Ecodesign: The Sourcebook - Softcover

There are more than 700 reasons to recommend "Eco Design," a 352-page compendium of environmentally sensible products. That's how many "green" designs are included in this enlightening sourcebook. Design groupies will recognize artfully recycled furnishings, including Tejo Remy's impromptu chest made of drawers salvaged from junk shops, and Jurgen Bey's garden bench made of compressed dried grass. But the book's universe of products extends to solar-powered cellular highway call boxes, a shatterproof CD case that requires 46 percent less energy in manufacturing than conventional models, and a robotic lawn mower. Innovative building materials include recycled cedar-look shakes, bamboo flooring, water-saving appliances and solar panels. The book (Chronicle, $35) was compiled by Alastair Fuad-Luke, a professor of ecological design at the Falmouth College of Arts in Britain. The profusion of products on the market today is the prof's way of answering the question: Can we design a sustainable future? To live the waste-not, want-not dream, memorize the list of contacts at the back of the book. -Washington Post

Alastair Fuad-Luke is a visiting lecturer at Cranfield University, UK, and is a consultant to numerous international companies on ecological issues.