How to save money: Best ways to swap and share

These are frugal times and shopping is a guilty pleasure! Skill-swapping and sharing though, can make our lives easier and saving our money. But, yet saving money is easy when you give something in return. Following our tips on how to share and swap and having fun.

1. Car sharing
Looking for linking up with other travellers to save money and cut footprint? Well there plenty of websites to help you with that. It’s estimated that the typical commuter who car shares every day saves approximately £1,000 per year. As well as sharing petrol costs, there’ll also be less wear and tear on your car, and if you work in the city, you can share your parking costs too. Blablacar.com, Rideshare.co.uk and Liftshare.com are all free to register with and can help with the daily commute or for lifts to specific events. The average car-sharer could save £4.43 on a 20-mile return journey – a significant saving over the course of a year.

2. Share with your neighbours
Neighbors are such convenient friends and helpers because they are right next door! Lending website Streetbank.com is a nifty idea designed to help you to share and borrow things from your neighbours. It aims to save you cash and make your community a nicer place to live by bringing it closer together.
Babysitting co-ops, Sharing lawn and garden tools, Share a garden, Share internet connection, Share trash service, Share a washer and dryer, Carpooling, Have clothing swaps, Share Subscriptions, Take turns making dinners, Share an outdoor grill, Share books and dvds, Hand me downs, Skill-swapping.

3. Clothes swapping
What could be better than clearing the unwanted clutter from your closets, refreshing your wardrobe and saving big bucks all at the same time? Enter the clothing swap—the perfect antidote for those recession-savvy shoppers who still have the urge, but not the budget, to buy, buy, buy.
Websites such as Swop2shop.co.uk and Bigwardrobe.com allow you to upload pictures of your unwanted clothes and sell them in a similar way to auction websites like eBay. A premium membership to Swop2Shop allows you to sell your clothes in exchange for points to spend on other items on the site. This costs £10 a year and then £9.99 for every Freepost bag of clothes you send in.
Sooo, start by filling a bag with clean, hardly worn tops, skirts, pants, sweaters and jackets that you no longer want (or fit into), then start a successful swap where everyone finds something that’s new to them…without it costing a penny.

4. Grab freebies
It’s also worth checking out community freebie sites like Freecycle.org, Snaffleup.co.uk or Cloudfreebies.co.uk aiming to keep a whole range of usable items out of landfills. Because you can get something for free without giving anything in return, these aren’t strictly swapping sites. However, it’s always best to try and give something back to these communities if you’re able to.

New Google HQ in Dublin

Google Ireland opens the new HQ in the heart of Dublin’s historic docklands district!

• 47’000 m2 of unique office space
• 4 buildings
• 14-storey is the tallest building

The architects had to find a smart solution to create and stimulate the professional way of living of the Google employees. A relationship not only related to the professional environment, in fact the building is designed for a multitude of additional functions: 5 restaurants, 42 micro-kitchens,  communication hubs, game rooms, a fitness centre, a pool, a wellness area, a conference, a learning & development centre, meeting rooms..

Sustainability is a key focus area for Google and all Google real estate projects work to LEED accreditation.
The Google Dublin Campus is currently awaiting the prestigious LEED Gold and LEED Platinum certification.

Waiting to go to Dublin to check it out, we will dream about Moorbi‘s HQ..

 

Bloggers of the week

This week again, we have found great blogs that we would like to share with you.

Discover White Cabana where Jordana shares all the greatest designs and pieces of art that she likes with one particularity… everything that appears on her blog is white! We absolutely love the sleek and bright effect that it gives to this magnificient source of inspiration.

Another blog that we love is Interior Design Principles, an inspiring catalogue of interior and exterior design ideas. In her blog, Vidya gives tons of ideas to decorate with taste and add nice touches that will transform any living space.

What about you? What are your favourite blogs?

Shed of the Year: an upcycled upside-down boat

This year’s Shed of the Year competition’s winner, Alex Holland from Machynlleth in mid Wales, has good reasons to be proud of his beautiful and sustainable shed. The construction saw off over 1,900 innovant and original rivals.

