Repair It Yourself

Repair It Yourself. Repairing culture in the era of the prosumer.

Eugenia MorpurgoSocial Design Master Program Design Academy Eindhoven2011

AbstractSince the 1950’s we have been living in a hyper-consumption society, fed by mass production, cheap labour, and the marketing of fashions fueling disposability to become the norm.

Today advanced social networking has encouraged and enabled the consumer to consciously make more ethical purchasing decisions, reflecting on environmental concerns, economic crisis and personal dissatisfaction, in the hope of finding longer lasting satisfaction.

An analysis of the new consumption trends highlight the active role of the consumer, also known as the Prosumer, and his will of getting involved in more stages of the lifespan of an object, from the design process, to the end use.

Along with the rise of social networking, democratisation of pro-duction can become a fertile ground to propose design ideas that encompass the act of repairing back in to the consumer household.

The project engages with this new consumer behaviour and adapts it into the act of the repairing.

Content

Introduction . 9

DesignDesign for disassembly . 15 Open Design . 17Design in the Network . 19

ProductionA new DIY revolution . 23Community production centers . 25

Sale/PurchaseThe Prosumer . 29Purchasing in the Network . 31Collaborative Consumption . 33

UseNew models of ownership . 37Hacking . 39

ConclusionsDesign Proposal . 43Visual Presentation . 47

Bibliography . 73

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IntroductionTo repair is a mindset, as the Repair Manifesto, from Platform 21, says: “You can repair anything, even a plastic bag”1.So why don’t we do it? How could a design project encourage this mentality?These are the questions I’ll try to answer through my research and design proposal.

Once there was no hesitation in fix broken goods. Within the tra-ditional family context there was the knowledge to repair certain common objects, in the house there would be a sewing machine or at least a toolbox containing needles and threads. What you couldn’t repair at home, because of lack of tools or skills, you could bring for reparation to specialised stores. A full socio-economical structure was built around the activity of repairing, from the upholsterer, to the man that sharpens knifes, to the shoemaker and even an umbrella fixer.But since the 1950’s with the rise of consumerism, fed by mass pro-duction, cheap labour, and the marketing of design fashions, dispos-ability became the norm. A shift was made from a repairing society to a throw-away society.This shift affected both, the way objects are designed, the mentality of the consumer and slowly erased the previously existent socio-economical structure.

Within this context I can still identify a few good reasons to repair.The activity of repairing became a form of re-appropriation of control on our material world, it allows us to understand the functioning of things and it’s a key tool for the consumer to control his post-con-sumption goods (waste).In the action of repairing the consumer is confronted with the manu-facturing quality of objects and can have a better understanding of the relationship between cost, materials and quality.Last but not least, repair allows us not to dispose the whole when just a part that is damage.

Today we are witnessing another radical shift within society.“In the mature market of the western world, we are witnessing a broad and fundamental movement away from mindless hyper con-sumerism and toward an approach that is at once more conscious and more satisfying—and certainly more sustainable.[] Large numbers of people are dissatisfied with the direction in which society is headed and with their own personal lifestyles.” 2

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There are four key driving forces of this shift in consumption trends; the environmental crisis; we are faced with the waste disposal prob-lems and the limited amounts of material resources. Spreading so-cial networks; originally an online networked life, that is now moving to a physically networked society. The democratization of production means along with the spreading of the open source culture; strongly connected to the online network, also started as the open software and is now expanding in the open hardware.

There are four key driving forces behind this shift in consumption trends; environmental concerns, expanding social networks, the democratization of production means, spreading of an open source culture. These four topics are independently discussed in greater detail.

These new consumption trends are influencing consumer goods throughout their lifespan, leading the design, production, sales and use towards new possibilities. The role of the consumer has been completely redefined, along with his demands. He’s now the Prosumer , an active consumer who wants to be more involved within the lifespan of a product.This will of being involved along the process generates new de-mands. In an attempt to answer these new demands I see the space to refurbish/renew the repair culture. To demonstrate how design could become the tool to influence culture, I designed a product, a pair of shoes that in design, production, sales and use relate to the new market tendency and push and allow the consumer to repair.

