For those of you who travel to foreign cities for conferences, get all fired up throughout the day listening to inspiring talks, and seeing innovative ideas in action, yet then dread the retreat to the seclusion of your double-bed hotel room, don’t fear: an alternative is here. Not only is renting a hotel a pain in the rear, but I frequently experience buyers remorse due to how excessive a whole room to myself feels, not to mention how unsustainable hotels really are. To top it off, hotels are lonely. When I travel alone for an event to meet people, I want to continue meeting them and enjoying their company all day long.

So, for those of us alike who prefer socializing, enjoying the company of others, and connecting with like-minded professionals nationwide, there is a creative and more sustainable hotel alternative for you called Airbed & Breakfast. Two independent designers in San Francisco recently had the idea to rent out extra space in their SOMA loft to provide an opportunity for conference attendees to connect with others off the premise. This October 17-20, a rather large conference is taking place in the bay area called the IDSA World Design Congress. The last time this conference was in the US was 20-something years ago. As a result, designers of all ages from all over the country will be traveling to the city to be a part of this important design weekend. With the theme of the conference being "Connecting," this opportunity is perfectly appropriate.

What these two gentleman realized was that they have a wealth of extra space, extra desks, plenty of kitchen space to cook everyone breakfast, and somehow a stockpile of airbeds. When you put these extra resources together, it makes for a great environment that many travelers could advantage of. This is "something new and different: classier than couchsurfing, and more personable than craigslist — it is an AirBed & Breakfast."

In addition to building a website to advertise the brilliance of this new way to connect people at the conference, the two founders, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, both in their mid to late twenties, wanted to provide an opportunity for others to list their place in order to create a new network of socialization and entrepreneurship at conferences nationwide. On the site is a link tovacancies where prospective residents can browse through and choose their weekend home and office based on location, attributes, ambiance, and other details. The moment that Joe and Brian launched the site (just this past week), the word spread quickly. There are now four different spaces offered on the vacancies link, and one is already sold out.

The brilliance in this idea is not only attractive because it builds relationships and creates a more comfortable living alternative to hotels, but it is far more sustainable. Even the acclaimed "green hotels" are required to use far more resources to maintain a whole room for one individual than an existing home with an added bed. If you think about it, if one is already making coffee in the morning, why not make it for 10?

As an extension of last weeks post, Vote on Sustainable Design for the Future, there are simply too many design competitions out there: we must alert you to more. Many of these design competitions are open to people of all disciplines with good ideas. So maybe you should take a pen and paper and enter a keen green idea of your own if you want to see the world change.

Here is my deeper perception on additional “call for entries” situations:

What I have found is that when a corporate product manufacturing company has a call for entries, they are seeking new ideas. Sometimes ideas perpetuate in a work situation, and it becomes difficult to think as far out of the box as some younger creatives do. Electrolux is an international home appliances and equipment company. Each year their Design lab runs a competition for industrial design students working towards their undergraduate or graduate degrees (so this one isn’t for everyone but its still interesting). While “innovative ideas for household appliances of the future” is the mainstay, sustainability is this year’s theme. Students are asked to create eco-friendly, sustainable household appliances and solutions for 2020. If you are a student, check it out. The deadline is July 31. For the rest of you, finalists will be announced October 1.

When a foundation posts a call-for-entries, it is often based on a desire to generate the inspiration of the organization’s namesake in a new generation, and to allow the his/her spirit to live on. Each year, the distinguished jury of the Buckminster Fuller Challenge awards a large sum to “support the development and implementation of a solution that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems in the shortest possible time while enhancing the Earth’s ecological integrity.” This year’s competition honors Fuller’s a"nticipatory design science method": the idea of doing more with less. The Challenge seeks “design science solutions within a broad range of human endeavor that exemplify the trim tab principle. Trim tabs demonstrate how small amounts of energy and resources precisely applied at the right time and place can produce maximum advantageous change.” The entry period is September 4 – October 30, so you have a little time to think about this one. On the other hand, a sustainable solution cannot be left until the last moment to be completed. So get to work.

