Hay! Get a Handle
By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World
Here's a LuxEcoLiving4U time saver. It's called Hay Handle.
Time...
History reveals orchids are orchidellic
By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World
Orchids can be orchidellic
Santa Barbara International Orchid Show
And...
Healthy, Green Design: Improve Indoor Air Quality with Plants
By Stephanie Nickolson, Healthy Green Interior Designer and LuxEco Advocate
Originally published at Natural Home & Garden
Air pollution abounds in our homes and businesses, but many air purification systems are not safe to use. A Key to Healthy Green Design in your home starts with purifying indoor air quality with plants.
Have you ever walked into a store, restaurant or other environment and couldn’t stand the heavily scented aroma that someone used to try and cover up another (worse) scent? Well, I have. It’s one of my favorite stores that I frequent and whenever I enter the washroom, I cannot wait to get out of there as the air is so heavily perfumed it makes me feel ill. This is not an effective remedy, nor is it healthy. Anything that exudes that much fragrance is certainly loaded with phthalates. Most commercial air fresheners mask odors but do nothing to remediate them.
Something To Crow About
By Nancy Chuda Founder and Editor in Chief and of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World
How many of you have seen...
Football Goes Green At The World Cup 2010
By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant
Football, or soccer as we know it in America, really is the sport of the world. World cup matches...
SANAA Partners Win The Pritzker Prize
By Margret Debanne, Art Historian and LuxEco Advocate
With yesterday's naming of SANAA Partners as winner of the Pritzker Prize for Architecture, Kazuyo Sejima has...
Everyone Will Be a High Wire Act In The Future
By Lush Huxley, LuxEco Editorial Assistant
...Or so implies a new technology by Kolelinia lab the brain child of Bulgarian designer Martin Angelov. The lab...
Meth Labs’ Long-Lasting Toxic Legacy
by Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEco Editorial Assistant and author of the Resplendent Repurposing series
As if those of us who are concerned about toxic chemicals in our environment didn’t have enough things to worry about, we must now add methamphetamine lab sites, either currently operating or long closed down, to the list. The inconvenient truth is that you could be living in one right now. Or parked next to one. -- Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEcoLiving Editorial Assistant
Lotusland’s Giants
By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant
Follow Nancy Chuda and Gwen Stauffer as they explore Lotusland's Giants. Check out insider videos of the endangered Chilean Wine Palm and the wonderfully colorful collection of bromeliads.
Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This: Recycled, Sustainable Environment Furniture
By Rachel Sarnoff, Writer and Founder of EcoStiletto.com and MommyGreenest.com and LuxEco Advocate
via www.ecostiletto.com
Want to keep chemicals out of your home? Start with your furniture. Carcinogenic formaldehyde is...
One Prize Design Competition Addresses Urban Issues
By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant
One Prize Mowing to Growing, an eco-contest sponsored by the City of New York Parks and Recreation Department and the American Society of Landscape Architects, created an opportunity for architects, designers, planners, scientists, and other related individuals to "reinvent the American garden." This design competition called for “creating productive green space in cities," and they have announced the two first place winners!
Solar Decathlon
By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate
In October 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy sponsored what has turned out to be a biannual competition called Solar Decathlon on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. 20 teams from colleges and universities from the U.S., Canada, Germany and Spain were selected and asked to design, build and operate an energy efficient house powered exclusively by the sun. The winning team produced a house that best blended affordability, ease of living, attractiveness, comfortable and healthy indoor environmental conditions, enough energy to run all household appliances and hot water as well as producing more energy than it consumes. Workshops were provided about the current state of green design technologies, jobs and the future of the smart grid.
Money Might Not Grow On Trees, But Our Housing Could!
by Linsley Oaks, LuxEco Editorial Assistant
Tree houses might not just be for little Tommy anymore in the near future. If you have 3 minutes, check...