The lucky winner of a £1.200 prize (twice the cost of building the shed) created this shed replacing the traditional roof by a recycled upside-down wooden boat. The shed is fully equiped with a 20w solar panel to power LED lights, a wood burner,  sound system, gas cooker and refrigerator. It was built in a clever way, using only recycled and second-hand material in order to reduce waste and to create a sustainable, respectful and convenient building.

Alex Holland used and re-used windows from an old caravan and other material from his farmhouse. He is obviously delighted to have received the prize. What will he do with it? Buy an wind turbine “to give (him) enough electricity to make ice in the fridge for gin and tonics, and to ensure the cider and beers are always chilled.”

What a great idea and isn’t it beautiful? We think it perfectly matches the landscape. This is a great opportunity to prove that upcycled design is our future.

Sustainable Design for All!

What is the future for you?
What do you consider as “your future“?

At Moorbi we think that everybody should consider a “more sustainable future”: many of the decisions we take today will  have an important impact on our families,  economy, and on the environment for many years to come.

What can you do, by your own, to ensure a sustainable future for all?

Creativity is one of our greatest resources: thanks to the technology and the internet your ideas can have a real impact!

So, what can we do? 
We would like to hear from you, we want your participation, we would show everybody that even small things can be important if we work all together!

Do you want to participate to our challenge? #nowasteforall #sustainabledesignforall

Think of something.
Take a picture.
Send it to us.
We will publish them on our channels!

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A Theater Built Just From Recycled Paper

This is the Paper Bale Theatre, a project by Studio Andrew Todd: it seems a simple circular theatre, but it come with a unique challenge, it’s a very sustainable building, it’s made of recycled paper.

The outfit designed the Paper Bale Theater as a proposal for the 2013 World Stage Event in Cardiff. The call for proposals came with a budget of £20,000 and the Studio decided to save on the materials instead of the whole project.
After doing some preliminary research, they found out that this apparently simple idea was a great deal, since there are big players and a huge amount of available material in the industry of  collecting, packaging and moving out junk.
“We wanted to show in this project that building mass doesn’t have to be concrete or stone: it can be junk or waste” Todd says.

Cardboard and big, multi-colours bricks made out of recycled paper are the materials the Studio used in the building. The plan calls for cardboard bales on the interior wall behind the stage, creating a simple, acoustically-beneficial backdrop while the multivariate paper have been used for the rest. And you know what? The balls can be recycled after they are used, the recyclers have no problems in buying the stuff back once it has been used!

You may think whether the theatre structure is made of steel or paper. They Studio thought of a sustainable material too: bamboo. It’s eight times lighter than steel, antiseptic in the event of a splinter and requires only a simple plastic strap to secure the joints.
At this point, the only concern is about building control and the fire brigade, since current regulations don’t allow for this type of structural the use of the material.

Why don’t change codes and regulations and start generating discussion about architecture in the developed world?
Architects can change perceptions and help people to visualize different ways of doing things!s

And you? What do you think? Would you be scared to get in?

Do you want to read more about eco-buildings? Check out our article about Strawscrapers. 

It’s a kind of magic

It’s no big news: a man has been seen walking on water, here in London, on the Thames.

Steven Frayne, also known as Dynamo, is a Bradford-born illusionist who magically ‘walked’ across the River Thames. As if walking on the water was not enough for the magician, he recently amazed the London shoppers and tourists defying gravity by ‘levitating’ beside London double-decker bus. The Yorkshire-born illusionist also appears in his documentary show: Dynamo, Magician Impossible where he performs his best tricks.

What we learnt from Dynamo’s performance is that dreaming is not forbidden.

Was it magic? It’s what we like to believe.

If a magician can cross a river walking on the water, we hope there is a magician to make our world more sustainable.

