Bubbletecture: Step inside CasaBubble and Airclad inflatables

A pair of exhibitors at next weekend's Dwell on Design show will have a new take on living in a bubble. AirClad, a British company that makes an inflatable pool house, and CasaBubble, a California firm that designs pneumatic backyard guest rooms, are trying to capitalize on the outdoor-living and small-space trends with structures built using little more than lightweight PVC and air.

“The idea was to be able to spend the night under the starry sky as comfortably as in a hotel bedroom,” said Frederic Richard, a native of France who splits his time between Paris and Santa Ynez, where he began distributing CasaBubble in April.

CasaBubble, pictured at right, is a sphere that holds its shape with air blown by quiet turbines, which use less than 100 watts of electricity per hour to run — roughly the equivalent of a light bulb. The sphere is fully pressurized in as little as 15 minutes, and the air inside is refreshed as often as seven times per hour, preventing humidity and condensation from clouding the bubble. The design has two doors, but only one can be open at a time or the structure will collapse.

CasaBubble was designed by Frenchman Pierre-Stephane Dumas and is manufactured in France. The portable living space is designed to be used as an outdoor guest room, a dining room, a children's play area or a pop-up shelter at the beach. It's available in 30 colors and five sizes, weighing 53 to 190 pounds.

Garbage Maven: Look for a new, improved recycling label [Updated]

Anyone who tries to do the right thing and recycle has experienced it: the utter confusion that certain products induce with their packaging. But a new label tries to address the vague and oftentimes misleading recycling messages.

The How2Recycle label, pioneered by the nonprofit environmental group GreenBlue, will soon appear on Yoplait yogurt packs, Aveda acne pads, Orville Redenbacher popcorn and a few other brand-name products as part of a pilot program to reduce consumer confusion and to encourage more recycling.

The new label is based on the On-Pack Recycling Label used in Britain and can include up to four icons indicating if a material is widely recycled (such as cardboard), recycled in limited cases (such as Yoplait's plastic yogurt cups), not yet recycled (such as mylar) or requires store drop-off (the case in many cities for plastic grocery bags).

Summer blackouts beware: Cars can be turned into backup generators

Summer is almost here and with it, the high temperatures and cranked air conditioning that often lead to power outages. Some Angelenos may have considered a costly gas-powered generator for backup power, but another option is already sitting in their driveways: cars.

Power inverters on the market connect to car batteries to keep home appliances running. Just pop the hood, connect the inverter directly to the battery of a running car and thread the power cord from the inverter into the house. A refrigerator, television, lights or other devices that usually plug into a wall outlet would instead connect to the inverter power cord.

The inverter, similar in size to a hardcover book, converts direct current, or DC power, coming from the car battery into alternating current, or AC, used in most homes.

PowerBright, based in Coral Springs, Fla., makes inverters in a variety of power configurations. A 900-watt version, costing about $60, is strong enough to run a sump pump, freezer or refrigerator, and it can handle the peak power surge from first plugging in a refrigerator, Chief Executive Gil Hetzroni said. A 2,300-watt version, Hetzroni said, can power many appliances at the same time.

Power inverters work with gas-powered cars as well as electric vehicles, but Nissan Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. have both developed equipment specifically for electric cars. The bi-directional electric vehicle charger, which Nissan calls the Leaf to Home electricity supply system and Toyota dubs V2H for vehicle-to-home charging system, can reverse the flow of electricity from electric car to house in case of blackouts.

Picking up after Fido in a post-grocery-bag world

Angelenos who have been giving their plastic grocery bags a second life as doggie-doo pickup receptacles and trash-can liners may be wondering what they’re going to use as a replacement once the city’s ban goes into effect. The answer is simple: Try one of the many other types of plastic or packaging that come home with you from the store. During a typical grocery shopping trip, about 7% of the purchase’s environmental impact lies in product packaging, according to Bob Lilienfeld, editor of the ULS Report. Non-recyclables such as junk food wrappers are best because they would go in the trash anyway, but bread bags, cereal box liners and dozens of other plastics can do the trick.

RELATED:

Pros and cons of reusable bags

Can I Recycle: The Times series

Service stops junk mail before it's sent

-- Susan Carpenter

Photo: Daniel Allen cleans up after his puppy. Credit: John Doman / Associated Press / Pioneer Press

Plastic bag ban: Pros and cons of reusable alternatives

Reusable grocery bags are becoming almost as ubiquitous as the single-use plastic bags they’re designed to replace, but the choices can be overwhelming. Canvas? Nylon? Tyvek? Hemp? Any bag that’s repeatedly reused is more environmentally friendly than single-use plastic, but the greenest choice isn’t always clear. Each material has pros and cons, and ultimately the best alternative to the single-use plastic bag is the one shoppers are most likely to remember to bring to the store.

