Thesis Compendium Book by Sowmya Iyer

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CONTENTS Introduction 06 Interviews 14 Research Insights 24 Concept Map 42 Exploratory Interventions 46 DOT&DASH 50 THE CAST-AWAY PROJECT 55 GRYD 58

REVIVAL - POP - UP REPAIR CAFE

JEANPAL 71

HACK:PACK - CO-CREATION WORKSHOP

THE INSIDE/OUT BAG 82

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THE CRISIS OF CONSUMERISM Some people buy inflatable Santa Clauses, and they put them on the rooftop. You ask if they really need that, they chuckle and say “no, no, of course not.” But, when you ask them about flatscreen TVs, nobody chuckles anymore, people feel uncomfortable. The truth is, we have very limited real needs. Much of the debate over how to address the economic crisis has focused on a single word: regulation. And it’s easy to understand why. Bad behavior by a variety of businesses landed us in this mess — so it seems rather obvious that the way to avoid future economic meltdowns is to create, and vigorously enforce, new rules proscribing such behavior. But the truth is quite a bit more complicated. The world economy consists of billions of transactions every day. There can never be enough inspectors, accountants, customs officers and police to ensure that all or even most of these transactions are properly carried out. Moreover, those charged with enforcing regulations are themselves not immune to corruption, and hence, they too must be supervised and held accountable to others — and so on. You can see how regulation cannot by itself resolve the problem. What is needed instead is something far more sweeping: for people to internalize a different sense of how one ought to behave, and act on it because they believe it is right. The normative values of a culture matter. Regulation is needed when culture fails, but it cannot alone serve as the mainstay of good conduct. But what kind of transformation in our normative culture is called for? What needs to be eradicated, or at least greatly tempered, is consumerism: the obsession with acquisition that has become the organizing principle of American life. This is not the same thing as capitalism, nor is it the same thing as consumption.

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To explain the difference, it is useful to draw on Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. At the bottom of this hierarchy are basic creature comforts; once these are sated, more satisfaction is drawn from affection, self-esteem and, finally, self-actualization. As long as consumption is focused on satisfying basic human needs — safety, shelter, food, clothing, health care, education — it is not consumerism. But when, on attempts to satisfy these higher needs through the simple acquisition of goods and services, consumption turns into consumerism — and consumerism becomes a social disease. The link to the economic crisis should be obvious. A culture in which the urge to consume dominates the psychology of citizens is a culture in which people will do most anything to acquire the means to consume — working slavish hours, behaving rapaciously in their business pursuits, and even bending the rules in order to maximize their earnings. They will also buy homes beyond their means and think nothing of running up credit-card debt. It therefore seems safe to say that consumerism is, as much as anything else, responsible for the current economic mess. But consumerism will not just magically disappear from its central place in our culture. It needs to be supplanted by something. A shift away from consumerism, and toward this something else, would obviously be a dramatic change for American society. But such grand cultural changes are far from unprecedented. Profound transformations in the definition of “the good life” have occurred throughout human history. Before the spirit of capitalism swept across much of the world, neither work nor commerce were highly valued pursuits — indeed, they were often delegated to scorned minorities such as Jews. For centuries in aristocratic Europe and Japan, making war was a highly admired profession.

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In China, philosophy, poetry, and brush painting were respected during the heyday of the literati. Religion was once the dominant source of normative culture; then, following the Enlightenment, secular humanism was viewed in some parts of the world as the foundation of society. Such normative change is possible, especially in times of crisis. To accomplish this sort of change, we do not have to give up on capitalism itself. This position does not call for a life of sackcloth and ashes, nor of altruism. And it does not call on poor people or poor nations to be content with their fate and learn to love their misery; clearly, the capitalist economy must be strong enough to provide for the basic creature comforts of all people. But it does call for a new balance between consumption and other human pursuits. There is strong evidence that when consumption is used to try to address higher needs — that is, needs beyond basic creature comforts — it is ultimately Sisyphean. Several studies have shown that, across many nations with annual incomes above $20,000, there is no correlation between increased income and increased happiness. In the United States since World War II, per capita income has tripled, but levels of life satisfaction remain about the same, while the people of Japan, despite experiencing a sixfold increase in income since 1958, have seen their levels of contentment stay largely stagnant. Studies also indicate that many members of capitalist societies feel unsatisfied, if not outright deprived, however much they earn and consume, because others make and spend even more: Relative rather than absolute deprivation is what counts. This is a problem since, by definition, most people cannot consume more than most others. Consumerism, it must be noted, afflicts not merely the upper class in affluent societies but also the middle class and many in the working class. Large numbers of people across society believe that they work merely to make ends meet, but an examination of their shopping lists and closets reveals that they spend good parts of their income on status goods such as brand-name clothing, the “right” kind of car, and other assorted items that they don’t really 8

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need. This mentality may seem so integral to American culture that resisting it is doomed to futility. But the current economic downturn may provide an opening of sorts. So far, much of this scaling-back has been involuntary, the result of economic necessity. What is needed next is to help people realize that limiting consumption is not a reflection of failure. Rather, it represents liberation from an obsession — a chance to abandon consumerism and focus on... well, what exactly? What should replace the worship of consumer goods? It must be a culture that extols sources of human flourishing besides acquisition. The two most obvious candidates to fill this role are communitarian pursuits and transcendental ones. Communitarianism refers to investing time and energy in relations with the other, including family, friends and members of one’s community. The term also encompasses service to the common good, such as volunteering, national service and politics. Communitarian life is not centered around altruism but around mutuality, in the sense that deeper and thicker involvement with the other is rewarding to both the recipient and the giver. Indeed, numerous studies show that communitarian pursuits breed deep contentment. A study of 50-year-old men shows that those with friendships are far less likely to experience heart disease. Another shows that life satisfaction in older adults is higher for those who participate in community service. Transcendental pursuits refer to spiritual activities broadly understood, including religious, contemplative and artistic ones. The lifestyle of the Chinese literati, centered around poetry, philosophy and brush painting, was a case in point (but a limited one because this lifestyle was practiced by an elite social stratum). In modern society, transcendental pursuits have often been emphasized by bohemians, beginning artists and others involved in lifelong learning who consume modestly. Here again, however, these people make up only a small fraction of society.

