task 2D: objectified

let me first start by saying I REALLY LIKE THIS DOCUMENTARY.

What I thought when watching objectified was that it is extremely easy to become disconnected with the end result or solution when designing and I find that a constant struggle especially in studio where I sometimes have a strangely egotistical view that I should be brilliant and ground breaking then I think oh what can I make that's amazing instead of being practical and trying to improve a persons life or at least experience with this object.

Of course arguably the hardest part is making truly sustainable products due to the mass produced nature of our industry, but then this is where being realistic becomes most important. For instance if as a designer you had the honesty and humility to say like Karim Rashid does that my product is most likely temporary and will be replaced why can't my phone out of cardboard? It's almost as if we are trying to make some kind of permanent design legacy and our own ego is what contributes to a product's unsustainability.

Of course like Rob Walker says the name of the game is to sell things and the companies who are paying you will constrain you on materials and even forms etc. as long as it is cheap, but the real problem lies in the fact that most will want a new product next year and need it to make the current one dated. If sustainability is to really be addressed then the unnecessary production should cease. However this isn't going to happen unless a large societal shift occurs so where does that leave me as a designer? I'm now thinking Rashid is right and start making throwaway materials like pulped cardboard, bamboo's etc and embracing the throwaway life style.

task 2c: climate Change, Who killed the electric car

So interesting documentary really, it highlights the deeper problems in the sustainability an going green debate. Rather than the dreamy ideals of designers who say they will make sustainable products when the reality is that even if you manage to find a way to make a product that is actually viable aswell as being green (by that i mean; 1 is it cheaper or the same price as competition, 2 is it better than the competition in all or most aspects, 3 can you actually make it)this documentary shows that it is also not in a succesful market's intrest to let better technology succeed. While the case of General motors and the EV1 is an extreme example of a company 'cannabalising its own product' we see endless examples of companies in all industries actively restraining or witholding new technologies, if only so they can seem to supercede their own products once they have reached a market maturity, take televisions for example there were first flat screen, then plasma, LCD, now 3D. Each of these technologies came out after the previous had had say 3 years to build sales, then a new product is rolled out to take its place making your new plasma seem old and redundant.

So as a designer all you can do is try to keep driving good ideas forward and ensure diligantly that you provide clients/companies with not only more sustainable products but, cheaper, more marketable, better products. You can't beat them so join them (but keep your ideals). We have to be realistic/perhaps even pesimistic in our perception of why things will be made no matter how good the idea. You need to get companies more money than the had or at least convince them of that. Because yes they should have a moral compass and take responsibility for their actions but take a look around its the sneaky who succeed and the ones who staunchly proclaim morality are left to themselves or deemed crazy, I say be sneaky,play the game and design exceptional products so that money hungry companies can't afford not to go green.

photos of 1:1 scale model

reflection

This assignment was another challenge, designing a product service system was harder than just a product because in my opinion (at least with our garden) i think the best pss would eliminate the need for designing a new product. I think using a combination of existing parts would have been a lot more sensible but of course Industrial Design means we must design a poduct. I also struggled with the whole notion of being sustainable because real sustainability comes from a societal change and i couldn't help but feel some of the feedback comments throughout the day were flawed. If we must design a product then you must realise that Industrial design can only be so sustainable/ ecofriendly, an honest opinion would say that you should actually recycle or resuse existing things but of course we should have used more recycled materials. the whole thing was a good experience overall but again if we were designing a pss then we should have been trying to be truly sustainable and design a service system without the need for a P(roduct).

Our system uses hooked pots that could hang on our mounting panel or balconies and i think it turned out well but we'll wait and see. I thought some of the tools for behaviour change were useful but the MEPSS i thought was a redundant task that doesn't truly have an impact just an interesting way to graph.

Community Garden Product Service System

Ryan's thermal blanket

Julia's life ring

Fanru Wang's life ring

Shan shan's water tank

comments

Steve Mesa
and his cool kinetic generator

This is the physical model I made it's half scale. It is essentially a working model as well.

the valves to fill the "floating" walls with expanding PolyUrethane foam or air.

this shows how the actual product is assembled/ pulled apart

Bangladesh Cyclones

Problem: Bangladesh is situated in the Ganges delta and most of the country is less than 1m above sea level therefore in the event of heavy rain (i.e cyclones) the country is prone to heavy flooding.
Over half the population of Bangladesh live below the poverty line, they live in tin and bamboo shanties and the majority are either fishermen or rice farmers.
In the event of a cyclone most lose their homes and have to rebuild, most boats are destroyed. With water levels rising up to 6m the people are forced to wade through diseased water until it subsides this can cause illness (especially to children) and spoils food like rice(the main sometimes only food source)

Solution: The Mud Skipper is a one-man fabric barrow, which doubles as a raft. It is easily transported and assembled then distributed by aid agencies. It is designed to hold one adult male and some supplies ie. a 20kg bag of rice. The inflatable walls allow it to hold 171kg of weight and still float. Due to the design of the weight being inside and below the float the weight also helps with buoyancy.
The mudskipper is designed as a cheap means to assist with transporting people/ supplies around the flooded area and then to help with the recovery and rebuilding.
All parts except the bag and wheel are pre manufactured parts to reduce time and expenses. The design uses minimal parts for the same reason, when trying to distributed aid a product needs to be as basic and functional as possible.

