Walker S. Sustainable by Design: Explorations in Theory and Practice
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
Sustainable by Design
128128
to sustainable priorities, this limits a government’s ability to serve as a
moderating influence on corporate aims in the interests of the common
good. Secondly, it turns the citizen, who has rights and responsibilities,
into the consumer, who has only rights. Thirdly, it enables enormous
wealth to become concentrated in the hands of the few, which results in
burgeoning social inequalities.
25
Alongside corporate aspirations of unfettered exchange across a
worldwide free market, and the growth in power of transnational
corporations that stand outside the democratic process, we have also
seen a renewed emphasis on national sovereignty. For example, with
the fall of the Berlin Wall many former Soviet states quickly asserted
their independence. And in recent years the US has chosen to remain
outside a number of international agreements and jurisdictions, such
as the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and the International Criminal
Court.
26
Thus, despite undoubted trends towards ‘globalization’, it
would be too simplistic to presume that progress means an unswerving
road to cultural homogeneity and a dissolution of regional and national
diversity. The situation is infinitely more complex and dynamic. There
are elements of globalization that actually nourish localization,
27
many
indications of a growing emphasis on national statehood, and many
examples of resistance to the global ambitions of private corporations.
28
Nevertheless, the overall effect of increasing globalization does appear
to be counter-productive in terms of sustainable development.
For the designer, the assumptions of mass production for global markets
– as the principal model for contemporary products – can and should
be challenged. P
otentially, designs can be developed that are adaptable
to place, create good work at the local level, use local resources
as well as mass-produced components, and are expressive of local
cultural preferences and norms. It is the designer’s challenge to envision
functional objects that are technologically sophisticated and appropriate
for modern, developed economies, and environmentally responsible,
socially enriching and economically viable in their creation, use
and disposal.
A recognition in design of the appropriate place of objects
Perhaps one of the most significant factors hindering the progress
of sustainable development is simply that we may be giving far too
much prominence to material goods. This does not just apply to the
book.indd 128 4/7/06 12:25:35
Reframing Design for Sustainability
acquisition of goods, but also to their design. From certain perspectives,
the emphasis placed on the detailed design and perfection of form of
mundane objects can be seen as unwarranted, unseemly
and misguided.
With the advance of digital communications technologies over the past
few decades, we have moved from an economy based on producing
and selling goods to one of producing and selling information, services
and entertainment. The former was an industrial economy
, the latter is
a post-industrial economy or, as Gray has suggested, an entertainment
economy,
29
in which the primary commodity is the information, service
or entertainment being delivered, rather than the actual product that
delivers it. Furthermore, the technology within the physical product
is only relevant for the short period that it is useful – and the rapid
pace of technological development soon renders it obsolete. It follows
that the design and aesthetics of the physical product become rather
inconsequential and beside the point. In fact, the product as a whole,
including its engineering, becomes secondary – a mere conduit for the
delivery of services. This is especially the case for electronic products
such as televisions, music equipment and computers.
In addition, in his book Secularization, Edward Norman argues that we
live in ‘an age which sets welfare and material security as the objects
which, it is supposed, describe the real purpose of life on earth’.
30
If
this is the case, and there are many signs to support this assertion, then
it is not surprising that the design of material goods has taken on a
disproportionate importance. However, if such an emphasis is actually
an impediment to individual growth, as I suggested in Chapter 7, then a
quite different approach to the design of functional objects is called for.
Whether product design becomes less significant in a time of
information and entertainment, or for more profound reasons, a
question is raised about the appropriate emphasis to be given today to
the design of a functional object. F
or both the above reasons, as well as
for purposes of sustainable development, it would seem more fitting to
acknowledge the relative unimportance and fleeting nature of products,
and to develop a responsible approach to design that is in accord with
this understanding. Perhaps it is time to view functional objects in far
more humble terms – as simply basic useful things that are transient,
unadorned, unambiguous and unimportant.
129
book.indd 129 4/7/06 12:25:35
Sustainable by Design
130
I have attempted to apply these ideas in the design of some illustrative
electrical and electronic objects. These examples are created from
reused mass-produced functional parts combined with rudimentary
components made locally from readily available materials. An emphasis
has been placed on divesting the objects of conventional notions of
styling and ‘good’ design and, as in previous examples, on revealing
the working components, rather than masking them with styled casings.
