A house made entirely out of Heineken bottles....

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Your daily source of inspiration for creative reuse and mindful consumption.

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[Background on, & press coverage of, Unconsumption can be found here and here.]

Consumption is a word used to describe acts of acquisition – generally, the acquisition of things, in exchange for money.

Unconsumption is a word used to describe everything that happens after an act of acquisition.

Unconsumption is an invisible badge.

Unconsumption means the accomplishment of properly recycling your old cellphone, rather than the guilt of letting it sit in a drawer.

Unconsumption means the thrill of finding a new use for something that you were about to throw away.

Unconsumption means the pleasure of using a service like Freecycle (or Craigslist, Goodwill, or Salvation Army) to find a new home for the functioning DVD player you just replaced, rather than throwing it in the garbage.

Unconsumption means enjoying the things you own to the fullest – not just at the moment of acquisition.

Unconsumption means the pleasure of using a pair of sneakers until they are truly worn out – as opposed to the nagging feeling of defeat when they simply go out of style.

Unconsumption means feeling good about the simple act of turning off the lights when you leave the room.

Unconsumption is not about the rejection of things, or the demonization of things. It’s not a bunch of rules.

Unconsumption is an idea, a set of behaviors, a way of thinking about consumption itself from a new perspective.

Unconsumption is free.

CONTRIBUTORS:

Founder & Editor: Rob Walker, journalist, Savannah, GA

Editorial & Community Manager: Molly Block, marketing and business development geek, Houston, TX

Brian W. Jones, designer & writer, Göteborg, Sweden

Kashvi Kumar, Environmental Studies and Economics major at New York University

Deirdre Nelson, ever threading artist, Glasgow, Scotland

Shanna Trenholm, writer. catalyst. force of nature. San Diego, CA

* * *

Alumnus & Unconsumption logo creator: Clifton Burt, graphic designer, Portland, OR

Further information about Unconsumption can be found here.

1:56 pm - Tue, Sep 4, 2012: 78 notes

A house made entirely out of Heineken bottles. Over on Laughing Squid today there’s a retrospective of the great, green bottle and its small role, decades ago, in the eco housing movement.
The story goes something like this: in the ’60s Alfred Heineken, president of Heineken International, enlisted Dutch architect N. John Habraken to design a brick-shaped, stackable beer bottle that might have utility even after being discarded on a beach. One-thousand of these Heineken WOBOs—”World Bottle”—could build a 10-by-10-foot house in communities lacking affordable construction materials.
The idea never really came to fruition, and only two WOBO houses remain today: above, have a look at the WOBO shed on Heineken’s own property near Amsterdam.

via Here’s a House Made Entirely Out of Heineken Bottles - Architectural Craziness - Curbed National
We mentioned this a while back, but it’s cool to see an image of a house. Also: Here’s an even older post about a temple made from “a million” Heineken bottles.

A house made entirely out of Heineken bottles. Over on Laughing Squid today there’s a retrospective of the great, green bottle and its small role, decades ago, in the eco housing movement.

The story goes something like this: in the ’60s Alfred Heineken, president of Heineken International, enlisted Dutch architect N. John Habraken to design a brick-shaped, stackable beer bottle that might have utility even after being discarded on a beach. One-thousand of these Heineken WOBOs—”World Bottle”—could build a 10-by-10-foot house in communities lacking affordable construction materials.

The idea never really came to fruition, and only two WOBO houses remain today: above, have a look at the WOBO shed on Heineken’s own property near Amsterdam.

via Here’s a House Made Entirely Out of Heineken Bottles - Architectural Craziness - Curbed National

We mentioned this a while back, but it’s cool to see an image of a house. Also: Here’s an even older post about a temple made from “a million” Heineken bottles.