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Clearly, for a culture to buy out of consumerism and move to satisfying higher human needs with transcendental projects, the option to participate in these pursuits must be available on a wider scale. All this may seem abstract, not to mention utopian. But one can see a precedent of sorts for a society that emphasizes communitarian and transcendental pursuits among retired people, who spend the final decades of their lives painting not for a market or galleries but as a form of self-expression, socializing with each other, volunteering, and, in some cases, taking classes. One does not need shoes with fancy labels to benefit from a hike. Chess played with plastic pieces is the same game as the one played with carved mahogany or marble pieces. And I’m quite sure that the Lord does not listen better to prayers read from a leather bound Bible than those read from a plain one, printed on recycled paper. In short, those who embrace this lifestyle will find that they can achieve a high level of contentment even if they give up a considerable segment of the surplus wealth they command. The main way societies will determine whether the current crisis will serve as an event that leads to cultural transformation or merely constitute an interlude in the consumerism project is through a process I call “moral megalogues.” Societies are constantly engaged in mass dialogues over what is right and wrong. Typically, only one or two topics dominate these megalogues at any given time. In earlier decades, women’s rights and minority rights were topics of such discussions. Megalogues involve millions of members of a society exchanging views with one another at workplaces, during family gatherings, in the media, and at public events. They are often contentious and passionate, and, while they have no clear beginning or endpoint, they tend to lead to changes in a society’s culture and its members’ behavior. Having a national conversation about this admittedly abstract question is merely a start, though. If a new shared understanding surrounding consumption is to evolve, education will have a crucial role to play. Schools, which often claim to focus solely on academ 10

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ics, are actually major avenues through which changes in societal values are fostered. For instance, many schools deeply impress on young children that they ought to respect the environment, not discriminate on racial or ethnic grounds, and resolve differences in a peaceful manner. There is no reason these schools cannot push back against consumerism while promoting communitarian and transcendental values as well. School uniforms (to counter conspicuous consumption) and an emphasis on community service are just two ways to work these ideas into the culture of public education. I certainly do not expect that most people will move away from a consumerist mindset overnight. Some may keep one foot in the old value system even as they test the waters of the new one, just like those who wear a blazer with jeans. Still others may merely cut back on conspicuous consumption without guilt or fear of social censure.

Societies shift direction gradually. All that is needed is for more and more people to turn the current economic crisis into a liberation from the obsession with consumer goods and the uber work it requires— and, bit by bit, begin to rethink their definition of what it means to live a good life. 11

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So, why is this a problem? It sounds arrogant to say to someone: you are too preoccupied with consumption; you spend too much time shopping; you would be happier if you were less focused on acquiring material possessions. Aren’t people the best judge of their own desires and preferences? And doesn’t the free market simply translate those preferences into choices, so if people are buying huge houses doesn’t this just mean that they want big houses? We have already identified one problem: environmental sustainability. This one is simple.

The planet is simply incapable of supporting American-style consumption everywhere. Either we need to stop buying so many “toys” or our consumption of nonrenewable “natural capital” has to become orders of magnitude more efficient and restorative. Either, of course, would imply massive change in consumption patterns. But hyper-consumerism raises other issues as well. Toys cost money, and money takes time to earn. Many people in contemporary American society feel enormous “time binds” in their lives, in part because they are caught in a work and spend treadmill. Time scarcity is a continual source of stress, but the cultural pressures and institutional arrangements that accompany consumerism make it difficult for people individually to solve these problems. A good case can also be made that hyper-consumerism leads to less fulfilling and meaningful lives than does a less manically consumption-oriented way of life. 12

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Research on happiness tells us something that we have always sort of known, but that competitive consumption tends to crowd out. Happy people are those that feel they are interested in their work and think I is useful, feel part of a community, and have some time with friends and family. Nobody on their deathbed says “gee, I wish I had had more toys and spent even less time with my spouse, my friends, and my kids.” If people would really be better off with a less hyper-consumerist lifestyle, why then do they embrace consumerism? The basic idea here is that through various mechanisms there is a systematic consumption-bias in the decisions people make. If this bias were eliminated, people would in fact make different choices, consume less and in the end be happier. The issue, then, is not really that there is anything intrinsically wrong with shopping and consuming as such, but rather that the nature of the market system in which we live shapes people’s’ preferences and choices excessively in favor of consumption over other values.

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CAPITALISM The origins of Capitalism began with the birth of classical economics, the theory about the behavior of markets that was developed in the late 18th and 19th centuries by European political economists and philosophers Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus. Adam Smith’s book on this theory was influential in shaping economic thinking to this day. It stated that the wealth of nations was based on trade between parties, not acquisitions of gold. If two entities are allowed to exchange produs=cts of value because they see an opportunity to earn a profit, then the total wealth of the nation will increase. Today, this increase of economic wealth is still the dominating objective for nations as it is seen as a path to prosperity. Lou Pizante, CFO/COO at Goodcorps stated “Yes, in principle if you have degrowth, you cut prosperity. If you are not growing the top line, and arc growing the bottom line, people will be worse of. You either have to grow the top line or decrease the bottom line.”

ECONOMIC DEGROWTH At the other end of the spectrum there are ecological economists and environmental scientists who feel that the capitalistic economic policies from the past 70 years have not worked. The downscaling of production of goods and services reduces the activities that reduce carbon emissions and extraction of natural resources ultimately diminishing impact to the environmental and global climate change. Growth above a level that satisfies basic needs does not improve psychological well being. It has more costs that benefits specially environmental. 24

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The core for the 21st century economics is not how nations get rich, but how they manage without growth. How can degrowth become stable and prosperous? However more importantly issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion and waste disposal lands where raw materials are extracted, are problems the system has no built in mechanism can fix. A strategy of degrowth puts solving these issues at the forefront of its goals. Instead of focusing material wealth, it redefines prosperity by emphasizing human relationships and devoting more time to family, community and culture.

