Design For Life

Task: “Reflect on the design ethics that Starck wanted the young product designers to demonstrate.”

In the beginning of the series, Philippe Starck was introduced as an innovative designer that produced eye-catching and at times controversial products that gained mixed reviews. Despite his way of thinking and his often outlandish personality, he has developed his own system of design ethics which he expects his student designers to respect and assume within their time as contestants. Starck believes in sustainable design and that it’s a force which has the power to change society. There is a movement towards sustainable design today and the future will undoubtedly see a progression towards green living, which is why the designers of today should be working towards building a greener tomorrow.

Initially, the contestants showed much enthusiasm to be working with Starck, but their flaws began to show after the first challenge. Their way of thinking was still very limited and Starck acknowledged this with disappointment, as did I because I really enjoyed this series and expected more talent from these individuals. However, Starck attempted to bestow some of his unique wisdom (though very unhelpful to them) through his criticism of their design decisions. Starck believes design is, “...to help your tribe, society to have a better life,” and is true since the beginning of design.

Starck has an interesting demeanour and is very particular with what he wants, yet he doesn’t give constructive criticism. What he expected from his contestants constantly changed and differed with each designer. Though, what he strongly believed was that there are, “...too many products that don’t deserve to be produced...” in the market today. The challenges developed and revealed more of Starck’s fundamental ideologies of finding ways of creating environmentally sustainable methods of production as well as using ecologically friendly materials. This focus on sustainability proved difficult for the designers as they attempted to understand the significance of designing with the environment in mind.

Furthermore, Starck wanted the designers to, “...find the story behind the product. Why is it sustainable?” By addressing this question, the designers are confronted with the challenge that the earth is currently experiencing – how to offset the degradation of the earth due to unsustainable design. As well as facing global environmental issues, Starck expected not only design, but creativity and ambition, which he regards highly in a designers arsenal. With that said, the products he sees now are becoming smaller and, “Tomorrow will be more and more minimalistic,” which depicts his view that most products are heading towards the pocket sized, hand held kind. It’s not clear whether he approves of this or not, but he acknowledges this event and suggests it may be a direction the designers can take in their challenges.

Throughout the episodes, we unravel Starck’s underlying annoyances with society and what should be done to change the way people think about their products. An understanding that, “Designers need to embrace the future by putting sustainability into the heart of their work.” There are so many products in the market today that shouldn’t be there because of the waste they produce in their disposal and manufacturing. Modern product designers should develop their own design ethics that encompass the ideals of sustainable design and environmental awareness.

Charette 2

For our charette no.2 we were asked to disassemble an everyday product and identify all of the materials used to produce it in order to gain insight into environmental and manufacturing costs. We used Greenfly resources for this task

We began by disassembling the kettle down to every single screw and weighed and identified the materials used to produce the parts. These descriptions were then put into the Greenfly site to produce figures that relate to the environmental impact and manufacturing costs involved in producing this product.

Our new design took away the boil button and removed unnecessary materials around the handle and base. The overall form was shorter and wider so as to allow the same capacity it could contain before. We also gave the kettle an added function of being able to be placed onto the stove. The added function allows the kettle to boil water from use of the base as well as a stove. So it would be possible to boil eggs and things in it too.

The new design produced a better outcome in terms of material usage and wastage.

Waste=Food

Task: “Reflect on the cradle-to-cradle protocol discussed in the video. How should industrial designers react to this principle?

The cradle-to-cradle protocol is essentially a closed loop cycle powered by renewable energy throughout each element of the manufacturing process. This protocol is a response to the changing efforts to increasing environmental issues seen from large organisations in society. The original cradle-to-grave system was a linear practice that did not take into account the energy and natural resources that is used to produce, distribute and dispose of a product.

This circular economy adopted by China in recent years sees materials and energy in closed cycles to build a better and healthier nation. As industrial designers, a similar approach should be taken towards each endeavour as a way to limit the increasing amount of waste during the manufacturing process. Before beginning any design, thought should be taken into each stage of development and a focus on sustainability is needed to address the issue of waste. Every part of the design process from conceptualisation to the product’s end of life involves some type of waste. The role of the industrial designer is to identify ways optimise every stage to extend the life of a product and improve the end of life system of these products.

“...everything in biology should go back to soil safely... so the waste of a system would go back to soil...so waste equals food.” – William McDonough

The thought of everything natural and manmade in the world having a cycle is evident with all that we see around us. The same could be said with what we consume for sustenance and nourishment. In a way, designers should be designing so that the end product will eventually find a sustainable way back into the natural environment.

“Everything is a nutrient...when you throw it away, it regenerates life. Only we take things and don’t give anything back” – Michael Braungart

Humans are lazy and tend not to care what they throw away into the environment or what they take from it. So it’s up to the designers to improve the way they produce goods in order to educate people in the effects of a product when it’s time to dispose of it.

“To try to minismise being bad is not enough. Less bad is no good. So try to be good instead of less bad because for less bad, we have too many people on this planet.” – Michael Braungart

This quote by the German toxicologist is a confusing and strange account of what humanity has become. Society is evil towards the environment. Taking everything that it’s produced and barely returning anything back to replenish what was taken. Ideally, everything that has been used would be replaced by something planted back into the earth, however, we take at such an astounding rate that with what we put back, it has no real effect to the positive goodness of the earth.