Living Green’s Office Installation

I subscribe to The Economist, the traditionally-conservative, internationally-minded weekly. Recently, they did a 13-page pullout on “the modern office.” The modern office, thanks to cell phones, laptops and wireless internet, has no walls. It’s a café one day, an airport the next, your couch at home…it’s what we here at elephant journal have been doing for six years, in fact (not just because we’re “modern”—rather because ele is independent/unfunded). So it’s funny, after all these years, to go old school and get a bricks n’mortar office. Our office/eco-boutique is set right smack dab in Boulder, Colorado’s downtown—100 feet off Pearl St. (Boulder’s Newbury St. or 5th Ave.) Why? Because our staff, at long last, had grown too numerous, with too much photo and A.V. equipment, to reasonably fit in our favorite indie cafés. 

And so, elephant’s SOCIETY was born. And what furniture should we outfit our H.Q. with? Something classic, yet modern. And certainly, environmentally-responsible. Now, in terms of furniture, “eco” means being responsible for new construction—with its attendant pollution, lamination, shipping from China… Instead, we found some high-concept designers who could re-source old wood (made more wabi-sabi lovely with time and craftmanship) and scrap metal. And though they do custom work for high-end homes, they had just as much fun “building to our space,” as they call it—creating an immensely practical art installation that we use and love the hell out of, every day, from 9 to 5.   ~ Waylon Lewis, ele’s ed-in-chief.

Living Green Designs was conceived by artists/mountain men Bret Burroughs and Ryan Maher while on a surf mission in Mexico. Bret and Ryan aim to create art/installations with an awareness and respect for our planet through the use of recycled and reused materials, and minimalistic design that acknowledges the unique character of the source materials. Benjamin Frolichstein, their representative, connected them to the elephant SOCIETY project. For more: livinggreen-designs.com

elephant conference table with inlay: salvaged metal, scrap walnut and reclaimed heart pine.