WITHIN THE PRINCIPLES OF CAPITALISM There are also ideas that fit within the current system of capitalism that seek to ameliorate some of its worst effects without rewriting its principles. Cradle to cradle : remaking the way we make things, challenges the idea that human industry and commerce have to be at odds with the sustainability of the planet and community good. Their belief is that if the cycle of consumption and waste can be made a closed loop system - what the author’s call “Cradle to cradle” as opposed to a “Cradle to Grave”. Open loop system, then there is minimal environmental impact. So like a natural ecosystem all waste goes back to the soil as nutrients and helps provide sustenance for new products. We need to design with the use of materials in mind. 25

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OWNERSHIP Another more sustainable alternative that fits within the existing system of capitalism is collaborative consumption. Cameron Tonkin Vice asks “Why do we have so much and where did it all come from?” Noting first that this predicament has been underwritten by Cheap Oil prices, he then points to a shift to private, non sharing ownership of products and also to decreasing household size, as the key contributors to the dramatic increase of goods. On household size, Cameron then argues that the problem is not that homes have gotten bigger over the last 50 years as some people suggest - it is that fewer people are living in them. Each of those households had one TV, one refrigerator etc. and it was shared among 5 people. But by 2000 that average drops to 2 people per home, so there are fewer people sharing those same appliances. And worse yet, consumer habit have in general increased so modern households have more products per home. These forces have caused product consumption to sky rocket. Cameron urges designers to look at a return to a sharing systems and the importance of sustainable design. “It needs to begin to understand the power of design to script people’s behavior. It needs to be use in that power to make sustainable behavior more convenient, pleasurable and default. This is how designers in their little ways begin to combat the bigger systems. All these are tied together - and intervention in one will begin to make ripples in other - we really need to understand that power to begin to work on the problem of unsustainable materials intensity.” American author Bruce Sterling in his viridian design manifesto similarly argues that designers must make sustainable solutions more desirable, even seductive, “We need a form of green high fashion so seductive and glamorous that it can literally save people’s lives. We have to gratify people’s desired much better than the current system does. We have to reveal to people the many desires they have that the current system is not fulfilling. 26

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Rather than marshaling themselves for inhuman effort and grim sacrifice, people have to sink into our 21st century with a sigh of profound relief.” Companies like Zipcar, the car sharing service and Yerdle, an online platform for exchanging used goods offer examples of the sharing economy at work today. Although they operate within the bounds of growth economy they are geared towards the idea of increasing sustainability and reducing consumption that depletes natural resources.

BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS The public policy intervention for encouraging better disposable behavior appears to succeed because it is done through the lens of choice. People can choose to waste, they just have to pay for it. There are other instances where this operative of choice has been used with success. In their book Nudge : Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, argue in favor of an approach to help people make better decisions that they call ‘libertarian paternalism’. The ‘libertarian’ refers to the idea that people should be allowed to do what they want - essentially they should be ‘free to choose’. The ‘paternalism’ part refers to institutions acting to influence people’s choices to help them live happy and healthy lives. So institutions, both private ones and government, can try to influence people to do the right thing but people always have the option to say no. Essentially, they are suggesting that society needs oversight by some greater force or authority for their own good. While traditional, paternalistic government can be controversial with critics who argue that it robs people of their autonomy, the type of paternalism the authors are in favor of is less dictatorial. 27

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THE SLINGSHOT THEORY A group of pioneering scientists set off by spaceship to explore a planet in a distant galaxy light years away. Upon arrival, they find humans already living there. New technologies have made intergalactic travel easy and common. People are popping back and forth between planets in a fraction of the time it took our pioneers. This is the essence of slingshotting, a new concept described by Thomas Koulopoulos and Dan Keldsen in “The Gen Z Effect: The Six Forces Shaping the Future of Business.” Slingshotting happens when the accelerating force of innovation propels a technology forward until people can skip multiple advances and land in the same place as those who suffered through its early growth. Think Google. Founded in 1998, the company entered a complex 30-year-old industry that was focused on text search and retrieval. Consumers had grown to value search tools and to seek simplicity. Google came along and was able to slingshot past all competitors to establish what soon became the de facto future state of search. The fastest and least painful way to move into the future is by slingshotting. A technology and behavior are defined and embraced by a critical mass of society — and a majority of users suddenly adopt it. Here is what you can expect: 1. The best technologies will seduce a critical mass of reluctant users and slingshot them into the future. In the book, Koulopoulos and Keldsen say many people stick with technology they’ve learned and grown comfortable with even if the system is frustrating and outdated. They are resistant to change right up until suddenly, they aren’t. “The problem is that while technology may move forward incrementally, people don’t,” the authors say. 2. People are often resistant to a new approach until there’s an overwhelmingly compelling reason to change and a much simpler alternative. 28

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Then, watch out. “The result is a pent-up tension — a form of stored potential energy — that ultimately slingshots people into the future in a very sudden manner, once the stage is set so that they can fly past the pain they’ve experienced or purposefully avoided in the past.”

RE-INTERPRETATION OF OBJECTS Objects arise from means, motivation, skill, and material opportunity. Then they diffuse through a population. Objects do not evolve or improve automatically; they enter subcultural niches where they undergo various and sundry developmental variants. “Form follows function,” but objects function in a techno-social context. I want to emphasize the continuing interplay between objects and people. I’m describing an infrastructure of human support, irrevocably bound to and generated by the class of people who are necessary to create and maintain that infrastructure. It’s mentally easier to divide humans and objects than to understand them as a comprehensive and interdependent system: people are alive, objects are inert, people can think, objects just lie there. But this taxonomical division blinds us to the ways and means by which objects do change, and it obscures the areas of intervention where design can reshape things. Effective intervention takes place not in the human, not in the object, but in the realm of the TECHNOSOCIAL. Technosocial interactions unite people and objects, we can achieve that through designing for opportunity costs and cognitive load. There are artifacts deliberately built to outlast the passage of time. I doubt we’ll ever build a host of useful objects that are also multi-generational heirlooms. They wouldn’t burden the environment much, but they wouldn’t meet our needs because our needs are always changing. But, we can aspire to do so. 29