APHA OHS Section Awards Honor Winners and Remind Us of Ongoing Struggles
by Elizabeth Grossman, Author of Chasing Molecules: Poisonous Products, Human Health, and the Promise of Green Chemistry, High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health
via The Pump Handle
The American Public Health Association's (APHA) Occupational Health & Safety Section has announced the winners of its 2010 Occupational Health & Safety Awards. In a year that has been marked by what David Michaels, Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health, has described as "a series of workplace tragedies" - among them the deaths of 29 miners at the Upper Big Branch Mine and 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico - noting both the honorees, and those in whose honor the awards are given, is a reminder of the enormous work, courage, and long history of efforts to ensure safety at work.
Live Green with More Not Less: The New Urbanism
By James Chuda, Co-founder of LuxEco Living and Healthy Child Healthy World
With more knowledge, more consumer choices that allow us to support eco-friendly services and products and a better understanding of our interconnectedness to each other, the planet and the production processes of the things we buy, we could Live LuxEco! We could live truly sustainable. We could Live Green with More not Less!
What if we thought different about the way we live- we got out of our individual little cars and away from suburban sprawl? How about a New Urbanism that teaches us to be self-sufficient while still contributing to the benefit of all society?
Lori Weitzner Reinvents Wall Coverings
By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate
Lori Weitzner's products have been seen on movie sets, an Olympic Village, the Wynn resorts, prestigious stores such as Tiffanys’ and even museum walls. Important design museums have been exhibiting and acquiring Lori’s work for their permanent collections including London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and Montreal’s Musee Decoratifs. In 2006 she was the subject of her first solo exhibition at the Institute of Arts in Minneapolis. Lori is also the recipient of more than 20 awards and honors, including the esteemed Best of Neocon.
WATCH: Victoria Di Iorio and Healthy Child Healthy World Build Healthier Homes
By: Lorri Laird, LuxEco Editorial Assistant
“Healthy Child Healthy World has gone above and beyond in creating a real-life example of how to create a healthier home,” said Victoria Di Iorio, Project Director for the Healthy Child Healthy World Healthy Home 2010 Designer Showcase and Tour. Di Iorio, who also serves as the Education & Outreach Coordinator for the non-profit charity Healthy Child Healthy World, recently spoke with LuxEco Living regarding the Healthy Home 2010 project and also shared her passion for green and healthy living.
Golf Courses: Polluting with Pesticides
After recently writing an article about Justin Timberlake’s newly reopened green golf course, Mirimichi, I began to dig deeper into the potential hazards that non-green golf courses pose and the ultimate cost that humankind and the environment will have to pay. One of the main and most talked about dangers of golf courses in recent years, has been the use of pesticides on golf course lawns.
Got Legs? Get LifeSpan!
By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World
Why Your Health Matters Most
Walk don't run while searching Google for the...
Jill Salisbury On Eco Interiors: “If It’s Not Beautiful, It’s Not Sustainable”
By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate.
Jill Salisbury, founder of Chicago based el: Environmental Language, formally educated and trained as an Interior Designer, has found her true calling and passion in the design and manufacturing of furniture. Ten plus years ago, while working as an interior designer, she began learning about the benefits of sustainability but wasn’t able to find furnishings that were stylish and had any kind of environmental initiative. “There wasn’t anything available and I felt the Interior Design community needed to have what I call the Eco-Chic Alternative where you can have style with environmental integrity and promote a healthy indoor air quality for your clients.”
Laura Turner Seydel shares memories of building her dream eco-home
Introduction by Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World
Last summer, I had the privilege of interviewing Laura...
Eco Interiors “Designs With Conscience”
By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate.
I know there is a lot of talk about the value of buying goods that are grown or made locally but for me there are reasons that far outweigh the use of fuels that travel such long distances to get to our shores and that is helping out our fellow human. Artecnica, a Los Angeles based design and manufacturing company, is committed to considering issues of environmental sustainability and responsible manufacturing. Design w/Conscience is a program, begun in 2002, that works with artisan communities in developing countries to produce unique handcrafted objects that reflect indigenous skills to be in accordance with humanitarian and environmentally sensitive principles.