Here's a comparison of some of the most common totes, including ones made of that felt-like fabric (called nonwoven polypropylene) that is so common:

Schoolyard trailers turned into modular homes

When it comes to energy efficiency, most homeowners focus on heating, cooling and lighting. But it may take as long as 15 years for a home's energy usage to match the amount of energy embedded in a home's construction.

This was the concept that a West Hills architecture firm embraced with research+upcycle, a modular home company that intends to reuse classroom trailers, transforming them into low-cost but high-style living space.

"We really need to rethink the way that we build homes," said Chase Anderson, who founded the company last year with his father, Robert, an architect and general contractor, and his stepmother, Petra, an interior designer. "With all the changes in the housing market and economy over the last several years, high-end, custom-built homes aren't selling." They started looking at different structures that would be inexpensive to transform into something chic.

Cardborigami foldable shelters move closer to launch

Sometimes it takes an eye-catching design to bring attention to society’s most pressing issues. At least that’s the idea behind Cardborigami, a temporary, portable and recyclable shelter made by an L.A. nonprofit hoping to serve the city’s 51,000 homeless people.

“I thought making something more lighthearted and kind of fun and playful would make [homelessness] easier to deal with and get people involved who wouldn’t normally be,” said Cardborigami designer Tina Hovsepian, pictured at right. She showcased her work at the recent Altbuild show as well as last year's Dwell on Design show, and she recently said she plans to launch the product later this year.

The Cardborigami shelters have been prototyped in a Mondrian-esque design as well as traditional cardboard brown. Though Cardborigami was originally designed to help the homeless, just 38% of whom have access to a shelter, Cardborigami "can be used for so many different things,” said Hovsepian, 25, who works at the Venice firm Duvivier Architects. She said she intends to sell Cardborigami as an educational toy and possibly as an alternative tent for camping or as disaster preparedness equipment.

BuBees beehive: modern architecture for the urban bee

Backyard beekeeping is the buzz of urban farming, with some wanting to replenish bees disappearing through Colony Collapse Disorder and others simply wanting to harvest home-grown honey. Now a Malibu business called BuBees is making beehives that are as fashionable as the city dwellers keeping them.

Designed by commercial artist and Art Center College of Design graduate Steve Steere, the $300 hives are a blend of form and function. A so-called top bar design, BuBees beehives mimic the way bees live in nature. The 36-by-18-inch living space is equipped with 24 bars, under which the bees build their combs. Two solid boards that run the width of the hive can be moved to make the space smaller or larger depending on how many bees adopt the hive. A viewing window lets beekeepers see inside the space, which can accommodate thousands of the pollinators.

For beekeepers who want honey, the top bar system allows easy harvesting. Just lift out one of the bars, cut off the comb and smash it in a bucket.

Garbage Maven: Recycling cellphones at the ecoATM

Mobile devices are discarded more rapidly than any other type of electronics, yet only 11% of them are recycled, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But something called an ecoATM is working to change that.

The ecoATM is a self-service kiosk that helps people dispose of cellphones and other mobile devices. The machine uses electronic diagnostics and artificial intelligence to evaluate electronics' value and pay customers on the spot with cash or credit.

The company the makes ecoATM is based in San Diego. It began rolling out its machines in 2010 and has been operating 50 ecoATMs at malls around California, including the Glendale Galleria, Westfield Century City and Westside Pavilion. Thursday marked the kickoff to another round of openings, starting at malls in Brea and Orange and continuing later this month in Baldwin, Westminster, Ontario, Burbank and the South Bay.

Recycling needs to be convenient, financially rewarding and immediate to prevent people from throwing cellphones in the garbage, ecoATM Chief Executive Tom Tullie said.

Although California is one of the few states that bans electronics from landfills because of the hazardous materials they may contain and their potential to be reused, many cellphones still end up in landfills. Recapturing raw materials such as copper and plastic saves the energy, expense and environmental cost that go into mining and processing new materials.

Critter cams: Natural History Museum's videos of wild visitors

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County's new garden employs, as one would expect, a cadre of groundskeepers to groom 3.5 acres. But it also has a senior media producer, a full-time staffer who with the help of motion-activated cameras, or critter cams, documents animals living or traveling through the space.

"They really allow us to get an idea day and night of what animals are hanging out here," said Sam Easterson, the producer for the museum's North Campus garden and nature lab, scheduled to open next year.

Easterson said seven cameras are in continuous operation and have captured thousands of images of animals such as the California ground squirrel, a specific species that Easterson said hasn't been spotted on the museum grounds for 20 years, and a baby opossum born this spring in the garden's opossum den.

Today the museum is launching a dedicated Fickr link to these photos and videos, which highlight the mission of enticing wildlife to the North Campus.