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THE DISPOSABLE ECONOMY The popularity of disposable products rose dramatically around the economic boom after WWII.It started with the manufacturing of disposable plastic containers and packaging. It quickly trickled down during the Fast Fashion Movement. Now, clothes are worn for a season and discarded, there is something called “Street Wear”. We have defined and redefined clothing over time. There was a time when clothes were worn until they were torn. Even then, they were considered valuable enough to mend. The convenience of use and throw goods and our fast moving URBAN NOMADIC culture has changed things a lot. The throw away culture has become so ubiquitous and popular and in fact normal that possessions that used to be considered generational heirlooms have also become disposable. Who has the space to store them? From appliances to products and gadgets, everything is becoming more smarter to suit our ever changing needs. In particular, the focus of this work is the Urban Nomads and Millennials. They have unique consumption habits. They are more influenced by family, friends and strangers through social media. They tend to be distrustful of traditional advertising techniques and heavily rely on online reviews. ratings and prefer researching products and brands. They are the ones that are constantly on the move in pursuit of their career and dreams. They are the ones who move with such great frequency thus falling into the cycling pattern of buying and disposing. Millennials, represent 43% of the overall US population and their constant on the go lifestyle results in the “youthification of cities” bringing subculture, trends and technology shifts. They are more confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and open to change. They believe in purposeful living, the one which adds value to everything you do and is meaningful. While many generations have sought out purpose, Millennials make it a greater priority than ever before, in everything from their 30

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consumption to their work to their communities to their relationships. Aaron Hurst, economist talks about how “human scale technology”, how the boom of internet and social media sparked our collective imagination in thinking about how technology can be leveraged for self-expression, community building and service. This is called the Human-Scale technology. As our lives have become more public, so many people have windows into our activities, networks, points of view. And this level of transparency has created new ways to display our aspirational selves. We want to show off our impact and compassion, we want to show off our creativity and expressiveness. we want to build a large community to demonstrate our social prowess and choices. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is what this generation follows. Its known for its desire to make a difference, grow, and share its passion with the world. Generation Disrupt (Generation X), the Environmental, economic and political turmoil, their concept of profession and personal Longevity of purpose, changing families and evolving roles, new social sciences, positive psychology, the change in the way leaders think, accelerated globalization, a shifting social context where organizations and individuals step in when they see a gap in what government can accomplish and blending of different government, non-profit and corporate sectors have all resulted in shaping the society that we live in now. There are many movements that have gained traction over the last decade, including resource, sharing, maker (DIY), happiness, reputation, giving, creative and experience. Together these movements are the new drivers of change and economy.

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CIRCULAR ECONOMY The scale of what we’re designing has shifted from products, to companies, to economic systems. Who we’re designing for has expanded from a solitary user to an intimately connected web of people, spanning the globe. New tools such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things, and biomimicry mean our design ambitions are limited only by our imagination. Meanwhile, creativity has never been more important: the global economy is stuttering and disruptive technologies challenge established business models. A new mindset for business is emerging. It’s worth around a trillion dollars, will drive innovation in tomorrow’s companies, and reshape every part of our lives. But making the shift isn’t easy. There’s a world of opportunity to rethink and redesign the way we make stuff. ‘Re-Thinking Progress’ explores how through a change in perspective we can re-design the way our economy works - designing products that can be ‘made to be made again’ and powering the system with renewable energy. It questions whether with creativity and innovation we can build a restorative economy.

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PERSONALIZATION / MODULARITY Given the ever-increasing environmental damage, passive approaches such garbage classification and resource recycling, are no longer adequate. Environmental protection is important to every product design and manufacturing. Therefore, it is important to develop more proactive approaches. It is crucial to maximize resource, while minimizing environment damage, right from product design stage. The notion of product life cycle points to the time from material usage, manufacturing, assembly, product use, and the final disposal or product recycle. In this case, green life cycle is centered on the last two stages: product use and disposal or recycle . It is highly important for us to take a holistic look at the entire lifecycle of the product in order to maximize the usage of resources and, at the same time, minimize the damage to the environment. This should be considered as early as early as possible; at the design stage. While this is desirable, it is often difficult to precisely determine the relevant design information as early as the design stage. Several researchers have explored green design from various viewpoints, for instance, design for environment, design for recycling, and design for ease of disassembly . Modular structures and the concept of modularity can play a very important role in the life cycle of a product, in terms of ease of upgrade and maintenance, ease of product diagnosis, improved efficiency in reuse and recycling, as well as ease of repair and disposal. Though it is crucial to build green design into products at the planning stage, the idea is practically difficult to implement. The challenge is that, at the design, the information to be used for design may not be known precisely. For example, factors relating to the costs, design, and green fitness may not be precisely known early enough. Therefore, developing efficient grouping techniques is imperative.

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CO-DESIGN Ezio Manzini is a world-leading expert on sustainable design. He is founder of the DESIS, an international network on design for social innovation and sustainability. He has authored numerous books, the latest of which, “Design, When Everybody Designs”, challenges us to imagine a more socially resilient and desirable future to live in. In his and Interview he focuses on the changing nature of design (Emerging design), Social innovation and in the overlap of the two; how elements of the new design can promote and sustain social innovation. The emerging design can be applied to any kind of problem where the practical and the cultural dimensions cannot be separated, or in other words to those problems that involve the presence of human beings and their stories, which are not “wicked problems” as some have called them. All kinds of human related artefacts, situations or systems can potentially be dealt through design capability. The story shows how with the transformation and development of design culture, the nature of design has gone from being self referential of the design constituent (product, system or service) towards a set of capabilities or toolkit (made up of tools, methodology and culture) that defines a way of doing things. Within the context of Social innovation Manzini highlights the concept of local discontinuities - practices that generate new ways of doing things. In this way hundred of millions of people are able to bring about change without waiting for new laws or top-down instructions. The different, radical, bottom-up social innovations all involve participation and collaboration in the search for solutions. These practices are showing above all a response to modernity’s progress towards individualization. People who are sufficiently individualized are discovering the beauty, opportunity and power that reside in collaboration. Some examples are collaborative living, working, social services and food. 34

