Core77

Germans abroad, spreading design goodness: Last Friday students from the Technische Universitat Darmstadt won the 2007 Solar Decathlon, a U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored competition to design sun-powered homes, and this week German professor/entrepreneur Michael Braungart is holding workshops on his "Cradle to Cradle Design" philosophy in Taiwan.

The cleverly-designed house produced by architecture students from TUD, with its multiple and functional exterior layers, was deemed the best of the 20 colleges' designs to enter the Solar Decathlon. Audio interviews of two of the students are available here.

Professor Braungart's lectures in Taiwan "[call] for the transformation of human industry through ecologically intelligent design" and are sponsored by the German Culture Center. His "cradle to cradle" philosophy looks past traditional "cradle to grave" thinking, positing that products should be designed to be passed on to the next generation. More on his thoughts are here.

And speaking of passing products on, a VHS copy of the Jet-Li-and-DMX actioner "Cradle 2 the Grave" can now be had for $2.99 on eBay, here.

via architectural record, the china post and eBay