Fresh and creative window shade designs range from hand-cut paper blinds and custom printed blackout shades to robust and colorful sliding glass panels. Here are a few of our favorites:

Artistic Cellular Paper Blinds

Upon creating these surreal-looking blinds, designer Natchar Sawatdichai took the typical cellular concept and freshened it up with fun pleated patterns. She notes that most materials used in home decoration are “over-qualified” and could be replaced with materials like paper, which is “often overlooked and not commonly used in home decoration because of its low-value appearance and doubts of its durability.”

“In some ways, we might not have found the appropriate applications yet, which can enhance its value and change the belief about this material.”

Designed to work with consumer cycles of disposability rather than trying to fight them, these blinds allow the user to recycle or compost them when they want something new, all the while keeping the reusable hardware. Each one is cut and folded by hand, and all of them can easily be trimmed to fit various window sizes.

Custom-Printed Window Shades

When shopping for window dressings, there’s no need to limit yourself to the solid neutral colors offered by most retailers. Virtually anything you can envision can be custom-printed onto the shade type of your choice, including light filtering, blackout, and solar screen fabrics. Companies like Creatively Different Blinds, Blinds Galore, and Orange Piel make it easy to design and upload your own artwork or choose from libraries of premade graphics and patterns. Either way, you’re sure to end up with works of art that are entirely your own.

Glass Curtains

If you’d prefer something much sleeker and more durable with ultra-low maintenance to boot, these modern sliding glass curtains from Sprinz are definitely worth considering. Available in a wide variety of colors and patterns from transparent to opaque, these “curtains” offer shade, privacy, and heat reduction from sunlight streaming in through the windows. Functioning much like sliding glass doors, they follow a track and can easily overlap each other when you want them out of the way.

City Skyline Roller Shades

Turning day into night with a flick of the wrist, blackout shades are essential for anyone who works overnight shifts, lives in a place with high light pollution, or just loves a good nap. Cut the shapes of cityscapes into those shades and you’ve got instant scenery, not to mention the ability to see how bright it is outside without letting in too much light.

What was once a noteworthy concept design is now available for purchase internationally from a Ukrainian company called HoleRoll. The collection includes the skylines of London or New York, each featuring iconic landmark architecture like the Gherkin and the Empire State Building, as well as a dazzling night sky effect.

The post Beyond Blinds: 4 Fresh and Creative Ways to Dress Windows first appeared on Dornob.

When you think about it, many of the buildings we live, work, eat, and shop in are often so inundated by harsh rays of sunlight, we already have to block them out with blinds or curtains. That’s a whole lot of potential solar energy, and the majority of us are letting it go to waste every single day. SolarGaps wants people to capture that energy and use it, and their blinds don’t require any complicated installation. Unlike most solar products, SolarGaps was created with apartment dwellers in mind, and it’s designed to look like a set of traditional window blinds, so you don’t have to worry about it being an eyesore.

Everything you need to produce your own solar energy and sustainably power your electronics is included in a single set of SolarGaps blinds. Got a super sunny south-facing office window? Screw these blinds on outside, and you’ll be ready to juice up your laptop, phone, and other gadgets while simultaneously saving money on your electricity bills! All you have to do is plug them in, and they immediately start harvesting and generating energy.

If you buy multiple units and produce more power than you need, you can always store it in the SolarGaps battery bank to use later on in the event of an emergency. Alternatively, you can choose to feed excess energy back into the grid through a two-way meter to earn some credit from your utility provider. The coolest part is that the blinds automatically track the sun and adjust their own angles to it for optimal power production throughout the day. If you ever feel like it, you can monitor how much sunlight they’re receiving and how much electricity they’re generating from the accompanying SolarGaps smartphone app. SolarGaps is easy to integrate with smart devices like Echo, Nest Thermostat, and Google Home, so you’ll be able to control it via voice commands, too. You can even program the blinds to open when someone enters the room and close when they leave.

According to SolarGaps, you can reduce your apartment, home, or business electricity bill by up to 70 percent. That number might seem large, but it makes sense considering the blinds generate 100W-150W of renewable energy for each 10 square feet of covered window space: enough to power 30 LED light bulbs or three MacBooks. The company allows you to order as little as a single blind slat, which can single-handedly charge your phone, tablet, or mp3 player. For a lower price, you can buy a non-automated version of SolarGaps. A three-room apartment with south-facing windows can produce up to 600 watt-hours per day, and in an office or retail building, there’s potential to generate ten times that much.

In short, SolarGaps are one of those inventions that make you say, “why didn’t we think of that earlier?”

The post Solar Panel Blinds Provide Shade and Produce Energy at the Same Time first appeared on Dornob.

Yesterday’s steel bars are todays bamboo poles. Blinds and shades may add privacy, but do little to secure a property. A clever, cheap and green solution, this undulating sheet of bamboo does double-duty work (or triple, if you count the impressive aesthetic effect!).

ROEWU did not get lucky – they got smart: find something easy-growing that shoots up fast, buy what is for sale on the cheap, and make it work wonders, rather than bending a design to your whims at high material costs.

Opening windows is the easiest way to provide natural ventilation to a home – these green bamboo ‘fences’ are narrowly spaced to prevent intruders from climbing in an open void, but let air pass in and out naturally.

The concrete block walls making up the structural core of the house would be incredibly boring were it not for the addition of a dynamic and organic design element, almost like an abstract type of modern ivy (or vertical garden) climbing up the sides of the building.

On the inside, shadows can be seen, cast by the facade of sticks outside, but mostly it is a simple and efficient home, laid out to take advantage of a long and narrow lot, and finished with a combination of white walls and ceilings with wood floors, furniture and accents.

A mostly-metal rooftop deck is partially shaded by these as well, providing some visual separation from neighbors while allowing views out from above.

The end result is a sustainable three-story home that requires no window bars for safety nor air conditioning to control the heat., invites natural light and breezes without compromising personal security. Not bad for a house based on inexpensive materials and simple building methods.

“On entering the house the experience is akin to being surrounded by an organic forest. Sun light, air and shadows filter through the bamboo poles into the spaces within. The mood and quality of the spaces changes during the course of a day and shifts with the changing seasons. In winter, a Karaoke Lounge and Spa on the second floor, form a focal point for bathing or singing. During summer, the roof deck with its variably patterned sun-shade system and surrounding bamboo, invites cooling breezes and becomes the family’s favorite spot for outdoor living.”

The post New Bamboo Facade Livens Up a Home first appeared on Dornob.