Sustainability and style are what make green design, well, green. Green design balances environmental, economic, social and aesthetic concerns. Green design can go by many names: “sustainable design,” “eco-design” or “design for environment.” Green design produces buildings, products and artwork that reduces the amount of non-renewable resources. This helps minimize environmental impact and relates people with the natural environment. Green design is one answer to the global “environmental crisis” – i.e. the rapid growth of economic activity and the booming population coupled with the depletion of natural resources.

Everything from architecture to people’s bodies and computers are being covered with greenery. (Seems like it would be itchy, no?)

BuildingGreen announced its top 10 green building products for 2008. Highlights include:

Integrity block, which is a “compacted-earth block used as a cost-competitive replacement for concrete masonry units.” These blocks consist of up to 60% pre-consumer recycled content and almost half as much cement as standard concrete blocks. It takes 40% less energy to produce them.

PlybooPure bamboo flooring from Smith + Fong is the first bamboo to carry FSC certification. It’s made with low-emitting, non-formaldehyde polyisocyanurate binder. And isn’t the color gorgeous? This is one of those have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too kinds of products – beautiful flooring that’s good for the environment.

Natura Paint from Benjamin Moore is an odorless interior paint. Finally – a completely odorless paint! This paint has zero VOC colorants. Impressive!

PolyWhey wood finish from Vermont Natural Coatings uses recycled whey protein as a binder. (I mix whey protein into shakes for my strength workouts!) Whey protein is a by-product of the dairy industry, and helps produce this low-odor coating that has no toxic heavy metals and low VOCs. It looks just as good as the dangerous wood finishes!

On to the more artsy recycled pieces.

Here’s one sculpture outside an Expo hall in Singapore that’s constructed from steel and other wire metal scrapes. Some might think of green art as being something that is biodegradable, but making art out of stuff that would end up landfills qualifies as recycling to me.

I didn’t know this was possible, but you can create grass photographs just by directing light on certain parts of a grassy area. (I say “just” but I don’t mean it in a simplistic way; this takes talent and patience.) The bad thing about grass photos are that they fade when the grass dies. But how beautiful when they’re in bloom! The first two were created by Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey who use long-lasting, genetically modified grass.

How would you like to live in a shipping container? The folks at uShip have decided that surplus of 700,000 shipping containers should be used for living, not just stacking.