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the modern lollygagger
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Friday, July 10, 2009
All of us at Loll are stoked to be able to contribute to environmental groups working every day to keep our planet blue and green. Again, for our second year as a member of 1%, we are abiding by the adage of thinking globally and acting locally with our donations. Thanks goes out to the groups listed below, but also to our customers who in the biggest way allow us to make this happen. Thank you!
 1% for the Planet
http://www.onepercentfortheplanet.org
1% for the Planet is a growing global movement of 1201 companies that donate 1% of their gross sales to a network of more than 1,781 environmental organizations worldwide. Their Mission: 1% for the Planet exists to build and support an alliance of businesses financially committed to creating a healthy planet.
Loll's 2009 Beneficiaries:
Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness
http://www.friends-bwca.org
Leading the effort to protect and restore the BWCAW from adverse environmental threats is the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness. The Friends’ mission is to protect, preserve and restore the wilderness character of the BWCAW and the Quetico-Superior Ecosystem.
 Minnesota Waters
http://www.minnesotawaters.org
Minnesota Waters envisions an engaged citizenry working to protect and restore Minnesota’s irreplaceable natural assets - our clean and healthy lakes and streams - for current and future generations.
 Windustry
http://www.windustry.org/
Windustry promotes progressive renewable energy solutions and empowers communities to develop and own wind energy as an environmentally sustainable asset.
 Sweetwater Alliance
http://www.sweetwateralliance.org/
Sweetwater Alliance was created in 2002 as a fusion between ecological restoration and art and as a vehicle to creatively restore aquatic habitats.
posted by loll designs @ 6:34 AM
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Thursday, June 4, 2009
Tree Planting 2009
Loll and Epicurean employees kicked-off this past Memorial weekend with our annual tree planting. This year we put in around 2000 trees and had more than 20 employees participate in the earthy affair.
 Loll employees and helper unloading trees at Chester Park
It was a nice sunny and warm day for Duluth; a cooler full of Red Bull Cola helped quicken the spade’s pace. We planted two of our favorite spots; the rugged Chester Park and along the Lakewalk which is a walking and biking path that meanders along the shore of Lake Superior in the city of Duluth.
 Loll product designer extraordinaire Jeff Taly saving the environment
Sam Cook from the Duluth News Tribune covered the story so well that we thought you would be best served to read about our exploits in Sam’s words:
Greg Benson’s shovel made a sharp grating sound as he worked it into the rocky soil along Chester Creek.
Benson, an owner of Epicurean Cutting Surfaces and Loll Designs, pushed through the glacial debris until he had created a small crater. He placed a seedling white pine in the hole and nudged soil around it.
“We tell our customers we’ll plant a tree for every order we get at Loll Designs,” said Benson, 45. “It’s to help with the carbon offset of the shipping.”
Epicurean Cutting Surfaces manufactures eco-friendly cutting boards and other products. Loll Designs make furniture from recycled materials. Benson and about 20 other employees of the two Duluth companies planted 2,000 trees along Chester Creek on Thursday morning. Last year, they planted 500 along Skyline Parkway near their offices.
 More environment-saving action
“It’s our eco-initiative that we started a couple years ago, said Epicurean CEO Tony Ciardelli, 37. “We plant some trees and give back to the community.”
The companies buy the trees from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The city of Duluth approved the planting, city gardener Tom Kasper said. Employees and other volunteers spread out Thursday along both sides of the creek, toting shovels, hauling seedlings in plastic bags or buckets.
Seedlings included white pine, Norway pine, spruce, cedar, burr oak, elm, red oak, and birch.
Planting trees has to be better than a day in the office or on the production line. A cardinal issues its sweet warbling from the forest canopy. Fledgling horsetail pushes up from the forest floor likes oft, green bottle brushes. Mature cedars look down on the proceedings like kindly grandparents.
Through it all, Chester Creek tumbles through its canyon to Lake Superior. Epicurean and Loll Designs have committed to using a portion of their profits to plant the trees, Ciardelli said.
 Product design virtuoso John Kiffmeyer looking accomplished
10 reasons to Plant Trees:
1. Trees save energy and money.
2. Trees save tax dollars.
3. Trees cool our cities.
4. Trees clean our water and air.
5. Trees help community life.
6. Trees protect soil.
7. Trees provide habitat for many species including endangered ones.
8. Trees can pay your "carbon debt".
9. Trees provide clean water and natural flood control.
10. Trees are a beautiful part of our lives.
(Source: American Forests ®)Labels: environment, furniture, trees
posted by loll designs @ 1:05 PM
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Friday, May 8, 2009
Loll LEEDing the Way
Throughout the architectural and construction community LEED certified buildings are all the buzz. LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council in 1998. The basic premise of LEED is to design and construct a building that meets high standards for environmentally sustainable construction. Six areas of focus for LEED certified buildings are sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, and innovation and design process. All these areas have been lumped together for a more sustainable design and construction process that should be good news and a better direction towards solving some of the environmental issues facing all of us.
 The building industry greatly impacts our environment. It is easy to see once you add up the total energy, water, and emissions used and generated from manufacturing raw materials, the transportation of finished materials, and everything that goes into the construction. Additionally, the energy used and emissions created over the lifetime of a building are considered in its environmental footprint. LEED takes a holistic look at the entire process and life span of a building.
 On top of all this aesthetics also play a role in LEED certification. Good design for the eye is important, but a building should also be invigorating and life giving to the humans who inhabit them. Sunlight and fresh air are important and you shouldn’t have to go outside to get it. Since 1998 LEED certified projects have snowballed to all 50 states in the U.S. involving more than 14,000 projects. Loll has been fortunate to be a part of numerous LEED projects over the past 3 years all over the country and right in our home town of Duluth. Loll furniture adds to LEED certification with recycled material content. There are additional points earned if the project is 500 miles or less from our manufacturing plant.