Green Closet Shape-Up Tips
By Lisa Adams, Designer and CEO of LA Closet Design and LuxEco Advocate
Maximizing a closet is the number one issue for most people, and...
Malleable Trees: The Future of Eco-Architecture
By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant
LuxEco previously explored the idea of growing your own home with Mitchell Joachim's "Don't build your home, grow it!",...
Reflecting on The Home Within Us
By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate
As I wind down for the year I find myself thinking about a book called The Home Within Us and how much that says about my design philosophy. Everything I approach as a designer lies first and foremost in the feeling of comfort, well being, creating a place of safety and sanctuary. Problem solving, space planning, furniture and color selection comes later but it is driven by these things.
April Showers Bring May Flowers, Summer Drought and Seedlings Sprout!
By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant
Granted, there is an abundance of vegetation that only thrives during the rainy season or in mild warmth....
Ignorance Isn’t Green: But It’ll Cost Ya!
By Trish Holder
Courtesy of Greenspiration Home
Are you a blissfully ignorant homeowner? Do you eat, drink, shower, sleep, wash dishes, etc. in your...
Is A Sustainable Green Home Also Non-Toxic? Susan Fredman Weighs In
By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate
With as much time as we spend in our homes these days, we want to create a home that is a retreat, that is what we speak to, but we want our retreat to be safe so this is definitely going to be an option. Certainly they don’t have to take it all the way to major extremes, but they can do little things that will make a huge difference in their health, their design and in the environment.
Gulf Coast Fishing Community Searches For Some Certainty
by Elizabeth Grossman, Author of Chasing Molecules: Poisonous Products, Human Health, and the Promise of Green Chemistry, High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health
via The Pump Handle
"After three long months of oil geysering continuously from the depths of the Gulf, a temporary cap has stemmed the flow and it appears that the well is on its way to being killed. But we are by no means through this disaster," said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) in his opening remarks at the August 4th Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on the use of oil dispersants in the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The Lorax Movie Denies Children A Universal Truth
By Nancy Chuda Founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World.
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful...
The Farm Effect: Are you allergic to nature?
By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World
Get outdoors and enjoy the breeze it's good for you
I...
Grotesques and a Clock: Lotusland’s Treasures
By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant
Among Madame Gana Walska’s collection in the theatre garden are grotesque figures, which she hid in the ground to protect during the world war. She also had a garden clock with the different star signs. Her actual birthday is unknown but Lotusland believes that she was born in June, making her a Cancer. Join Nancy Chuda and Gwen Stauffer as they journey through these two lovely gardens.
New China Bus Drives Over Cars
By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant
Designers and scientists have been working on different approaches to transportation issues as they become a greater concern with the ever-growing population. China has begun to address their own issues of overcrowding and transportation with their new concept busses that will drive above cars. Imagine driving through a tunnel that is moving above you!
Where Energy Efficiency Collides with Human Health-5 Ways To Protect Yourself
Do GREEN buildings protect human health from environmental hazards? “Not necessarily” according to the findings at Environment and Human Health, Inc., a non-profit organization composed of doctors, public health professionals and experts specializing in environmental threats to human health.
A BIG Win For The Wolves!! Federal Protections Restored For Northern Rockies’ Wolves
By Laura Turner Seydel, Chairman of the Captain Planet Foundation, Co-founder of Mothers & Others for Clean Air and LuxEco Advocate
Via Defenders of Wildlife
Defenders wins lawsuit; future of wolf recovery still uncertain
* U.S. district court overturns Interior Secretary Salazar’s action that removed wolves in the Northern Rockies from the endangered species list
* Ruling makes it clear that subdividing a wild population based on political boundaries rather than science violates the Endangered Species Act
* Defenders calls for update of science and regional stakeholder collaboration to ensure continued wolf recovery and proper removal of federal protections









