the modern lollygagger

Help a Planet Out

2009-07-10T06:34:00.000-07:00

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.

Tree Planting 2009

2009-06-04T13:05:00.000-07:00

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

“You could Google 10 reasons to plant trees, and all those apply,” Benson said. “It’s something everyone wants to do. We’re greening up our community. And it’s getting people to do something different than they do every day.”

- republished from an article by Sam Cook, Duluth News Tribune

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 ®)

Loll LEEDing the Way

2009-05-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

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.

From skateparks to lollygaggers

2009-04-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

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.

Loll Designs event at DWR in Minneapolis - March 5th

2009-03-02T08:51:00.000-08:00

On March 5th, Nate Heydt and Kelly Bartz will explain in person at DWR in Minneapolis, MN how Loll's eco-friendly, modern outdoor Adirondack Chair is better in every way than its non-eco-friendly counterpart!

Learn about Loll in LA!

2009-02-10T07:27:00.000-08:00

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

Loll Loves Minnesota Public Radio

2007-10-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

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.

Dwell on Design

2007-09-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

Loll just attended Dwell on Design conference in brilliant San Francisco. Primarily a show with a focus on prefab and modern green homes, there was also an assortment of graphic artists, speakers, landscape architecture, fountains, and of course furniture of the indoor and outdoor variety. Green Seed Radio covered the event that was well attended all three days by both the trades and the green conscious public.

The Mayor , Gavin Newsom, made an appearence Friday evening while the Lollygaggers and the impeccable Hive Modular architects were stationed comfortably in the DWR Airstream. Stepping inside the trailer a famous smile spread across his face with what must have been the realization of how fun it would be to hang-out with these cool guys from Minnesota. Unfortunately the ice cold Sierra Nevada beer and talk about how wonderful the Airstream would be as a fish house on a frozen lake in the winter, wasn't enough to get him to sit for a spell.

Loll furniture was shown throughout the exhibit but primarily we were planted in the innovative Dwell Outdoor area designed by Shades of Green and installed by the hard working Bertotti Landscaping crew. At the DWR Airstream we had two Adirondacks and a Go Series Table. Near the kitHAUS we had a Go Series side table and two club chairs decorated with hand stiched pillows from Propeller. This was our second public display of the Go Series after the Southern California Home and Garden show and people genuinely like the design and comfort of the chair. The upright back and seat height are made for the more active Lollygaggers and for people who like to get in and out of their relaxation in a hurry like the Hive Modular guys. The entire Dwell Outdoor area was set-up in just over 24 hours and taken down in half that time. Both real and artificial sod was used as well as floating decking, concrete pavers, and tumbled glass.

Speaking of Hive Modular...

There must be some truth to the old adage that birds of a feather flock together. My travelling companion, Nate, and I found ourselves drawn into the Hive booth on numerous occasions during the show while making plans for the evening activities. Speeding through the streets in a white Avenger to Salt House and finally finding Pliny the Elder; the holy grail of IPA, at the Toronado, were just some of the fantastic adventures we had with Paul and Bryan.

We also had a chance to visit the San Francisco Room & Board and found to our surprise the Emmet and Ottoman resting pleasantly in the sun outside the front door! Room & Board is doing an early spring launch in warmer climates with a full launch of Loll products in the spring of 2008. Needless to say we are very excited about this.

Building Green

2007-07-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

During the past year Loll has been on the road showing our wares at various trade and consumer shows. It seems that each show introduces us to great new products, ideas and people. One of the standouts has been Jason Hammond. We met him at the Minneapolis Home and Garden Show in March and then ran across him again at the Living Green Expo in St Paul. Jason is in the process of building a new green/modern home and he is also blogging about it for the Star Tribune. He is doing a great job of updating his blog (unlike Loll) and has gone into some detail on the ups and downs of building a home that is incorporating green construction techniques and also modern sensibilities. Maybe we will get to see some Loll Furniture on Jason's deck.