As a working methodology; I first researched the new consumption trends, the findings of this research are going to be presented in the body of the thesis.I decided to organize the information in four chapters that follow the lifespan of a product (design, production, sale, use) to underline how any decision taken in one of the steps can influence all the other steps and how having a complete overview can help create objects that are relating better with the expectations of the new consumer. In the conclusions you’ll be able to read how I applied the theory il-lustrated in the research to my product.

1. Reapair Manifesto, Platform 21, 2009, http://www.platform21.nl/page/4453, consul-tation date November 20102. Prosumer Report vol 8, The New Consumer in the Era of Mindful Spendine, Euro RSCG Worldwide, Summer 2010

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Design is going towards

foward looking open systems network based

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Design for disassembly

“Design for disassembly is a design strategy that considers the future need to disassemble a product for repair, refurbish or recycle.” 1

In a society that is heading towards raw material scarcity and in-creasing disposal management issues, considering the life of the object when its functional life is over has become a necessity.An object is a physical compound of materials brought together to respond to its function. When the function is over what is left is its material physical presence, what can be done?

When an object is made of a series of components of different mate-rials connected in non reversible way, after its use, the main prospec-tive is the landfill , material is lost and waste increases. High energy de-construction processes can separate materials, but can lower the quality of the material.

“DfD method increases the effectiveness of a product both during and after its life.” 2

During the life of the product when a damage occurs, DfD facilitates the process of repairing allowing broken parts to be exchanged with-out damaging the functioning components.When an object arrives at the end of its life DfD enables the possibil-ity of recycling, allowing components to be separated and recycled according to the material.

Design for disassembly has clear design rules that can be followed.Designing to minimize the amount of components, materials and fasteners. To select recyclable materials and not to combine different materials in an irreversible way (like laminate). Each material need to be identi-fiable trough a not removable labelling system.To select reversible fasteners to connect the components and pref-erably with standard fasteners.Create a coherent, accessible design, where assembly and location of fasteners are clear, considering both an industrial and/or manual disassembly process.3This strategy is embraced in two different ways.There are companies that consider the disassembly has an inter-

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nal activity, therefore they create a close language that allows the disassembly but just from the company itself. As a consequence the repairing and disposal process needs to be followed by the producer. The other approach is to allow the disassembly to someone exter-nal to the company that is producing the object, such as the user or recycling companies.In these cases the object is assembled with standardized fasteners and the design language is accessible, guiding the consumer through the disassembly process.

1. Afterlife: An Essential Guide To Design For Disassembly, Alex Diener, 1 February 2010, online published on http://core77.com/blog/featured_items/afterlife_an_essen-tial_guide_to_design_for_disassembly_by_alex_diener__15799.asp , cinsultation date January 20112. ibidem3. Design for Disassembly Guidelines , Active Disassembly Research, January 2005

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Open Design

“Open design is the development of physical products, machines and systems through use of publicly shared design information”1

Open design is a concept conceived following the success of the open source software, it focuses however on the development of physical products rather than software.Open design has been made possible thanks to a growth in social networking and democratization of manufacturing systems. (This topic will be analyzed more in detail in the chapter on production).

Different levels of openness can be identified within the concept of open design:There are projects where the designer is sharing the blueprints of his/her design with the consumer and is handing over responsibility for production. An example is the collective Ten, with their project they “asked each designer to make a set of instructions to enable people to make their own objects, DIY stylee”2. The plans are down-loadable along with the instructions from their website.

In other projects, the blueprints are shared online in CAD format encouraging customization of the design object by the consumer. The object can be realised by rapid manufacturing machines.A good example for this approach is the last work of Droog Design presented in Milan during the Salone del Mobile 2011, Design for Download. “the first platform for downloadable design, which will fea-ture curated and open content, easy-to-use parametric design tools and a network of local low- and high-tech manufacturers.”3

On another level the designer is designing a common design lan-guage to allow other designers to create objects/project that will be compatible one with the other. Thomas Lomee implements this thinking in his Open Structure; “an ongoing experiment that aims to find out what happens if people design objects according to a shared modular grid, a common open standard that stimulates the exchange of parts, components, experiences and ideas and aspires to build things together.” 4

All these examples show the changing control that the designer usually had on his design. The design is open, for definition, to any alteration that the consumer wants and can do, both in the design and manufacturing phase.