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Within the field of design and social innovation many solutions have been invented, which - by working as both problem-solving solutions and creators of sociality - can be seen to anticipate a way of achieving a sustainable society. In the complexity of society some of these processes are still in the phase of invention, (social heroes pioneering new techniques that are against mainstream), whilst others have already consolidated in collaborative organizations and triggered changes in behaviour (for example with the slow food movement). The more social innovation develops and becomes mature the bigger the responsibility for expert designers. What is design? Design is a human capability that everyone has. It is a mixture of being able to see things that are not working in society (critical sense), being able to imagine how it could be different (creativity), and understanding how to build a viable alternative (practical sense). Creativity is an essential part but it is important for people to be able to design well in order to make imagination real. In a world where everyone is forced to invent their life and obliged to design their own biography, where the aspiration of becoming a designer or a creative is the aspiration to design well, it is important to demarcate the difference between designers and expert designers. Study and experience separate expert designers from ‘amateurs’ designers. In the connected society interactions that happen between expert designers and other people with different professions give rise to co-designing. Co-design is multidisciplinary by definition and expert design is a specific discipline, which should be defined by its own tools, methods and culture. What is the problem with design today? Design has always been intended as a way of putting together problem solving capability and sense making, to create a link between being able to do something and having a production of meaning about what is being done. The past two decades of emerging design has seen the conversation oriented only towards the problem-solv 35

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ing and pragmatic side, leaving aside the cultural dimension. This has resulted in the creation of a subculture of “solutionism”: the idea that everything can be reduced to find solutions. The environment that surrounds human beings is much more complex and demands for hope, a system of meaning, sense and stories. In the crisis of the idea of the future it is therefore important, as Manzini advises, to develop the meanings of what can be generated, to identify what the design activity can bring beyond specific solutions and to create new ideas.

PROSUMER - A NEW GROWTH OPPORTUNITY The term “prosumer” originated with Alvin Toffler, who first used the term in his 1980 book The Third Wave. Toffler defined the prosumer as someone who blurs the distinction between a “consumer” and a “producer.” The term has since come to mean a variety of things, but here it is defined as someone who makes little distinction between his or her home and work lives. The prosumer engages in activities belonging to either sphere, regardless of time or location. Because of their complex lifestyle, which combines a demanding workload and an active family life, prosumers are eager adopters of Web 2.0 products and services—a convergence of process innovation, global marketplaces, and advanced technologies that fundamentally changes the way consumers buy, retailers sell, and products are brought to market. Prosumers typically embrace Web 2.0 technologies such as social networking (Facebook, MySpace), blogging, video on demand (VoD), podcasting, VoDcasting, virtual realities (Second Life, There.com), mobile communications, and other Internet-based technologies and services that allow people to stay connected whenever and wherever they desire. We refer to this as “Connected Life,” and the prosumer is an enthusiastic and early adopter of the connected lifestyle. 36

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They seek to be connected and serviced no matter where they are, what they are trying to do, or when they are trying to do it. Although prosumers are heavy technology users, they want solutions to be simple.

They found that prosumers prefer laptop computers to desktops because of their need to be mobile. They spend more of their discretionary income on entertainment than most people, and are interested in multiscreen applications. If they commute, their commutes tend to be longer, and they work at home some percentage of the time (many are full-time home workers). They view their commute as time that can be spent working, connecting to others, or being entertained. They want to connect with friends and family, and see technology as a way of balancing and helping to manage their busy lives. Prosumers value any technology that enhances and serves these needs.

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Not all prosumers use all these technologies, of course; they access whichever technology subset best suits their individual preferences and lifestyles. The Cisco® Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) has conducted research on the prosumer segment since December 2006, studying how this group lives, works, thinks, and behaves. As early adopters, prosumers make use of solutions that keep them in touch with their families and friends, including Connected Life services such as social networking (personally and professionally). For example, instant messaging, which originated as a business tool, has become the prosumer’s preferred way to stay in touch with work colleagues and friends and family. The prosumer opportunity for industries lies in creating solutions that tightly integrate work and home life to attract these individuals. Such solutions are hard to replicate, because changing providers also involves transporting and re-creating both personal and work data and services.

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Securing the prosumer segment allows vendors to create a full portfolio of Connected Life services that will draw more customers as this segment grows. In some verticals—service providers, consumer electronics, and travel, among others—establishing a strong prosumer clientele is a must. The Prosumer Challenge Serving prosumers is complex; their needs cannot be defined by location, application, time of day, or device alone. In fact, that is what makes them prosumers. They seek to be connected and serviced no matter where they are, what they are trying to do, or when they are trying to do it. Although prosumers are heavy technology users, they want solutions to be simple. In particular, application user interfaces must be easily accessible for both work and their personal life, raising some issues relating to overlap between the two. For example, loading Connected Life applications onto company-owned phones is a concern to employers because of security and liability, and to employees because of privacy and ethical concerns. When work and personal lives overlap and blend so seamlessly, billing for things like mobile phones and application software also becomes blurred. So, serving the prosumer—to the satisfaction of the prosumer and his or her employer—is far from easy.

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EXPLORATORY

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INTERVENTIONS

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SPECULATIVE OBJECTS We all have good intentions. Intentions to waste less, intentions to maintain a greener carbon footprint. But we all are victims to INERTIA. It is our biggest evil. I believe we all want to do good but there are certain constraints in the products/the system which does not allow us to follow through on our best intentions. Manipulating the meaning and the use of objects creates interesting behavior changes. As we dispose more and more products, there are increasing chances to reuse them, change the way they function and add new meaning to them. As we become more and more cognizant to the externalized and non-financial costs of the products we buy, we can assess value through a new framework. Through this framework, it is easier for consumers to feel pleasurable about their purchase patterns and not feel guilty about their choices and actions. Design can help make these informed choices easy to follow through on. Initial explorations for Speculative Objects led me to think a lot about new materials, manufacturing models and recycling that both reduce the cost of the product as well as lessen the environmental impact. A few contemplations also went around thinking how different ways of packaging and collaborating with brands can help strategize a different way of buying and selling consumer products. There can be various ways to incentivize people and make them feel more satisfied with the choices that they make. Like many, I have a love and hate relationship with furniture giants like IKEA . Though I love their clean Scandinavian design philosophy and the fact that they are making good design accessible to everyone, t. The fact that it is considered throw-away by most customers is really sad.

