Dinner is served... "sorry, what's that about the cutlery?"

"Found", by Spanish designer Oscar Diaz is great example of an individual achieving a desirable handmade object by applying a manufacturing process to an existing object. Diaz first selected the plastic bottles that would enable him to make the most functional knife, fork and spoon (using the designed curve of the bottle to make the 'cup' of the spoon), cut his required shapes and then coated these in copper and then in tin.


The stages of the plating process. This manufacturing process would probably be out of reach for most individuals. The skills could be learnt, from school technical studies or workshops, but some of the equipment would be difficult to come by for a normal individual. Is there an opportunity to hand in your used plastic bottles and get a set of cutlery back? (for a price of course).


Diaz has shown the result of a detailed and precise process of experimenting with materials and processes. It is the plating process, in this example, that changes not only the users perception of the plastic bottle, but also its function. I can see that in order to change how individuals view any item, disposable or not, everyday or not, I must apply a process to it, changing its shape, function, appearance, etc.



Anyway, all that talk has made me hungry... Waiter?!

Time for a think(er)...

The "Thinker Table" by Tom Price is an example of a design that has all the potential to promote a Green approach, but the designer is not that way inclined. Price could have used scrap material, PVC offcuts, in this design but has chosen not to and also chosen not to mention the Green potential in the description on his website.

Why? I believe that Price might have felt the quality of the final outcome should be the highest possible (commissioned by Chinese gallery, Chapter 7) therefore purchasing and working with new material - the gallery may have even stated that they wanted the quality of new material rather than the worn out look of waste PVC.

Some may acuse Price and other designers of sheltering under the wings of "Green design" by the way some of their work is presented or construed by the public - The Campana Brothers work uses what looks like could be existing, waste material, however it has been reported that for some of their designs, new material was bought and worked with.

But we should not get caught up in a "Green" or "Not Green" debate, the important part is that the user sees the potential for the Green design - the scrap PVC instead of new material. This will further expand both their appreciation and belief in the far reaching grasp of Green design.

Spooning...

So many spoons! these are the work of british designer Max Lamb. This is but one example of Lamb's work that shows his passion and desire for the handmade item, and also the quest to find a range of manufacturing processes to achieve it (by himself).

This shows that any individual has the potential to make their own everyday items, however this does not take into question said individual's craftsmanship skills or even their desire to achieve something similar...

But, the potential is there, leave the rest to me! With a little bit of help and instruction, we could all be making our own spoons for breakfast, or lunch!

The previous post, showcasing the jar tops and the screw-on watering spout, are both examples leaning towards the commercial design end of reuse.

A book I have been reading recently is further at the other end of the scale. "Home-Made: Contemporary Russian Folk Artifacts" by Vladimir Arkhipov is a book showcasing everyday objects made by Russian individuals during the perestroika period in the late 1980's.
The items range from flickknives and screwdrivers made in prison, shuttlecocks made from plastic bottles, a television aerial made from old forks and a doormat made from a merry night's worth of beer bottle tops.


All the individuals in the book show a great amount of ingenuity towards crafting solutions to everyday problems, however the individuals comment on their objects so matter-of-factly that we sense they do not think their creations are special in anyway. Of course they think they are functional, and many of them are very proud of both the object in question and of their own skills to craft these items, but special? No. Useful? Yes.

Some of the objects in the book are similar to ones that I have seen my father and grandfather make, I have also fashioned some similar objects, however much less that previous generations. My father and grandfather, and the individuals in the book simply state that there was no money to buy the things that they made instead.


Now that many everyday objects can be bought very cheaply and are distributed across the country, are we as a society losing some of the skills required to make and fix our objects? Some skills are passed down from parent to child, but if objects are so accessible, so cheap and so easy to buy, why would I spend time making a version which probably doesnt function aswell as the bought one?

Pride - I like making my own things, especially if it is something that I could buy in a supermarket. I feel a great satisfaction that I built 'this', 'this' is here because I took the time and effort to build it, rather than take the easy option and purchase it.

Individuality - A homemade object will always look less 'perfect' and finished than a commercial version, but because I have made it myself, and a stronger emotional bond was formed during that process, I appreciate the incomplete aesthetic. Also, no one else has a brush like 'this'.

just one more function, please

The jar tops project by Jorre van Ast is a great example of how design can put just one more (positive) obstacle between the consumer and the waste cycle. The application of the different jar tops with ranging functions creates several functional consumer objects from existing ones that would have been put in the bin, or recycled (individuals may keep some jars for storage, but the good intention can end up with you overun by jars!).

Do other objects have the potential for second-life purposes? If so, what type of objects? High tech or low tech? Are these objects found in the street or are they used by the individual?