Fastenings, materials, processes and finishes are all basic, familiar and
easily replaceable. Compared with the examples discussed in Chapter
9, the approach here is even more rudimentary, with less concern about
‘styling’ and more emphasis on ‘making do’ with things that
are available.
Divested Design 1 (Figure 11.3) is an ad hoc torch; the design has
been stripped of considered or applied ‘styling’ and quickly fashioned
from recycled parts mounted on unfinished plywood. Similarly
, Divested
Design 2 (Figure 11.4) is a remotely operated doorbell that has been
rapidly made from scrap materials and electrical parts. Minimized
Design (Figure 11.5) is another remotely operated doorbell but
made entirely from functional components with no other materials
or parts added. Having largely stripped these designs of aesthetic
considerations, in Ensemble Design (Figure 11.6) I start to reintroduce
some aesthetic concerns. This design is a CD player/radio that makes
use of circuitry recovered from a discarded cassette player/radio and
from a personal CD player – both products were still working but no
longer fashionable in terms of their outer appearance. The components
have been mounted on various recovered objects – a wooden crate,
a set of TV legs, a piece of discarded wood and a bamboo cane.
Ensemble Design brings together these disparate, discarded objects
and gives them all a renewed useful life by re-contextualizing them
as a new, functional object. More attention has been paid here to
visual coherence through the application of finishes, so this design is
somewhat more refined than the earlier examples although conceptually
the same in terms of the design process and use of materials.
130
book.indd 130 4/7/06 12:25:35
131
Figure 11.3
Divested Design 1:
Ad hoc torch
book.indd 131 4/7/06 12:25:37
Figure 11.4
Divested Design 2:
Ad hoc remotely
operated doorbell
book.indd 132 4/7/06 12:25:39
Figure 11.5
Minimalized Design:
Remotely operated doorbell,
uses only functional parts
book.indd 133 4/7/06 12:25:39
Figure 11.6
Ensemble Design:
Ad hoc CD player/radio
book.indd 134 4/7/06 12:25:40
book.indd 135 4/7/06 12:25:44
Sustainable by Design
136136
All these propositional designs incorporate the ideas discussed above:
• they make use of functional parts that are normally discarded
because the casing of the product becomes old-fashioned;
• aesthetic interest is derived from the functional circuitry rather
than the design of an outer casing;
• the processes used in their creation can all be achieved at the
local level;
• they have been designed by ‘direct deed’ rather than mediated
through drawings and models;
• they are made from materials that are locally available;
• they are not styled in a conventional sense and implicitly they
challenge notions of outer, applied styling;
• they are designed as transient objects – to be used for a short
period, after which components and fastenings can be readily
disconnected and reused;
• they combine recovered, functional components with re-
contextualized parts and, when brought together, both are
given a new, useful life.
These examples illustrate the potential implications for product design of
a number of critical aspects of sustainable development. These include
the development of integrated scales of production to address socio-
economic and environmental issues at the local level, and a rejection of
design factors such as aesthetic perfection and fashionable styling that
foster consumerism and waste. In these designs the working parts are
revealed, the construction is explicit and the materials are familiar – they
could be termed ‘unmasked objects’.
In this chapter
, I have proposed an aesthetic typology as a way of
characterizing the aesthetic qualities of many contemporary consumer
goods, and design traits associated with unsustainable practices. I
have also suggested reframing design by considering a number of
relevant topics. However
, the real conclusions of this discussion are the
propositional designs. These are not definitive designs, merely steps
along the way to sustainable design. They are functional, electronic
objects that have been stripped of conventional notions of ‘good’
design and the usual expectations of industrial design. I believe this
eschewing of convention is a necessary step in the process of rebuilding
our material culture for sustainable development. While these objects
are, by the very nature of creative design, personal interpretations, they
book.indd 136 4/7/06 12:25:44
137
Reframing Design for Sustainability
do serve to illustrate the potential implications of the discussion for the
alignment of product design with sustainable principles. Functional
objects tend to become less important and are defined in very basic
ways. They are no longer objects of consequence – they are not trendy,
stylish or compelling. Instead, they become explicitly transient and
unadorned; they are no longer seductive ‘objects of desire’. As such,
they are perhaps instructive in demonstrating just how far we have to
shift our ideas from our current ways of producing material culture if
we are to seriously confront sustainable development in the spheres of
product design and production.
book.indd 137 4/7/06 12:25:44