Can you imagine a greener world with just a wave of a magic wand? If it is possible to walk on water, why couldn’t we act for a cleaner environment that will last? There would be no more chemicals, no more greenhouse gas emissions destroyed the ozone layer and no more over-consuming companies. We like to believe that one day, sustainability will become everyone’s matter. Because who is more concerned by the future of the planet than the people living on it?  If we had one magic wish, we would wish for a world where we could turn all the waste into beautiful, affordable and sustainable furniture. Oh, wait! That’s what we do!

When will the UK be de-carbonized?

As some of you have heard there was a proposal of a clean target in the Energy Bill, earlier this month. The Liberal Democrats as well as the Conservatives were to vote on MPs Tim Yeo and Barry Gardiner proposal targeting to take the carbon out of the electricity by 2030.  In total 200 businesses, charities, trade unions and other faith groups were supporting the bill. This change would mean that we finally would make a big step fighting the climate change as well as creating and securing jobs and investments in the green sector.

The debate was very heated between the parties as well as within the parties. Even though it was close the bill got rejected. Most Conservatives voted against, as expected but surprisingly a lot of Liberal Democrats voted against the bill as well. A total of 16 Liberal Democrats and 8 Conservatives voted for the Bill and make it in our green pedestal. We are sure that the Lib Dem who voted against the Bill will have some explaining to do, to their own party.

Going against the Energy bill means a backing up on the headlong bash for gas, fuel bills will keep continue rising  as well as the job overseas, not to speak of further putting our environment and climate in danger.

For Moorbi it does not make sense to keep endangering our environment and why would you want to give jobs oversees when we have such a qualified workforce right here in the UK?

We took a closer look in the area of London from where Moorbi operates to see this area has been voting for the Bill. As expected London was divided but we are very proud, that our immediate area not only has over 10 green businesses but also green local groups and constituencies.

Bloggers of the week

This week again, we have been wandering around in the blogosphere. And this week again we found beautiful, inspiring blogs that we love.

It’s the case of Eat Live Make, a blog where Meghan nicely shares with us all her tips for a simple, healthy living. From the gorgeous pictures to the useful recipes and advices, take time to explore this amazing online resource that will help you live a wholesome, sustainable life.

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My Paradissi comes from Greece and you can feel all the Greek sunshine while browsing on this great blog. Eleni shares all the designs and interior decor that make her heart beat. It’s simply inspiring and we definitely love it!

World’s First Full-Scale Bioreactive Façade

Germany has been named as innovators in many industries. Now Germany can present another innovation in the green technology and architecture. An apartment block in Hamburg, with 15 apartments, has been designed to generate heat and electricity from algae in exterior walls.

This building is indeed a masterpiece and only could have happened due to a successful collaboration of 4 parties: The technology was created by SSC Strategic Science Consult, which developed the building in collaboration with Arup, a design, engineering and consultancy firm; Colt International, a project management company; and Otto Wulff, a Hamburg construction firm.

So how does the energy gets generated? The 2 south facing facades have been covered with a shell of bioreactors, these create and control the environment for the algae. They are clear in nature so the sunlight can be absorbed by the algae and the natural photosynthesis can happen. The access energy, which is not being used in photosynthesis is being converted in energy. Given the algae are growing constantly they have to be harvest on a regular basis and being burned to produce electricity. The algae façade also acts as a natural thermostat which cools the building in the summer as it prevents the sunlight to hit the building.

According to SSC the building the energy conversion is almost 50%, 10% for biogas and 38% for heat. Additionally to the algae feature, the building also creates heat and power from rooftop solar panels and an underground heat storage system, which brings the whole building up to 100% energy efficiency. That makes the building self-sufficient and completely sustainable.

Why don’t all buildings get designed like that, you might want to ask. Well, unfortunately this technology is cutting edge and just got developed recently. Very high costs are involved in the project that lies at approximately €6.3 million. We can only hope that in the future the technology is going to catch up with the need and will make those kind of projects more affordable, so more and more buildings can be designed as efficient as possible.