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A strong philosophy moves the designers that work in the open design field. Ronen Kadushin believe that the open design is the tool to break the dependence relation between the designer and the industry and as he wrote in his Open Design Manifesto he sees the possibility to “ shift the Industrial Design to become relevant in a globally networked information society”5Others like The Open Source Ecology with the Global Villane Con-struction Set are willing to give to “everyone everywhere access to the key tools for creating human civilization.” 6

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_design#cite_note-3, consultation date April 20112. Ten- plan project presentation, http://ten-plan.com/, consultation date October 20103. Design for download, Droog Design, Press release, 2011 http://www.droog.com/proj-ects/events/design-for-download/,consultation date April 20114. Open Structures Can we design hardware like how we design software?, Thomas Lom-mée5. Open Design Manifesto, Ronen Kadushin, September 20106. Big Ideas from TED 2011: A Construction Set for Civilization, http://www.good.is/, Na-thaniel Whittemore, 1 March 2011, consultation date March 2011

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Design in the Network

Design in the network means more relations, leading to more dia-logue and possibilities.

The network, primarily online, has the ability to bring in to direct contact designers, producers and consumers. Because connected, they are starting to influence each other, even to a point where they are exchanging roles.

A.Bauvlet defines this phase of design as relational design, a phase that “presents a multitude of contingent or conditional solutions: open–ended rather than closed systems; real world constrains and contexts over idealized utopias; relational connections instead of reflexive imbrications; in lieu of the forlorn designer, the possibility of many designers; the loss of designs that are highly controlled and prescribes and the ascendancy of enabling or generative systems; the end of discrete objects, hermetic meanings, and the beginning of con-nected ecologies.”1

Online, designers and amateurs are sharing their projects. On web-sites like Instructables or e-how, the users are creating an immense database of techniques and projects stimulating the creativity of other users. It’s interesting to notice how a project published on such websites is able to generate a creative dialogue between the users, that are taking the design presented, adapting it to their own needs and republishing it online as the result of their work.

The network implies crowdsourcing where, there is a group of peers working together to develop design proposals.There are websites like Quirki where it’s possible to upload design proposals to be judged by users. “Exceptional product ideas are pro-moted to prototype and eventually marketing phases, receiving input from the community along the way. And 30% of the profits are distrib-uted to the inventor and other contributors.”2It connects designers, consumers and producers given the possibil-ity to develop projects that once would have never found their space in the market.Thanks to a website like Kickstarter each day design and art proj-ects find funding to be developed, as a result of donations from the crowd. Launched in 2009 Kickstarter “empowered creators who had a new, no string source of funding, as well as audiences, who had the opportunity to help realize the kind of art they wanted to see”3 or the

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kind of product they wanted to find available on the market.

1. A.Blauvet, Towards Relational Design, Design observer, 11.03.2008, http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=7557, consultation date November 20102. http://www.quirky.com/learn, consultation date December 20103. How to make stuff, How Kickstarter became a thriving laboratory for darning proto-types and ingenious products. , Carlye Adler, WIRED Ma¬gazine, 04.2011

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Productionis going towards

DIYcommunity based

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A new DIY revolution

The term DIY, Do It Yourself, was once mainly used to describe home improvement activities done by the individual resident rather than a professional. In recent years, DIY has taken on a broader meaning, related to the Arts and Crafts movement, offering an alternative to modern consumer culture.

In this context the DIY refers to the scenario where the power of pro-duction moves to the consumer. The usual separation between the producer and the consumer is getting smaller, to the point where the consumer becomes the producer.

There are two faces to this revolution.There is a big movement, known as the indie craft movement that is a new interpretation of the traditional art and crafts, a movement that is rediscovering the technique of our grandparents generation, from knitting to embroidery, from Lino print to glasswork.

