Oliver Heath has become a leader in sustainable design, using his training and experience as an architect and designer to rethink the eco-design movement. His company Heath Design specializes in eco-friendly interiors and architecture, and he owns the online store EcoCentric, which features eco-design products, from office supplies to kids' toys. Oliver Heath has also worked on a number of home design programs for TV. His book, Urban Eco Chic, was published this fall.
An Environmentally Friendly Interior Design Book
Urban Eco Chic is a coffee table book, a how-to book, and a home décor book all in one. With a nice layout and beautiful pictures of home interiors, it's fun to look at. It's easy to use, offering simple, straightforward advice on how to decorate interiors using eco-friendly tactics. The book itself is also a concrete example of eco-design: it was printed with vegetable-based inks on paper from an environmentally conscious mill.
Technology, Nature, Vintage
Heath has organized his eco-friendly design philosophy around "the three elements" – technology, nature, and vintage. New technologies allow for efficient appliances, recycled materials, and insulating materials, which help people save energy and reduce waste. Natural materials age better, and humans have an inclination to connect with nature. It's best to choose renewable natural materials, though. Vintage is attractively worn and an opportunity to creatively reuse objects.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reusing materials is the second of what Oliver Heath calls "the 3 Rs." He points out that these three tactics are in logical order: we all must first reduce. This means wasting less energy and consuming less. Heath emphasizes efficiency over frugality. Reusing materials and objects saves them from the landfills. Recycling is the least important of the three because it takes energy, but it is still important because the earth doesn't have unlimited resources for humans to use.
Eco-Materials
Applying his three elements approach, Heath introduces the section on materials. He insists that eco-friendly homes don't have to lack style. A picture of his own living room which he decorated backs up his argument – it's cozy minimalist, with recycled glass stone surfaces, well-worn wood plank floors, and an antique crystal chandelier. Heath says that the eco-credentials of the materials were his top priority as he worked on the room.
In the Home
The last chapter of Urban Eco Chic is the most substantial. Going through each room of the house, Oliver Heath applies his philosophy. The pictures are descriptive and colorful and show fun details. There's a crazy quilt TV cover in a kid's bedroom, an old display case with glass doors that now holds shoes, a log-burning stove installed in a vast old fireplace (it's more efficient).
The underlying attitude of Urban Eco Chic is optimistic. Oliver Heath makes a compelling argument via his helpful hints, design tips, and environmentally conscious strategies. Style, one's health and one's environment, and the future of the planet are equally important and intertwined.
Oliver Heath, Urban Eco Chic: How to Create an Eco-Friendly Home without Compromising on Style, Quadrille Publishing, 2008. ISBN: 1844006441
