Photo: Robert Humphreys

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s an espresso bar made of abandoned washing machines, and it’s among the recycled design masterpieces of Rotterdam-based 2012 Architecten. The Maytag-meets-Starbucks-meets-Sputnik creation will be featured in the third season of e2 design (say “e-squared design”), PBS’s Brad Pitt-narrated environmental and green building series. 2012 Architecten is the subject of an e2 episode entitled “Super Use,” a lush mini-documentary exploring how the architectural firm’s partners elegantly repurpose everything from car tires to windmill blades as building materials. Other topics e2 tackles in its third season, which premieres online on September 1, include the Aga Khan‘s Al-Azhar Park in Cairo, a 500-year-old dump turned “urban lung”; the efforts of Renzo Piano to integrate the natural world into his design for San Francisco’s natural history museum; and the work to rebuild New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward in a way that is environmentally, culturally, and socially sustainable. Hmm…how’s the Big Easy fixed for washing machines?