Walker S. Sustainable by Design: Explorations in Theory and Practice
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9
THE
APPLICATION
OF THEORY
experiments in
sustainable
product design
It is a fruitless task to try to define sustainable product design
– there is no common essence and it is inappropriate to try to find
one. Sustainable product design encompasses a great diversity of
approaches that will vary with place, time, environment, culture and
knowledge. No one knows what a sustainable society will look like,
we can only speculate on possibilities. However, as we work towards
it, our knowledge and understandings will increase and our vision
of development that is, in some sense, sustainable will evolve – the
goalposts will keep moving, as it were. Sustainability is thus a fluid,
dynamic, unfocused goal – and this is how it has to be; any attempt to
define a vision of a sustainable society will always fall short. Similarly,
any one approach to sustainable product design will be incomplete.
Some current approaches focus on product life cycle assessment,
others on product longevity, design for disassembly or the use of
recycled materials. All these can make a contribution but all, in and
of themselves, are inadequate. I have made my own attempts to
translate ideas about sustainability into product prototypes. These too
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are inadequate, but it is the attempt to interpret abstract, theoretical
ideas in the creation of tangible objects that is important in this type of
investigative design work.
The designs presented in this chapter are centred on the notion of
local production which, as I said earlier
, has many environmental and
social benefits.
1
To explore what sustainability might mean for product
design, I have used the three principles of environmental stewardship,
social equity and economic development rather than continual
growth,
2
together with work done by urban planners in envisioning
sustainable community scenarios.
3
The examples here are some initial,
experimental designs of everyday functional objects. Their creation
makes use of commonly available materials, off-the-shelf parts, simple
tools and local labour, rather than highly mechanized production.
They are not conceived as commercially viable products which can
compete in today’s market place. Rather, they are explorations in
which the design process is used to develop and articulate functional
objects for local use, repair and recycling within a general notion of a
sustainable community scenario. In pursuing this kind of design work I
take the view, held by many design academics, that exploratory design
is an appropriate form of design research within the university and a
constructive alternative to professional practice.
4
The resulting designs are not readily classified. They are not typical
product designs for mechanized production – that is, they are not
industrial designs. Nor are they craft designs – little or no traditional
craft skills are required to produce them. These artefacts represent
a hybrid category that draws on elements of mass production, semi-
mechanized production and hand fabrication. Mass-produced parts
are combined with locally produced components, reused items and/or
recycled materials. Again, this seems entirely appropriate when we talk
about sustainable product design. In working towards sustainability, we
should be drawing on many existing procedures and techniques and
modifying them and adapting them, but not necessarily rejecting them
wholesale. Many of the negative consequences of our current, evidently
unsustainable, approaches are not necessarily the result of inherently
harmful methods but the lack of moderation in their use.
The thesis of sustainable development recognizes that labour is
relatively expensive, but it also points out that current automated
production methods fail to include the so
-called ‘externalities’ in the
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The Application of Theory
economic models (e.g. pollution, resource depletion and the social
consequences of unemployment). Because of this, the costs, and in
turn the retail prices, of current mass-produced products can be kept
artificially low; critical factors for achieving sustainability are simply not
taken into account. Local production that employs local materials and
produces products for local use allows reductions in transportation
and packaging, facilitates recycling, reverse manufacture and the
cyclic use of materials and parts, and local maintenance and repair. It
also allows products to be adapted to local needs and to reflect local
or regional aesthetic preferences. This, in turn, contributes to cultural
and community identity – ‘community’ being an important aspect of
sustainability.
5
Consequently, localization can be inherently far more
sustainable than our current system of mass manufacturing and
product distribution.
These design explorations therefore represent a shift in the way we think
about product manufacturing in terms of our scales of production,
the provision of fulfilling employment, social responsibilities and
use of materials. The resulting products also tend to challenge our
preconceptions of aesthetics – which, in contemporary product design,
are closely linked to the notion of newness. Sustainable product design
explores reuse of materials, re
-manufacturing and product longevity.
If we begin to create long-lasting, but repairable and upgradeable
products made from reused materials and parts, we will have to
reassess our ideas of products and the value and place of the ‘new’, the
glossy and the perfect. A product which bears the marks of time and use
and its own history could, potentially, have a richness lacking in many of
today’s squeaky-clean but rather barren products; but to appreciate this
richness we will have to readjust our value system and our expectations
of product aesthetics.
In these ‘experiments’, various elements of sustainable design have
been explored:
Inventiveness of necessity
Sustainability demands resourcefulness and restraint. New solutions
have to be found which require less. In the Arc Light, Figure 9.1, the
flexibility of movement was attained using a simple arc of wire over
a fulcrum. The arc, which shifts the balance point as the lamp head
is raised or lowered, replaces the relatively complex friction or spring
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Sustainable by Design
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mechanisms often found in task lamps. The motion is wide-ranging and
flowing, and the action is delicate, poised and bird-like. Construction
is from bamboo garden canes, a small food tin for the lampshade, a
water pipe and two corks for the counter-weight and a cast concrete
base. Electrical parts are standard, off-the-shelf components which,
at the end of their service here, can be readily reused in other
applications.