REFLECTION
First let me say I am doing Bangladesh in cyclones. My experience of this project was that it is obviously very hard to make something that will logistically work in third world situations due mainly to the lack of funds. At first I wanted to make something that would help shelter people from flying debris and the winds but in the end what I found that the Bangladeshis really need is concrete to build more appropriate housing. Another point to note was that the relief efforts in Bangladesh aren’t much more than aid distribution, the government doesn’t seem to care too much about the poor, and the people are left to rebuild their housing. This is when I got the idea to make a wheelbarrow/cart that could float. I wanted to make a stacking roto moulded shell that would serve as a dinghy and cart but I was told by the tutor it would be too large and expensive, this is of course the problem I mentioned before no one has money for things to give to the third world. The Idea was then a blow up boat style hybrid, I wasn’t that happy about it as it lost some structural stability but thems the breaks. I made a folding model so that the barrow doubled in size when in raft mode so that it could be used by one person when a barrow but fit 3 as a boat but it was deemed too complicated so that is how I ended up with a permanent floating wheelbarrow, I think the fact that it is pared back to a quite basic idea is good as it will be cheaper to make and easier to assemble.
Looking back I think I needed to talk more to the tutors earlier and also be more firm with my idea for my product as that is what gives you a well thought out cohesive solution rather than a blend of ideas. I am not entirely happy with my final design for those reasons. In making the model I found it is hard to source pvc coated nylon and had to resort to a waterproof sheeting instead.
I enjoyed the project but think I could have done it a lot better if I stuck with my original idea for the boat/cart.

the story of: electronics and bottled water

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_7i6T_H78

The story of electronics takes a position I completely side with and it's refreshing to be taught (just today) about not only 'green' design but the ethics of design. I know Europe now have laws dictating that a certain percentage of a product be recyclable but if it is recycled in a poorly thought out way it seems it can be costly and detrimental to all.

At the risk of sounding like a hippy (or worse my dad) it sucks that there are so many products that need only small repairs to be fixed but it is cheaper to get a new one???? go figure. At my current house we regularly pick up things dumped on the side of the road that still work or can be used to make say furniture. It seems to me to be a smart idea as this 'garbage' is basically free materials that only need some intelligent design to be reborn as new products. The downfall of this is generally popular aesthetics, heaven forbid someone should come to your house and see a bookshelf made of say old computer casings.

Also the power of marketing needs to be excepted and used positively to change things.

If recycling is truly to be embraced it should be much more accessible to the real(read lazy) world and like the video says certain materials should only be used when neccesary if at all. I am looking forward to what seems to be a change from consumables to a time of well crafted products either made to last and be fixed or to be excepted as throwaway and use according safe degradable materials.

Of course it's easy to see why it doesn't happen when the end user feels so far removed from responsibility, so designers have to take up the challenge and design products that are better for the world but also are far more appealing (which also definitely has to mean affordable)to consumers.

Recycling reflection: 'Giving Packaging a New Life'

It is interesting to see how far the technology behind recycling has come, for instance the infra red detection system to identify composite materials in juice packs, I never really think about designing machines or systems to improve recycling but it is obviously an extremely important part of consumer products and therefore if you can improve the efficiency or quality of recycled materials you can not only make better products but reduce your material costs as well... something to think about for sure.

Plastic seems to be the hardest to sort, I'm surprised how well they can do it to be honest.When designing for recyclability? I think it is most important to follow Mar's tip of minimising the number of plastics used and try to keep to one if possible.

I like how we are now being taught to think about the full life of a product not just while in use, and a design is praised for its simplicity and ability to minimise waste be it in production or materials. I'm glad that the idea that good design must be extremely complicated and that excessive must mean better is dead and buried (hopefully).

The fact is that there are to many products as it is, just go down to your local electrical store and check out the number of different kettles ( they all do the same bloody thing!!). so who can blame the poor consumer for being wasteful and lazy when it comes to recycling, most things are cheaper to replace than fix and only have 1 to 2 year lives anyway, the responsibility has to lie with the people making the products. In saying that people will do anything for a buck and so companies will keep making $15 kettles in the hope that they can sell more than their competitors. So who is left? the sneaky eco conscious designer thats who!!! By having some realistic forethought about what happens to products and learning about sustainable design designers can at least reduce the damage that our consumer crazy society is doing. And no this does not mean I think we should make everything from bamboo.

brain bulb

disaster solutions

this post on design4disaster looks really promising as it has some structual integrity to cope with further damage

Concrete Canvas

5.10 earths? that's crazy and i was trying to make myself sound greener than i probably am. It doesn't really come as a surprise though, i live with two other guys and we each have a computer and there are two TV's with at least two going at any one time. I think it is all too easy to have a disconnection with our impact on the environment in modern society especially in a large city like Sydney. Excuses like having a 'busy lifestyle' seem to be the permission slip excusing us from a duty to take a lil more care of the earth.

In true human form i will now dedicate my life to lowering my houses footprint by sitting in the dark and turning off the boys computers while they are using them.. you know just the normal overreaction you get when you find out you've done something bad, but don't worry if this is happening to someone around you it only lasts a couple of days until i/they forget about our guilt and go back to "normal"