This year’s “Downtown” exhibition – the alternative design exposition complementing the International Contemporary Furniture Fair’s more commercial displays – moved this year from the Chelsea Hotel to new digs at Drive-In Studios, a former parking garage in West Chelsea that has been converted into a white-walled photography studio and party space.

The move inaugurates a leaner and meaner “Downtown.” A few quirky amenities, such as Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a fully stocked bar, made the transition. But the scrappy fun that had made “Downtown” such a must-see event was in shorter supply this year. No Alan Cumming, no early cocktail hour, no lingering patchouli smells.

“Downtown” still offered plenty of ec centric wares for the adventurous shopper, many from abroad. Design partners Niels van Eijk and Miriam van der Lubbe were at the exhibit representing “Orange Alert,” the Dutch Consolate General’s yearlong campaign to publicize Dutch design in America. Mr. van Eijk’s whimsical creations put a perverse twist on the currently trendy design concept of “sustainability” – the idea that design should not contribute to environmental problems but instead help solve them. His piece de resistance was a chair fashioned solely out of cowhide. “Leather is usually used as a covering, but I wanted to use it constructively,” said the lanky Mr. van Eijk, who molded and stitched wet cowhide around a chair form that was removed once the skin dried. The resulting chair – ghostly and hollow – might be described as a cross between a teepee and a Joseph Beuys sculpture. Or a gigantic gnarled dog chew ($3,500; for more information visit www.droogdesign.nl).

A more accessible take on eco-friendly furniture came from Adapt Design, a studio headed by Oakland, Calif., designer Anthony Marshak. In collaboration with a new shopping Web site, Designpublic.com, Mr. Marshak exhibited his shapely Spring chair and Becca stool. Not dissimilar in appearance to the plywood magazine table frequently available at design-y gift boutiques (I have one next to the bed in my home), the difference is all in the Becca stool’s material: Bamboo, the wonder-timber that grows faster than hardwood trees, doesn’t have to be replanted when it’s harvested, and pumps out 30% more oxygen to boot. (Becca stool, $800, www.designpublic.com.)

As is often the case at design expos, student designs account for some of the most thoughtful, if tantalizingly unpurchasable, work. This year’s standout works came from the Sheridan Institute Craft & Design Program, an art school near Toronto. The assignment of their mini-expo was “No Design,” and the students responded by creating works that subvert the consumerist ethos that has made the purchase of an Aeron chair a holy grail.

For his submission, student Jordan Mc-Donald created colorful ceramic coffee mugs individualized just for you: Tell him your workday routine, and he responds by doodling illustrations of it on the outside of the mug. The collaboration is sealed with a Polaroid of you drinking your first warm beverage out of your new cup. It’s the perfect vessel to cut that my-job-is-killing-me feeling, or just enjoy while watching “The Office.”