william kamkwamba’s windmills: creating currents of electricity and hope

William Kamkwamba was fourteen and living in drought-stricken Malawi when he stumbled on a library book called Using Energy, and saw a picture of a windmill. He thought that if he could make one, he could provide electricity for his family, pump water and irrigate crops, and power light for reading at night, as well as a…

Read More

stairs in colors

Architect Kim Sykes spotted these wonderful color-painted stairs in Sayulita, Mexico. Whoever made them cunningly painted each stair on the side that doesn’t get stepped on (so you’d only get the effect from a distance, and going up). Though Mexico is renowned for it’s brash use of color, colored stairs are a world-wide theme: a…

Read More

guest post on vivianna torun and ‘seeing what happens’

After reading Anni Albers ‘Common Object’ Jewelry, Lydia Wills wrote an inspiring email that is a perfect, if inadvertent, post for ‘the improvised life’. It’s like a bedtime story for grown-ups (with an amazing ending in bold.) “The lesson of Anni Albers’ jewelry is her ability to look at everyday objects and see just how they can…

Read More

more anni albers common-object jewelry

During World War II, when materials were in short supply, textile artist Anni Albers improvised charming, inventive jewelry using simple components usually found in hardware and stationary stores, and five-and-dimes. This dramatic necklace uses inexpensive window chain sold on giant wheels at hardware stores and steel bobbi pins. Seeing her necklace, suddenly these objects become…

Read More

dog bar!

Another imaginative idea from Tertin Kartano, the wonderful farm-hotel-restaurant-cafe-store in Mikkli, in Southern Finland. Words aren’t really necessary, though this other picture is pretty inspiring: Expands your view of dogdom…see/

Read More

copy this: vines and leafy vegetables as flowers

Tertin Kartano is a 16th century farm that doubles as a hotel and restaurant (or vice versa) in Mikkeli in Southern Finland’s lake region. Much of what Papita and Matti Pylkkanen and their staff grow and forage – from wild chanterelle to rowan berries – are used in the traditional Finnish manor-house cuisine, and in…

Read More

Posts navigation