Take glass jars for example, my grandparents generation would keep jars because of their storage functions. However, this was in a society and culture that had to reuse and repair because there simply wasnt the money to buy everything new. Times have changed.

But projects and products like jar tops act as a statement about the difference between the reusing habits of my generation and those previous, and are also very useful!

Plastic bottles are viewed in a similar way as glass jars today - the individual is buying the contents of the container (bottle or jar) rather than the container aswell as the contents. Therefore, when the contents have been emptied, the individual sees the container as simply a by-product of the soft drink or sauce, making it much easier to either litter, or bin or recycle the object.

The latter is a positive but even better and more energy efficient that recycling is to gain another function from the object, and then recycle it.

Jar tops and also the screw-on watering spout by Nicolas Le Moigne are examples of this.

just one more

high tech needs dissassembly - a learned skill

low tech needs recycling - a simple action of placing a bottle in the correct bin

is there an inbetween stage between the use, and the the disposal of a low tech item?

is there another task that can be achieved? another function that can be met?

Design for dissassembly

Many of the second-life examples I have looked at have been low-tech objects, usually in the form of furniture pieces.

Is there a reason for this?

Is there a reason why there is not more electronic objects used in second-life designs?

To find the reason, if there is one, I have started to dismantle certain pieces of electronic equipment. Hopefully this breakdown of objects will lead to insights about their manufacture and assembly. Below are some photos showing stages in the dissassembling of a printer.


Item: Lecturer's printer
Fault: Broken fan




- Snap fittings, need a long flat screwdriver to unclip them. Do this too often and with too much force, the plastic will bend quite drastically and can break.



- Slide the side panels off, can take a few minutes to work out how. These are very form and function specific: several clasps located in the corrolating places on the main structure. Can they be used for any other function? Maybe, but almost certainly not another electronic object - different components, even as little as a few millimetre apart, would not fit together.



- Most of the larger components dissassembled, the motor, print cartridges, ect. It didn't take too long to get to this stage, but only after taking the casing apart.

Laying out the skeleton of the object like this can be quite daunting if one were to re-assemble the item, unless instructions were to hand or one had prior knowlegde about the assembly of similar objects.

All these components have been designed to fit together perfectly and so intricately. If one piece is missing, the printer will not work. If one piece breaks it is understandable why an individual may throw the item away rather than undertaking this task, especially as it is likely that a replacement component cannot be sourced, the manufacturers are foreign, and it is cheaper and easier to buy a new printer instead of repairing the broken one.



- All these smaller circuit board components have been soldered on, what am I to do with this? Recycle it? ... on your bike!

Is there a system that will allow the semi-precious metals, if any, to be harvested from this electronic waste? Apart from unethical eastern "chop-shops"? The WEEE initiative should give me an answer...



- This is the component that houses all the other smaller ones. This has been formed, punched, bent, etc so much that there is very little else that this could be used for, especially for electronic functions. The raw material could be recycled, but it is very tricky to dismantle an object down to this level, and this component is not even fully dismantled! If one were to pursue to this stage, recycling would prove difficult because identifying all the components and their materials would take a long time and would also require some knowledge of material identifications.



Insights: It seems that the main reason that some faulty electrical items are put to landfill rather than being repaired is due to the unfamiliarity of electronic components. Individuals are in contact with the outside casing of the objects, the shiny and pleasing veneers, never the 'guts' of an object like a computer or printer. This results in a barrier between consumer and object - one that is rarely broken to see whats on the other (in)side.

Design for dissassembly must be considered if the above is to change. Making products simpler to dismantle will potentially make it easier for individuals to dissassemble their faulty objects, if however they are that way inclined. Fixing a broken printer is much too daunting for any individual to try: what part is broken? how do I find it? what's that? do I need that screw? why are there no instructions? oh crap how do I put this thing back togther? ... where did that screw go??

The skill of fixing an electronic object such as a computer or printer is a taught and very specific skill, one which individuals do not usually possess. So maybe the answer is to ensure that individuals take the faulty item to a repair shop to get it fixed.

I and members of my family have taken our computer equipment to repair shops on several occasions, sometimes these trips have proved successful. However on other occasions and with other types of electrical objects, the trips have not been so fruitful. The answer from the repair man on the latter tends to be: "they don't make that component anymore" or "it'll be practically cheaper to buy a new videocamera", etc.

From experience of Design for Manufacturing, I understand how the costs of products and their components are calculated, along with related figures such as shipment of these items to their destined countries. Manufacturers are able to achieve lower production costs by increasing the production of components from a mould, making each one slightly cheaper in total. To buy a single component and have it shipped from the manufacturers and then have the repairman replace the faulty component with the new one can be very expensive, not to mention time consuming.

How do we ensure individuals are more knowledgeable about the components within their objects? See-through casings? Videos on dismantling? The internet?