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They do have sustainable initiatives to make their factories stores and manufacturing processes- greener by switching to sustainable LED lighting solutions. Taking on these efforts are laudable, especially given their size; even small incremental improvements can bring about a big change. They also do advertising campaigns to using the exact logic to promote themselves as an environmentally responsible company. But one could argue these are just green washing campaigns. What IKEA does not address in any of these promotions is the big pink elephant in the room - that their cheaply made products break and end up in landfill a short while later. Their furniture is synonymous with disposable. There are furniture companies, such as Room, and Board and De La Espada, that make durable products, but their price points are significantly higher and they serve a niche, affluent market. Could IKEA be motivated to make their furniture long lasting? Doing this will likely increase their cost of Manufacturing. Will this leave a deleterious effect on the democratizing affordability of the products that is so appealing and commendable? Is it possible to make long-lasting, engaging furniture at a low price? Why is that? I started thinking about what makes a piece of furniture obsolete just after a few years. Is it the fact that it is not engaging and fresh anymore? Does it not suit their living environment? Did the taste of the customer change? Is it not suiting their needs anymore? This led me to think more about transformative furniture pieces that evolve according to their needs. Pieces that are constantly changeable so that they so that they are refreshing every time you use them. As a part of speculative design objects, I came up with a framework and a business model where the company upcycles found pieces of furniture to give a new meaning and purpose. We often dispose off furniture which can be easily salvaged and refined to put together a completely new product. 49

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DOT&DASH As a regenerative system, the circular economy can have many positive consequences that enhance quality of life, community, and environment. Creating value for every player in your wider ecosystem will help that system thrive in the long term. Nurturing the people (think users, employees or partners) and natural systems that directly draw from or support your organization can be a source of growth, creativity, and innovation. For example, creating a local production network provides economic support to your surrounding area, which could in turn give the community the wealth and ability to buy your product or service. At its core, a circular economy means that products no longer have a lifecycle with a beginning, middle and end, and therefore contribute less waste and can actually add value to their ecosystem. When materials stop being used, they go back into a useful cycle, hence the circular economy. Imagine what would happen if everything was designed to be restored and regenerative? I assume, in the near future we would no longer be creating new products but will most likely be recycling used products. In the ideal world humans have heeded the warnings about the environmental consequences of our consumption and have taken to smart alternatives.

This business focuses around handpicking discarded furniture to upcycle and convert into a modular piece. 50

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An ideal kit consists of a base which is refined and transformed into a perforated surface onto which different elements can be fixed. It is an extremely innovative and thoughtful process. Because one cannot guarantee that all the found objects could be of the same properties, every kit is a unique piece in itself. The kit is a collection of the base and few pre-requisite elements to complete a piece of furniture. The customer can choose to personalize and customize the kit by buying other elements for a few dollars. The uniqueness of this design is the fact that it will remain one of a kind and the customers can celebrate their identity and creativeness through the products that they own. This is an intentional effort to make sure that the product goes through the customer’s personalization and creativity. This ensures constant engagement with the product and continuous purpose-serving. It is as pleasurable as building a LEGO set. Meaning, it is easy to assemble and disassemble. This feature combined with the lightweight materials further reduces its shipping carbon footprint by integrating different materials thoughtfully with wood. S, sustainable, affordable, durable and engaging products of high design are possible. All the elements are removable to allow convenient, flatpack shipping.

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It can be anything that you want. It can be a reading chair, a work station, a bookshelf, a collaborative working space, etc. 53

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OTHER SPECULATIONS As mentioned previously, a few concepts revolved around sustainable packaging solutions. Some designers have explored organic packaging solutions involving natural materials including microbes and amoebic decomposition. Could there be solutions where the packaging materials decomposes and diminishes eventually? One of the proposals was into packaging food products in transformative materials that change their sizes and storage capabilities according to the quantity remaining. This means that a carton of milk would slowly disappear when the milk has been consumed, constantly reminding the person about the remaining quantity. There was also a lot of contemplation around crafting healthy, sustainable human behaviors around consumption. Initial thoughts were into designing a smart mirror that is completely integrated with Google apps, purchase patterns, credit card uses and a travel information. Through these, the consumer’s sustainable choices can be effectively tracked. When they are not able to follow through their intentions, the mirror displays an alternate reflection which comes out to be despicable. There can be a lot of ways in which it can affect their decisions. Another positive alternative is to have a smart object like a robot that helps you develop healthy habits. It can provide delightful gestures and feedback which can remind you of your tasks and goals.

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THE CAST-AWAY PROJECT The Cast-Away project is a social enterprise. It is a collaborative reuse workshop for kids where they create DIY toys from their throwaways. The kids collect the stationery and other things that they usually throw away and the workshop facilitates them to cast their throwaways in resin molds to create DIY toys that they can cherish. There are 3 stakeholders in this system. The first stakeholder group is of initiators and decision makers. It includes a core design group and a material management group. The core design group consists of designers, business entrepreneurs, technical experts, researchers and people from academics. Collectively they design the structure and the flow of the workshop. They also work closely with the material management team. They make collaborative decisions on the availability of workshop volunteers and their training the material and equipment supply for the workshop and overall material management.