Other lighting examples are shown in Figure 9.2, Lather Lamp, a task
lamp that makes use of a soap bottle, and Figure 9.3, Wire Light.
Figure 9.1
Arc Light:
Bamboo canes, wire, water pipe,
corks, concrete, tin can, standard
electrical parts
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Figure 9.2
Lather Lamp:
Soap bottle, wire rod, concrete,
standard electrical parts
Figure 9.3
Wire Light:
Wire rod, concrete, standard
electrical parts
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Improvisation and spontaneity
The constraints of limited resources at the local level in terms of
materials, processes and tools, combined with a realization that
most contemporary products are actually a physical manifestation of
unsustainable practices, can create a liberating environment in which to
reconsider the nature of objects. The Kind-of-Blue Chair, Figure 9.4, is
an exercise in improvisation, spontaneity, making-do and the inclusion
of chance.
Figure 9.4
Kind-of-Blue Chair:
Reused wood, screws,
nails, glue, acrylic paint
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The Application of Theory
I believe there is a strong relationship between intuitive, extemporized,
rough design work and sustainability. Meticulously considered, honed
design may have a certain kind of beauty but, in many respects, it is a
sterile, lifeless beauty that represents only one side of our nature. We
can appreciate the precision but there is often little sense of empathy
or resonance. The intuitive gesture, the spontaneous, the improvised
– all have a vitality that is unavoidably lacking in highly rationalized
work. And, when a product is being put into mass production for world
markets, everything has to be very carefully planned and controlled:
there is simply too much capital invested for it to be otherwise.
Here, then, is another reason for reconsidering scales of production.
Smaller
-scale manufacturing for local markets allows us to adopt
approaches that permit these aspects of design, and our selves, to
be reintroduced. This helps ensure a wholeness in the creation of our
material environment and it enables products to be a more complete
expression of our material needs – needs that extend far beyond the
utilitarian. Indeed, John Ruskin held that rough work allowed energy,
vigour and the mark of our humanity to become manifest.
6
In the case of the Kind-of-Blue Chair, the individual pieces of wood,
comprising off-cuts or found pieces, were used as they came to hand,
in the form and size they happened to occur. Fastenings are nails, glue
or screws, and the geometry of construction ensures stability. Similar
examples are shown in Figure 9.5, Low Chair, and Figure 9.6,
Square Chair
.
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Figure 9.5
Low Chair:
Reused wood, screws,
nails, glue
Figure 9.6
Square Chair:
Reused wood, screws,
nails, glue, acrylic paint
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The Application of Theory
Aesthetic longevity and ‘surface’
Many contemporary products rely on shiny, highly polished, new
surfaces for their visual appeal. Automobiles, audio equipment,
kitchen appliances and furniture are common examples. However,
monochromatic, glossy surfaces on painted metals and moulded
plastics are delicate and highly susceptible to marring. Any bumps,
scratches or dents are immediately obvious and the accumulation of tiny
scratches, caused when using or cleaning the object, will eventually dull
the surface. And it is usually a difficult task to maintain or repair such a
surface once it is marked. This deterioration of surface quality can cause
a sense of dissatisfaction in the owner or user. Even though the product
might still work well, the appearance can seem scruffy and drab. The
lack of opportunity afforded by the material to maintain or repair the
surface can compound this sense of discontent and the product will
often be replaced because it has become prematurely aesthetically
obsolete due to its surface qualities.
There are various ways to address this issue. Earlier, I discussed rough
work from the point of view of spontaneity and improvisation. However,
rough surfaces can also contribute to aesthetic longevity. Surfaces that
are unfinished or created from reused parts or recovered materials – as
in the Kind-
of-Blue Chair – are often able to absorb wear and tear in
ways that do not detract from the overall appearance of the object. One
more scratch on a variegated, irregular surface that is an integral part
of the object’s design will be unlikely to cause aesthetic dissatisfaction.
Hence, reused materials can be employed in aesthetically sensitive
ways to create objects whose surfaces are able to absorb abuse. But it
should be emphasized that the aesthetic qualities of such surfaces will
be quite different from those of the artificially distressed surface, which
is often applied to create the impression that the object is older than it
really is. The spurious quality of such surfaces suggests an affectation or
pretension and the resulting objects lack authenticity.
Another, related way of addressing the issue of aesthetic durability is
to provide a complex surface that is easily maintained. In the Cable
R
adio, Figures 9.7 and 9.8, the casing is constructed from a coarse
particleboard, which yields a randomly patterned surface when
polished. This surface can withstand scratches and knocks without
detracting from the appearance of the object, and the surface can be
easily maintained by the owner and revamped with a cloth and polish.
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