wearing skate shoes in that photo, so we could definitely be bros.

William Kamkwamba on Inhabitat
William’s Windmill Blog

Some of the most seriously innovative and spectacular green designs will be showcased at Haute Green ‘07. You should check out the designers and their near magic creations. I found the site via our newest sidebar pal Inhabitat. Yet another place for me to comb through before I actually do any work. Soon my production will be nil for the day.

Haute Green via Inhabitat

Possibly one of the coolest things I have ever seen: The Scraphouse. And the motherfucker only cost $2200 to build. I’d live there in a heartbeat.

Scraphouse

For anyone who would like to think green or just maybe live a little more DIY I bring you the supersite for both of those things: Superuse.org. Every time I visit the site I end up reading all of the new posts. It’s enlightening, educational, entertaining, and inspiring. What more could you want from a website? Free food probably, but I can live without for now.

Superuse.org