After a week straight of wanting to barf with apprehension, I came out of this past weekend’s Brooklyn Designs [1] expo – where I was part of a group discussion [2] on green remodeling – feeling more like a happy evangelist. I didn’t get to address every [2] last [2] aspect [2] of [2] going [2] green [2] that I had wanted to, but I think along with the other panelists – green consultant Lauren Gropper [3], real-estate agent Karesse Grenier [3], and LEED [4]-accredited architect David Bergman [5] – we were able to give a few more people a few more ideas on how to start. The place was packed.

Brooklyn Designs – BKLYN DESIGNS for you cool kids out there – is a project of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce [6] to show off homegrown talent in design and fabrication. Not everything had a green tint to it, but damn, there was some fine stuff; an excellent place to bite some style for my decrepit-but-soon-to-be-shining studio [6]. A quick round up:

Daniel Moyer [7] scrounges hardwood from decrepit decks on Fire Island [8] and turns it into moddish, Asian-influenced furniture [9] – and sweet $495 longboard skateboards [10] for tooling around Williamsburg.

Jan Lee of Sinotique [11] takes a similar tack, pulling wood for his mammoth tables and whatnot from wind-felled trees around the world – like the African ironwood he had fashioned into short stools, or the massive wooden doors from China he had turned into dining tables. (Word to the repurposed-door [11] style!)

A little outfit called Re-surface [12] reprints graffiti scenes from around Brooklyn onto lampshades. Green, schmeen – these things are rad. (That’s right, I said it: Rad [13]. Word to 1987!)

Manche Mitchell [14] builds highly covetable little storage shelves out of low- or no-VOC plywood. Something called Glide [15] – is it an artists’ collective? a consulting firm? I couldn’t rightly tell – was pimping sunflower- and wheat-chaff-based particleboards, as well as Wonka-looking stackable lamps. One of Glide’s consulting projects is a joint called Habana Outpost [16], which hosted the after-after party – locally brewed beer, biodegradable cups and plates, and solar power. (Personally, I never made it past the after party – or maybe it was just the party-party. By after-after, I was in bed, softly snoozing away my nausea.) There’s a bit more about some exhibitors over at Dwell [17] mag’s blog [18], if you still hunger.

Where a lot of these folks do their thing is at the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center [19], a series of formerly unoccupied industrial spaces around Brooklyn that have been converted into usable – and affordable – workspaces for local designers, builders, jewelry makers, metalsmiths, woodworkers, stained-glass artists, you name it. Keeps the talent in Brooklyn quite handily, giving young businesses what the GMDC calls a “safe haven” from impossible rents. Een Draght Mackt Maght [20], people: Community is a beautiful thing.