Design Week NYC

2007-06-04T08:03:00.000-07:00

ICFF
We just returned from the amazing Design Week and the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in NYC. Initially intended to be a reconnoitering trip to see how or even if loll should show in 2008, to our great surprise we ended up showing in three locations!

Haute Green

Running simultaneously with ICFF is Design Week which is off-site from ICFF and located in different locations in the city including the Meat Packing District and Soho. There were gobs of temporary installations and permanent exhibitions of furniture to peruse and ogle over. One exhibition, HauteGREEN, highlighted the best in sustainable design for the home. Loll was one of 70 showing and was selected from more than 240 submitting designers. We were proud to have our Armless Series right in the middle of the exhibition.

The opening night of HauteGREEN (Friday Night of course) included beer and energy drinks and the Rolling Stones blasting throughout the well attended venue. (The pic above is from a tamed down Saturday morning).The queue at the door was long and people could only get in as people left. It would be easy to say it was for the free drinks but there was a rumor that Robert Redford was attending and I think that created a draw in itself. We met up with Josh Dorfman, aka. The Lazy Environmentalist. It turns out that Josh is not so lazy about his dancing as we discovered after we left HauteGREEN. We met John Stein from Organo. John makes wonderful and functional interior pieces from natural materials. John had a great passion for doing the right thing with the environment and he also knew how to attack a late night New York deli. Although Friday night did come to a close, the exhibition was a great success and carried on through Monday.

DWR

There was also a satellite exhibition at the Design Within Reach store located in the Flatiron district. You can imagine our surprise as we walked up to the store through the rain and smells of Manhattan to find the red Loll Armless in the front window!

The quote from George Nelson in the window looking in at the Loll chair reads: "What you make is important." This really summed it well. At loll we always put quality first; quality in materials, design, construction, and comfort. But quality is lost, for me, if what you make isn't green.

Loll Products Now Use 100% Recycled Material

2007-02-08T09:15:00.000-08:00

Loll Designs outdoor furniture has grown from the desire to reduce the manufacturing footprint of TrueRide Skateparks and Epicurean Cutting Surfaces. From the beginning Loll was envisioned as a green product with parts of each piece of furniture coming from what would have been waste from skatepark production. Loll has taken its environmental commitment one step further, the Loll Designs Color Pallet is now produced with 100% Post Consumer Recycled Plastic*. The plastic materials we use are recycled HDPE (# 2 recycled plastic) and come from a variety of sources. I can tell you our white chairs and benches have a faint but lovely scent of root beer left over from the materials former life as containers.

For more info:

About Loll (www.lolldesigns.com/about.php)

Loll's eco commitment (www.lolldesigns.com/eco.php)

Green manufacturing (www.lolldesigns.com/lollhq.php)

TrueRide Skateparks (www.trueride.com/)

Epicurean Cutting Surfaces (www.epicureancs.com)

*Black plastic is 100% post industrial recycled material and pieces of each chair also come from what would have been skate park waste.

Oh Yeah, We now have FREE SHIPPING........get ready, here comes summer!

Kids Chair Coming Soon

2007-01-30T08:02:00.000-08:00

Sam says that the prototype is getting really close to being perfect.

Happy Lollidays from Loll Designs.......

2006-12-14T08:31:00.000-08:00

07 Picnic Table Prototype

2006-12-14T08:14:00.000-08:00

Here is our newly redesigned picnic table. This one is a little less "chunky" than the original and can be flat-pak shipped (save $$$$). The table top is 3/8" Richlite.

Wouldn't this fit in nicely on you rooftop veranda????Very Nice!

New website is up! Buy loll direct.......

2006-11-27T14:24:00.000-08:00

Check out our new website. You can now buy direct from loll designs.

We also have some of the new designs up and more are on the way.

www.lolldesigns.com

loll designs ++recycled outdoor furniture++

2006-11-10T11:18:00.000-08:00

loll designs modern outdoor furniture

new colors, designs and website coming soon

check out www.lolldesigns.com