Osklen Makes Rio+20 Fashionable

A few weeks ago I was assigned a website brand presentation for a brand from an emerging market. I ended up profiling Osklen, a high-end Brazilian sportswear company. The brand was started in 1989 by Brazilian entrepreneur Oskar Metsavaht. Metsavaht was a mountaineer who designed his own outdoors gear after noticing a lack of gear being sold in Brazil. Soon thanks to his publicity after becoming the first Brazilian to scale Mont Blanc his brand took off. They began a “lifestyle” fashion line that was inspired by the laid back surf lifestyle of Brazil.

The brand takes the laid-back beach inspired look and makes it urban. They do an excellent job representing Brazil as a beautiful country renowned for its beaches and beautiful people, as well as one of the fastest growing nations that is increasing its global presence every year. Even I could appreciate what Metsavaht was doing with his clothes, and I know almost nothing about fashion. So I was even more surprised while exploring Osklen’s website to discover that they are also extremely committed to sustainability.

Metsavaht created Institutio e, is an institute whose mission is “transforming and positioning Brazil as ‘the country’s sustainable human development’, through the creation and management of a network that leverages synergies between different initiatives and actors in society.” It’s quite an impressive goal, but what does it mean exactly? The organization is working to create an online community of “e-brigaders” to support sustainable development in Brazil through a variety of means, but mostly through empowerment by sharing information through social media (check out their Twitter).

The biggest initiative the institute has undergone is the winter collection for 2012. COLECÃO A21 OSKLEN – INVERNO 2012 was inspired by the 20th anniversary of the Rio-92 Conference, and specifically by Agenda 21 which was signed there. The document, which established the importance of each country to seek solutions to the socio-economic and environmental problems of the world, has been one of the most influential international consensus made concerning sustainable development. The collection will be released before June when the Rio +20 United National conference on Sustainable Development will be held. The collection highlights one of the main focuses of Institutio e, to develop “e-fabrics” by “identifying sustainable raw material for use in the textile and fashion supply chain, creating a culture of conscious consumers.” The e-fabrics displayed in this collection are Arapaima and salmon skin, silk and organic cotton, and canvas eco.

I’m excited to see what Osklen will bring to Rio +20. This is the kind of initiative that Agenda 21 was created to do, to help create eco centered companies to cater to eco consumers and help solidify the triple bottom line and create a truly sustainable world. Clothes are what we live our lives in, so why not live life in a sustainable way?

LiveWork: A Step Above LEED?

Two Clemson University architecture students, Eric Laine and Suzanne Steelman, have created a video featuring their revolutionary new idea called LiveWork.  The basic premise of LiveWork is to focus on the economics of sustainability instead of just the environment. The pair achieves this by having their housing units also contain commercial space to be used by the owner of leased to another business or franchise. Here’s the video, they explain it much better than I can:

This idea reminds me of an idea featured in the book World Changing: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century by Alex Steffen. In the book Steffen suggests that businesses could share spaces, such as a cafe by day and club by night. This is not a completely novel idea, many businesses change throughout the day, but this idea would involve two completely different businesses using the same space. The point of this idea is to support businesses by cutting back on the cost of leasing their spaces and becoming more efficient with the spaces we have built.LiveWork works much in the same way, fusing residential living with commercial business. Not only is this a great way to maximize space but it also helps create those walkable and livable communities that are dominating the urban planning field currently.

After watching this video I posted it to the Facebook page for my school’s US Green Building Club (USGBC) students club, which I am a part of. I did so obviously because it was a new idea about green buildings that I thought my peers would be interested in, but also because I was intrigued that they did not once mention LEED in the video. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) has become the accepted standard in green building for the US. As I have worked more with the LEED system this semester I have begun to see the downfalls and weaknesses of LEED. LEED helps build buildings that use water and energy more efficiently and maximize occupant satisfaction while minimizing environmental impact, but the system does not really change how we build or use buildings.

LiveWork on the other hand changes the purpose of a building. A LEED building is build for a classic one purpose: housing, offices, commercial use, etc. LiveWork envisions buildings as mix used spaces that help diversify communities and can change how we live. To me LEED is a great way to do what we are doing better, but LiveWork is a way to change what we are doing. Perhaps it is time we take a step back and examine other solutions beyond the accepted standard. LEED is still by far a great tool, but perhaps it should be applied to a new mentality instead of an old one.