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The second set of stakeholders is the primary or the middle school that finances the whole workshop. The designers and the school authorities collectively feel the need to educate the kids about the 3 R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle). The primary school consists of different stakeholders like Teachers, Staff, School board, district authority, students and parents. The external stakeholders are the local communities and general public. Designers and school authorities come together to make decisions on infrastructure support, data collection, logistics and communication around the workshop to be conducted. The material management team joins hands with the designers and the school authorities to execute these decisions. Together they make decisions about the budget, material transport, material selection and training the volunteers. Internal communication for the workshops begin, when the students and the staff of the school are informed about the upcoming workshop. Students and Parents are urged to collect their throwaways for a month, so that it can be used in the workshop. The school staff and the volunteers are trained by the material company around handling and casting resin in molds. On the event of the workshop all stakeholders are present. Students arrive with the throwaways they have collected over a period of time. Volunteers and staff help them cast it in friendly resin and convert it into toys that they can take home. Parents cherish the idea of toys made by their own kids and hopefully keep it for a longer period of time. The output of the workshop is then displayed in a gallery as an exhibition for local community and general public. All three stakeholders i.e. the gallery authority, school authorities and designers come together to discuss the display, logistics and installation. All stakeholders come together to witness the exhibition to discuss, share stories, ideas and take the impact further. It’s a delightful experience for both the general public and the parents. It’s also an educating moment for everyone and an empowering moment for the students to see that their DIY toys are appreciated and celebrated. 56

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PARAMETRIC DESIGN It is conventional to buy furniture to store your products but it is more exciting to own a piece of furniture that is specially designed around the things that you possess. Why do you have to settle for a standard IKEA shelf and then buy objects to populate it? Everyone already possesses so many objects that they can display and celebrate.

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GRYD Gryd is an app that lets you design furniture around your living spaces and the objects that possess. It makes use of AR scanning to scan the exact dimensions of your object and lets you edit the same. The app uses parametric design technology to help you build customized furniture. When you celebrate the objects that you have, it creates a greater sense of appreciation.

Gryd is an app that lets you design furniture around your living spaces and the objects that possess, through parametric design. 58

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Once you scan your objects you can store it in your personal collection and keep adding nw objects to the collection. Next you can choose to build either a desk hack, a shelf or any other kind of customized furniture that you need for your work/living space. For ex. You are building a customized shelf ,You can drag and drop the selected objects into an empty canvas where you can see live dimensions of the objects and also scan your space. You can also explore different arrangements and see suggestions according to the objects you’ve selected. In the build mode the app lets you add empty sections to your shelf so that you can keep other objects around it. In the customized mode it lets you select different materials, colored back panels, transparency and lighting. Together a section of a shelf frames the object that you have and makes it look like a piece of art. Before you place the order, you can view a realistic render of the shelf and through virtual view you can preview how it looks in your living space. You can also go back and edit some features before you check out. Once you order the product it is delivered to your doorstep and it’s easy to assemble instructions and also gives you the joy of building it yourself.

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SERVICE DESIGN I have grown up in a culture of Jugaad, which means makeshift. Everything goes through 7 layers of change. We often see perfectly good objects on the curbside.

Electrical and electronic products are increasingly hard to repair, not upgradeable and often unsupported by manufacturers beyond their warranty period. As we produce more and more of these items, global levels of electronic waste are escalating beyond our control, causing huge amounts of environmental degradation and posing serious health risks to communities around the world. Governments are beginning to notice the global urgency of this topic.

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The ‘Right to Repair’ campaigns in the United States pushed for manufacturers to be legally obliged to release manuals to the general public, and recently the European Parliament voted to make consumer products more durable and easier to repair. That led me to think, How might we encourage people to repair before discarding their objects?

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REVIVAL It is a pop-up cafe, where people can come together and engage in reviving their objects, with the help of volunteers and experts. We throw away vast amounts of stuff. Even things with almost nothing wrong, and which could get a new lease on life after a simple repair. The trouble is, lots of people have forgotten that they can repair things themselves or they no longer know how.

It is a pop-up cafe, where people can come together and engage in reviving their objects, with the help of volunteers and experts. 63

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Knowing how to make repairs is a skill quickly lost. Society doesn’t always show much appreciation for the people who still have this practical knowledge, and against their will they are often left standing on the sidelines.

The Repair Café changes all that! People who might otherwise be sidelined are getting involved again. Valuable practical knowledge is getting passed on. Things are being used for longer and don’t have to be thrown away. This reduces the volume of raw materials and energy needed to make new products. It cuts CO2 emissions, for example, because manufacturing new products and recycling old ones causes CO2 to be released. The Repair Café teaches people to see their possessions in a new light. And, once again, to appreciate their value. The Repair Café helps change people’s mindset. This is essential to kindle people’s enthusiasm for a sustainable society. But most of all, the Repair Café just wants to show how much fun repairing things can be, and how easy it often is. Why don’t you give it a go? 64

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Visitors bring their broken items from home. Together with the specialists they start making their repairs in the Repair Café. It’s an ongoing learning process. If you have nothing to repair, you can enjoy a cup of tea or coffee. Or you can lend a hand with someone else’s repair job. You can also get inspired at the reading table – by leafing through books on repairs and DIY.

It is more accessible than a dedicated shared space, and people can track its location and can reach at their own convenience. Collaborations with Companies like Home Depot and mc master, who believe in supporting such endeavors, can help with the equipment and the association called open repair alliance which takes the initiative to conduct repair workshops, can support by providing volunteers and experts.

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The customers would come to know about revival, through social media and other physical advertising channels.

They can look up on the website to see its location and timing. Each day is a different kind of repair. 66

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Once they upload a picture of what they want to repair, they can choose to walk-in anytime or book a consult for dedicated expertise.

Revival also has a small retail section where You can chose to resell your used products. 67

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But before that, you have are supposed to write a few sentences personifying the object. People are able to relate and embarrass the object more, if it is personified. You can also leave your social media names, so that the next person can tag you and express their shared interest in your object. It becomes a living trail.

This system creates value by making the service more accessible, benefitting both the customers and the volunteers, by exchanging hand-on skills and equipping people with the capability to repair and stories to share.

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But most importantly, it aims to strengthen the cohesive social interactions around reuse and repair, and documents each and every citizen’s frustration and hours of repair, to create a compelling advocacy for designers, manufacturers and policy makers, to make more durable and repairable products.

