There are two gifts from my childhood I’m still asking for, and one is a treehouse. Enter German treehouse-making company, Baumraum. They build impressive architecturally designed and adult-friendly treehouses incorporating sustainable materials and specially engineered cables that avoid damaging the trees. The company has just published its first illustrated book, containing design details for both their realized and fictional treehouse designs. Now, that just leaves the carousel.

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The life-sized animals in Melbourne-based artist Adriane Strampp’s most recent project exhibition — Erlösung: The Animal Gaze — are not cute. They are solid, monumental creatures drawn life-size, yet they remain fragile and exposed, vulnerable to the encroachment of mankind.

And with their wary gaze, the animals seemingly stare back in this project which was produced in conjunction with her 2011 residency at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo.

As humans we desire to make a connection with animals. We give them human characteristics, anthropomorphise them, and long for our gaze to be returned. In reality, all animals look through or past us and our the viewers’ projections are mirrored back, only to remind us of our imposition on their fragile and disappearing world.

My neighbour, John Evans, an 88-year-old electrical engineer, built himself a TV in the 1970s and watched it until digital took over.

Italian-made Tie-ups is the first belt to be wholly realized in fine plastics: resistant, flexible and with a minimal and versatile design. Tie-ups is an accessory adding a note of freshness and innovation to any clothing style, and is ecological, recyclable, and waterproof.

Steampunk design house Industrial Radical is showcasing an awesome prototype steampunk terrarium. It features an illuminated glass lid, lots of copper and brass, and a rotating magnifying glass for a closer look at the ecosystem inside. Also in the jar is a steampunk flower made from old clock parts. Puts the ‘culture’ in ‘horticulture’!

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From simply refashioning old or damaged clothes into chic new ensembles (refashion) to creating glamorous gala wear out of old filmstock, plastic bottles, or fashion magazines themselves, Bloomington, Indiana’s Trashion club is one of many around the world promoting clothes that are wildly creative, one-of-a-kind, and a whole other level of recycled.

Lovely work by Leo Burnett Kuala Lampur copywriter Paul Prabhakar for an Eco Heaven Bazaar, where junk is hand-printed and re-purposed into posters to publicise the event.

UK-based charity, Bottletop, whom we interviewed a while back, have a quirky line of products for sale on their website, including their flagship ring-pull bags. The bags are made by a community group in Salvador, Brazil, and then distributed throughout the world by Bottletop and their partner in the project, Fenchurch. The proceeds from this are then channelled back into health-related educational programmes in the community — one of many blighted by AIDS in Latin America.

These ‘social revitalizing air-trees’ are placed in a formation through a new urban development in Madrid to focus and configure social activites. Created by Urban Ecosystems they take to a new level the concept of a meeting place, and contribute on many levels, including energy, shade, oxygen and focus. [read also about an Eco Lighthouse in the UK]

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