fter Dell Inc. declared last June that it was going to become the "Greenest technology company on the planet," the Round Rock, TX-based PC and computer-products vendor announced a plan to offset its entire carbon footprint by the end of 2008. That was impressive enough, but to really make an impact, Hoopla Marketing and the Dell Experience Design Group designed an eco-friendly booth for the 2007 ICSID/IDSA Connecting World Design Congress in San Francisco. "Our goal was to inspire the show's audience of industrial designers to start thinking and talking about Green design," said M. Hope Lawrence, liaison for the Dell Experience Design Group.

Visitors strolled into the 20-by-20-foot booth on a floor of black Marmoleum, an eco-friendly material made of linseed oil, cork, limestone, and other natural minerals. They relaxed on a question-mark-shaped bench upholstered in recycled fabric (the "period" was an ottoman topped with real grass), or sat on Eames chairs constructed of veneers from sustainable forests and stained with a non-toxic, water-based compound.

Serenaded by the soothing white noise of an 8-by-10-foot water wall encased in ecoresin (a nontoxic, see-through polyester comprising post-industrial recycled content), visitors grabbed wax pencils and answered a question Dell posed on two translucent 7-by-16-foot walls: "What does Green really mean?" Made of Plexiglas inserts fitted inside a recyclable aluminum frame, both sides of each graffiti wall quickly filled up with hundreds of answers from attendees.

Noting the "simplistic and minimal" look of the exhibit, judges particularly enjoyed it's inquisitive walls and how attendees could interact with the design. Contrary to popular belief, sometimes the best ideas are on the wall, not off.e