Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Soil Lamp

Dutch Design Week is this week in Eindhoven, Netherlands. One design in particular stood out to me as a genius creation and a gratifying reminder of the need for intelligent creativity in contemporary times. The Soil Lamp, designed by Marieke Staps, runs on mud.

From the designer:
Support this designer! The implications of this lamp are great. One can imagine a whole household full of lights running solely on energy created by microorganisms, and even larger appliances running on compost, running on decomposition, passively working for us and for the environment. The lamp is a lovely design as well. The aesthetics of this lamp on their own would be ample to encourage me to buy it, but knowing what it does, makes me want to seek it out across the ocean and get one. The lamp is not yet available for sale, and seems to be still in a prototype stage. The direction Marieke Staps is headed is a great one, and clearly ripe with opportunities. Mocoloco has more coverage of the work at Dutch Design Week.