Vital Design Ltd presents the future of design with innovative solutions that are exciting, unique and respectful of our planet.

Cheryl Terrace’s full-service design firm specializes in creating beautiful interiors that are environmentally friendly, safe, and natural. Cheryl’s ‘green dream team’—the best professionals in the industry—are committed to thinking creatively, solving problems efficiently, and delivering a fine-crafted look.

We have been doing green building projects since 1998. Carpistry’s existence evolved as we sought solutions to health issues in Tom’s family.

Tom’s own family home was Carpistry’s first green project in 2000, designed to alleviate his wife’s mold allergies. This is a 2,000 sq ft engineered log chalet on a mountain top in North Carolina, utilizing unused skyscraper parts collected in NYC (such as oversized windows, 8’ doors, slabs of granite, marble flooring, cherry flooring). The house was built as an exercise in mold-free living for $160/sq ft.  A whole house fan on a timer replaced AC by exaggerating mountain breezes and being 6’ in the air on sonotubes insured no basement mold.

Chris Benedict currently has fifty-six green multifamily projects completed, under construction, or on the boards. Her first green housing project, the substantial gut rehabilitation of eighteen small multifamily buildings in Brooklyn, New York was completed in 1998. In 1999 she was awarded Energy Professional of the Year by the International Association of Energy Engineers for the project.

299 East Third Street is a good example of Chris’s work. This thirty-eight apartment new-construction project on the Lower East Side of Manhattan uses 15% of the energy of a typical apartment building for no additional construction cost. Chris thinks holistically, outside the normal “green” box, and does not use “guidelines” and “point systems” for her designs. Her projects do not need grants or additional funding. Chris is a licensed architect in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., and is not affiliated with LEED, USGBC or the AIA. 

The products that you’ll find both in the 3r Living store and online are carefully selected with the principles of reducing waste, reusing unwanted or discarded materials, and recycling in mind. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. 3r.

That means we favor manufacturers and artisans who dedicate their talents to creating clever, modern, and earth-affirming products out of unwanted everyday items. In addition, we look for fairly-traded products and those made from organic ingredients. We encourage manufacturers to use environmentally-friendly packaging and sustainable manufacturing techniques.

Greendepot (formerly E.C.O of New York) will only represent products and systems that meet our environment criteria. All products must be of high quality and superior functionality. We will not sell any product or system that we have not tested or field experienced.

All of our products must be environmentally responsible, falling into the categories of hypo-allergenic, natural, sustainable, and recycled. We select products using a cradle to cradle evaluation. Each product is analyzed with respect to its environmental impact on health issues, durability, performance, waste disposal, recyclability, resource depletion, and energy conservation and/or consumption.

A community-oriented, volunteer-run organization, GreenHomeNYC promotes environmentally sustainable urban buildings. GreenHomeNYC is a registered 501(c)3 tax-exempt nonprofit corporation.