Reccomended Reading: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

While Jonathan Safran Foer's new book, Eating Animals certainly promotes veganism, it primarily speaks to the fundamental importance of meat. It is important in its health, and ethical impact, and, more urgently, in its ecological impacts. As a vegan myself, however, I fear the title might scare some people away from a really important topic. In any case, I demand everyone read it.

New from Latvia: MINT

Latvia's Rauzas Company recently debuted their new home furnishings label MINT, including a table-style kitchen collection. Definitely worth a look --local Latvian Ash, eight different colors of laminate, and some admirable proportions.

via materialicious

D-Build: The Heritage of your Floorboards

Reclaimed lumber is pretty popular these days. And rightly so. It is often pitched as a sustainable alternative to virgin lumber, which, in all likelihood, it is. However the value in reclaimed material has more in common with the value on an antique piece of furniture that it does its virgin counterpart. Syracuse-based D-Build is seeking to articulate this value into a new marketplace of sorts. While a weathered beam is pleasing enough in itself, D-Built is matches each material with its own backstory (flooring from a home built in 1894 by European immigrant, for instance). The plan is to create a venue through which people can sell reclaimed building material while also contributing to the inherent value of the materials (of the sentimental type). For starters, D-Built has been given permission to dismantle and document several homes in the Syracuse area. Check out their blog here to keep tabs on their progress.

via FastCompany

Join Us Tonight

Purekitchen will be hosting a meeting of the Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park at our Williamsburg showroom (66 N11th street, b/t Wythe and Kent). Drop by, track the progress, voice an opinion.

The Sourcemap Demo!

Getting Started with Open Supply Chains from Matthew Hockenberry on Vimeo.

Purekitchen on Sourcemap

As I perused Treehugger over the weekend, I stumbled across Sourcemap, self-described as "an open-sourced project about where things come from." It is definitely something I have been thinking about -- a great tool for developing transparency in sourcing and, ultimately, in creating a lower-impact product. There is definitely a margin of error at the moment, but I wanted to share the results nonetheless.

via Treehugger

IKEA's Sustainability Report

I am a little behind the times, but I just came across IKEA's 2008 Sustainability Report. While still open to a bit of criticism, it's still surprisingly comprehensive. Take a look here.