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However, the voice of concerned citizens and their discontent with the status quo are rarely part of these conversations. As organisations coordinating community repair events, we accumulate vast amounts of information from first-hand experience about recurrent faults and the challenges we face in repairing them. With the weight of evidence behind us, we can make our voices heard. Each item in the database represents a citizen who took hours out of their life to learn what went wrong with their device, and to learn how to fix it. This makes our data more powerful than any petition or online complaint. Changing the way we make, support and repair products is a task that requires more than what any one organisation can do alone. By compiling insights from thousands of community repair events worldwide, we can build a case for more durable and repairable products that will be hard for manufacturers, designers and policy-makers to ignore. Our expertise to create value through repair and reuse and generating stories around it, gives us the opportunity to make this happen and our vision is to make it permanent, provide other emerging communities to create their own repair cafes and be an active advocate of the importance of repair.

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JEANPAL Our wardrobes are often filled with clothes that we hardly wear. It’s not a surprise. We are all a victim to fast fashion and changing styles. According to Ellen mcarther foundation, jeans and cotton are the most owned pieces of clothing. But at the same time, the these materials save more energy and resources than others, if recycled. I recently came across a business case where, Philips had to come up with a new system of leasing light as an energy source, and charging their customers for the performance and service, rather than the installed devices. Putting these 2 things together, it made me think, would you rather pay for the performance, than the product?

JeanPal is a service where you can lease the raw material and chose to do whatever you want with it. 71

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This is a formula that keeps in mind the well-being of the earth and its resources. Rumor has it; on average 30% of garments in our closets have not been worn for almost a year. Sounds familiar? JeanPal is a guilt-free solution for conscious people that have a desire for newness.

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After a year, or, when the jeans are worn out, you can send them back to us and already try out a new pair. Why own your jeans? With JeanPal you always wear new, up-to-date jeans without owning them. Just wear them and after a year, or when the jeans are completely worn out, you can send them to us. You can switch to a new pair. JeanPal recycle the old ones.The old ones will be recycled to make new wonderful items. Recycling saves water, resources and waste. We love to hear where you take your jeans. Your adventures create unique stories that live on in our vintage jeans collection. We are surrounded with a community of forward thinking people. True pioneers, visionaries and changemakers. Together we share the same concerns for our planet and make some change. JeanPal, is an all jeans store, from where you sign up and enter a leasing program for your clothes. For example, you leased a jeans jacket, or a pair of jeans, for which you pay a monthly minimal fee for unlimited repairs and replacements. You also receive updates every season, so that you can swap the pair of jeans, if you are already bored with it. All you have to do it hit the SEND BACK button. They will send you a return package which lets you chose what you want to do with your pair of jeans. You can send it for a repair, you can swap it for something new, give it away or recycle it after a few years of wearing it.

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If you chose to recycle, they provide you with a few options. You can chose what you want your jeans to be converted into. It’s a satisfying feeling to know that you are wearing something new, that used to be something else. You can also track at what stage of recycling is your jeans. Thus creating a transparent system for people to have constant feedbacks. What makes the system more effective is the idea of raw material ownership and sustainable choices. It’s a more circular system, where the raw material again goes into the manufacturing process. Our expertise in leveraging the established channels of raw material recycling and providing customers with the performance, helps us create value. Ellen mcarthur predicts an increased amount of employments through recycling. And our vision also includes creating a better service and more durable and everlasting design of products.

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HACK:PACK CO-CREATION WORKSHOP This project started with me cataloging my own consumption in terms of packaging going to waste. Product packaging is one of the most important evils that we encounter in our daily lives. Hack:Pack is a participatory co creation workshop on the future of packaging. It was conducted to understand people’s dependencies on packaging and how can we transform our habits around it in the future. The participants were all designers who were keen to brainstorm around sustainable futures. The introduction was given by a presentation on the invisible effects of packaging waste. It was followed by a small warmup session where the participant was supposed to select one packaging type, for Ex. cigarette packaging, Amazon boxes etc. and they were given a worksheet where they were supposed to answer 3 basic questions around zero packaging future. How would the product be sold in retail stores? How would they carry the product? How would they store the products? These were the 3 questions they were made to answer. This warm up session was 20 minutes long and it was aimed to facilitate radical thinking and to imagine a future of zero packaging. In that way they were able to reimagine all the sustainable possibilities. The participants then shared their ideas among everyone. Now the participants were mixed up and asked to form a pair with someone they didn’t know. Both the participants were allowed to pick a packaging type and design constraint, For Ex. “Design a 77

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shampoo packaging for gifting” or “Design blue apron packaging for decomposition.” Each participant was asked to write the top 3 attributes that came to their mind when they thought of the packaging type and design constraint together. They were supposed to write the values that they wanted to bring out of the design solution. They were asked to select futuristic scenarios together. The scenarios ranged from technology, policy changes, material innovation, economy, consumer attitudes and behavior. All these trends were supposed to help them take their initial ideas further and to help them think in sync with what the world needs right now. The next sketching session lasted for 30 minutes where each team came up with a concept sketched out their idea, branded their concept (named their concept) wrote a small narrative about it and shared how the the new concept changed the experience of using the product. Each team enacted their concepts amongst everyone and shared about what value would their concept bring into the world.

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CURATION OF IDEAS Each idea was differentiated into ZERO PACKAGING and FUTURE PACKAGING. It was further categorized into values, experiences and scenarios. Insights were found by connecting the scenarios to the new ideas, their experiences and the values. The majority of insights ranged from making the packaging blend into everyday lives, making use of artists to customize the packaging, utilizing new materials to change the function and making the packaging more engaging and experiential.

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THE INSIDE/OUT BAG The Inside/Out Bag is an effort to stop talking about recycling and donation and start doing it. Different retail and online brands can provide the customer this bag when they purchase anything. The user can then just pull it inside out and donate something, instead of discarding it. It is a hassle free experience as the bag has a free shipping return label printed on it. The user could also track it and receive updates on where and how their donations are making an impact. By doing this, you extend the life cycle of the product and also help someone in need. This is an ad campaign collaborating lifestyle brands, NGO’s and influencers.

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This is how a simple shopping bag can increase the life-cycle of the product and donation can help someone in need. 85

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SPECIAL THANKS POD Family Allan & Andrew Parents and my family here in US

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