 Recently Loll was chosen to provide the rooftop deck furniture for the AMLI 900 Luxury Apartments in downtown Chicago. AMLI 900 is the first New Construction LEED certified rental building in the city of Chicago, and the first completely smoke-free rental building in Chicago. AMLI’s first LEED certified development.
 The 24 story 440 unit building was partially constructed with recycled materials, has a green roof, incorporates energy efficient lighting and HVAC systems. It is close to public transportation, and includes an outdoor dog run, internet café, and health club. Loll designed a new chaise lounge for the project and 24 were placed in a sweeping crescent facing Lake Michigan and the city below.
 Two full sets of the GO collection are nested beneath a large pergola, and 4 Adirondacks face a rooftop open fireplace for nighttime relaxation. The heavy stature of all the loll pieces made them perfect for a windy rooftop where blowing furniture is not an option.
posted by loll designs @ 6:42 AM
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Friday, April 17, 2009
From skateparks to lollygaggers
How did Loll start doing all this lollygagging you ask?
Loll's history dates back to 1997 with the creation of TrueRide, a design and build contractor specializing in custom municipal skate parks. The TrueRide crew designed, built, installed, and serviced more than 400 custom skateboard parks in cities all over the United States and abroad during a 10 year period. A lot of our design and manufacturing capabilities for furniture came from designing and building custom skate parks.
TrueRide had a great reputation for building quality and unique ramps. In this second wave of the skate park industry (the first being the parks of the 1970’s) there were many builders designing parks primarily with wood and using steel components for grind rails and coping; or in locations where skaters would “grind” their boards on the ramp. TrueRide was always looking for better materials for the ramps and in this constant search a composite ramp system was developed that was durable, attractive, and needed very little maintenance. Once we had the materials and the machinery it was natural to start to think about what else we could do with this thing we had created.
In 2003 Loll outdoor furniture was conceived as a way to repurpose excess skate ramp material. Furniture parts could be nested into the same CNC router files with skate park components and depending on the size of the skate park we would get a group of chairs at the same time the park was cut out.
The iconic Adirondack Chair seemed to us like a good product to repurpose the material we used for the side panels of our ramps. Most of the parks we built were outdoors and used heavily by skaters so the side ramp panels needed to be durable and maintenance free. The first material we used was plywood until we found 4 x 8 sheets of ¾” inch thick high-density polyethylene; #2 plastic. Three years of prototyping went into our Adirondack collection before we launched our online store around Thanksgiving 2006.
Originally we used recycled post industrial plastic but by 2007 we were able to source post consumer plastic. This is when Loll, as both a product and a company, really started to take shape as something that could be green. An estimated eight recycled milk jugs go into each pound of a Loll Adirondack Chair or about 400 milk jugs per chair. As well as being recycled the material is also 100% recyclable so its purpose can change again into another useful product when that day comes.
Our first chairs looked a lot like our skate ramps. We used the same manufacturing techniques to build both furniture and ramps; from computer design, CNC routing, stainless steel screws, and the skate ramp materials. The tan colored surface on this chair is SkateLite which was used as the riding surface on TrueRide ramps. The black sides are the #2 plastic. Eventually we made a switch to mostly just plastic because of its durability, lower cost, and infinite color variety.
In 2007 we sold TrueRide to longtime friend and competitor in the skate park business, Spohn Ranch, so we could focus on lollygagging. We hope that you agree it was the right thing to do.
posted by loll designs @ 9:56 AM
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Monday, March 2, 2009
posted by loll designs @ 8:51 AM
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Tuesday, February 10, 2009
We are happy to announce that Design Within Reach is exclusively carrying the Loll 3-slat Adirondack and it is available in all their studios now and online at dwr.com.
Design Within Reach invites you to a green carpet event featuring Loll Designs environmentally conscious outdoor furniture. We will display furniture from our 2009 collection. If you will be in Los Angeles on February 12th this is a great opportunity to see and test-out in person a bunch of Loll’s newest modern, green outdoor furniture designs – and to find out for yourself what makes our furniture so great. Join us for a green event with green food (see below) at Design Within Reach, 8070 Beverly Blvd in Los Angeles on February 12th at 6pm!
Handmade meals will be available for purchase from the modern, portable, green outdoor café, Green Truck:
“Our mobile catering trucks run off of vegetable oil previously used by us and other food service companies in the Los Angeles area. All of our food packaging containers are made from biodegradable products rather than plastics and Styrofoam. At Green Truck, the health of our people and our planet is the bottom line.” www.greentruckonthego.com
posted by loll designs @ 7:27 AM
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Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Loll Loves Minnesota Public Radio
Loll had the distinct opportunity to work with Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) twice over the summer of 2007. As well as covering local news MPR also broadcasts progressive music via The Current. Check it out. We kicked it off together at the Living Green Expo at the MN State Fair Grounds with a full compliment of Adirondack chairs, a picnic table, and a complete set of the Armless Series, all in black of course. MN Public Radio used the Loll pieces to entice intelligent folk into their booth to listen to the radio broadcast and just to lollygag.
Again at the beloved MN State Fair Grounds in St. Paul, MN, Loll also provided MPR with 24 black benches so the denizens of the fair could again relax and actually watch the radio broadcast live. We were told that the benches worked out wonderfully for their intended purpose of holding peoples bottoms. Since the Fair is a temporary and annual thing, MPR will be using the benches at their corporate offices on the outdoor 5th floor patio until they are again called into derriere action at the State Fair and other MPR events around the region.
posted by loll designs @ 8:39 AM
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