My third example is similar to one of last week, but this one is still open for entries. RE:VISION is a complete competition network that seeks to highlight great ideas about to explode, but that don’t yet have a venue to do so. Stacey Frost, founder of RE:VISION, wanted to create a place where these “ideas are put into action, supported and encouraged by a diverse group of people dedicated to making WHAT IF, WHAT IS.” Stacey believes that with each individual’s unique perspective combined with ideas, energy, and resources we can really generate change.

The current competition RE:ROUTE is a call for new urban transportation systems thinking. “We need to enhance and revitalize our areas, changing them from a bunch of buildings into a community. How can we move people cars, services, or goods through a neighborhood.” The competition seeks to generate new and creative ideas for urban transportation that start 4 steps back from the base and stop for a breath of fresh air 100 steps ahead of where we are in 2007. The competitions closes August 15 but the requirements are minimal. If you have an idea, get on the “wagon” and redesign it.

For more information these are the sites I consult for new competition posts:
Core77

American Society of Interior Designers

Recent headlines have been telling us about a class of chemical detergents or surfactants (nonylphenol ethoxylates, NPE’s) found in many industrial and household cleaners that have been reported to cause male fish to develop female characteristics. This hormone instability is commonly due to foreign “hormone disruptors”. The hormone instability occurs when a foreign chemical is introduced to the body and imitates our natural hormones. The toxins bind to the same sites in our body where natural hormones bind, therein blocking the site from our natural hormones.

This chemical disruption is not going to facilitate spawning! Do we dare to question what these chemicals are doing to us? A World Wildlife Foundation Briefing on the chemical states that "NPEs has been shown to mimic the action of the female hormone oestrogen, and it is a potential factor in the increasing incidence of reproductive organ disorders and decreasing sperm counts in men."

The Sierra Club has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to ban this compound in areas where wastewater treatment plants are not equipped to extract it. The greater question is, how is it getting into our waterways and estuaries and effecting wildlife? In this I respond with: water is the most abundant molecule on earth, it is also referred to as the universal solvent. Combine these two facts and we get a lot of water that is not clean.

The World Wildlife Foundation report on how NPEs are reaching our water environment:

• 37% NPEs via the sewer system
• 46% via sludge spreading on agricultural land

Chemical pollutants that cause hazardous runoff come from lawn fertilizers, industrial pesticides, household cleaners, leaky tailpipes, industrial waste, store byproduct (such as a drycleaners), this runoff is not good. If you take this information inside with the newspaper, you realize that the pollution in your home is due to off gassing from materials you bring in that were treated with chemicals (everything from carpet to magazines) and cleaning products.

So here is the simple solution: just read your labels. We can’t eradicate chemical pollution immediately, but we can start acting consciously by purchasing safe and simple cleaning products, fertilizers, and food. A rule to shop by, if you can’t read it, don’t eat it (remember that 46% of this stuff is spread on our industrial farms-buy organic), and if you can’t pronounce it, don’t spray it on your counter (when you wash your hands this water goes down the drain to the treatment plant…).

One of the scariest commercials on TV right now is for a cleaning company whose products contain compounds we should not come in oral contact with. It shows the mom cleaning the countertop with this product then her child eating cookies from a box that just tipped over onto the same countertop. The mom is relieved because she just cleaned the counter from harmful bacteria, but simultaneously she could have put harmful chemicals on it that are equally as disrupting to her child’s health.

One sixth of the world’s population does not have access to safe drinking water. Most water born problems are due to bacteria that cause them to contract harmful diseases. We don’t need to add chemical hormone disruption to this list. In purchasing safe cleaning products, food, and supporting safe practices we are creating a safer living environment, reducing pollution in our waterways, enabling biodiversity, promoting natural reproduction, and helping to provide safer drinking water for the entire world.

WWF: Nonylphenol Ethoxylates (NPE)

The Green Report: Ban Sought on Detergent Ingredient

Image Credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography