Marcus Fairs’s Green Design: Creative Sustainable Designs for the Twenty-First Century is all about intelligent planning and technology coming together to create a more sustainable world. It features enticing images and covers a variety of subject areas including architecture, transportation, lighting and housewares. What I particularly like about this book is that it doesn’t feel like someone is bearing down on you to be an environmental junkie. It educates you about some of the more creative green concepts out there. Some designs are more practical than others, but what good would it be without at least a  few funky ideas? Here are two of my favorites:

1. Teahouse on Stilts – An unusual piece of architecture by a Japanese architect that looks like a human equivalent of a bird’s nest in the trees. I’m thinking it would make for an excellent break from our wired worlds.

2. Urban Bicycle Sharing – The idea has fallen prey to crime in the past, but with online pre-registration and RFID tags now commonplace, shared bicycles are a great convenience for tourists and locals to navigate congested cities.

If this is hitting you on all the right spots, we’ve arranged for 3 giveaway copies with the publisher. Just tell us why green design excites you in the comments or on Twitter using #greenfuture. We’ll select our favorite responses as winners.