This movement as been well represented in the documentary “Hand Made Nation” . Filmed in 2009 by Faythe Levine, photographer, busi-nesswoman and prominent figure in the growing indie craft move-ment— “Hand made Nation” documents her trip around the united states to interview amateur and professional “creators who have thrown off the yoke of traditional, well-segregated arts (sculpture, photography, painting, lithography) to embrace knitting, embroidery, printmaking, zine publishing, glass jewelry fabrication, whatever—sometimes all at once.”1In the scenario she describes what stands out is that “In today’s im-personal, mass-market culture, the idea of owning something—be it a screen printed T-shirt or an embroidered portrait—that was actually made by a real human being is somewhat revolutionary.”2

The other side of this revolution is characterized more by technologi-cal developments and online communities. Recently we have wit-nessed what has been called a “democratization of manufacturing tools”, machines for rapid prototyping and manufacturing has been developed and made accessible to the consumer.CNC (computer numeric control) machines such as 3d printers and laser cutters have taken creativity to a new level, “a 3-D printers can make it as easy to create small objects out of plastic as it is to print text on a sheet of paper”. 3

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Initially only available in specific centres, like Fablabs, now they are economically affordable and designed to be assembled and used home. In some cases, as with the RepRap machines (project founded in 2005 by Adrian Bowyer at the Bath University, Great Britain) the 3d printer parts are made from plastic. RepRap can print those parts becoming a self-replicating machine. There isn’t a unique philosophy behind this movement, some are do-ing it because they like to make, others because of their environmen-tal beliefs and some others as a stance against the “big-box retail culture”.

Whatever are the reasons and however it expresses itself this revolu-tion is generating interest, and in the future we might see a radical shift in strategy for designers, producer, sellers, markets and society all.

1. Handmade Nation, She’s crafty: DIY documentary chronicles indie crafts movement, film review, Devin D. O’Leary, september 2009, consultation date October 20102. ibidem3. 3-D Printers Make Manufacturing Accessibile, Wired Magazine, Priya Ganapati, 11 August 2009 consultation date January 2011

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Community production centers

As said before the production is moving from the producer to the consumer but also from the individual to the community. Producing becomes an activity to share. Making becomes an excuse to share skills, knowledge and to build a community.

In the social structure of the city, places of production becomes reference point for the citizens that are driven “by self-fulfilment, seek experiences that bring them a triple benefit: engaging in new or forgotten skills, enjoying the intimacy of a tight-knit community and enhancing personal relationships.”1

One of the first project oriented in this direction is the FabLab (fab-rication laboratory), program started in the Media Lab at MIT from professor Neil Gershenfeld and his colleagues in the 1990s. Their goal was to simplify and streamline the process of turning an idea into a product, by giving the public access to design and manufactur-ing tools previously only available to engineers at big companies.

“A Fab Lab is a small-scale workshop offering digital fabrication. It is generally equipped with an array of flexible computer controlled tools that cover several different length scales and various materials, with the aim to make “almost anything”. They have already shown the po-tential to empower individuals to create smart devices for themselves. These devices can be tailored to local or personal needs in ways that are not practical or economical using mass production.”2

Where the FabLab main goal is to make available digital machines, projects like the Betahaus Open Design City in Berlin are more ori-ented on the creation of a community of producers.The Open Design City is providing to citizens a workspace for making products, objects and tangible things but as the organizers say their aim is to create “a space where our community shares its knowledge and processes in an open manner”.3They define the Open Design City as a “powerful combination of spac-es, resources and community” where “citizens, extended community and their projects are what make the space special”.4

In Italy we can witness a similar phenomenon with the Ciclofficine (literally Cycle Shops). Workshops where tools for repair are avail-able for free access, where citizens, more or less skilled, can meet to refurbish bicycles otherwise designated to the dump. Their main goal

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is to spread and reinforce both the bicycle and manual skills culture.

1. The community crafter, Exploring the ways we will live Viewpoint issue #272. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fablab consultation date April 20113. Betahaus Open Design City, http://odc.betahaus.de/, consultation date December 20104. ibidem

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Sale/Purchaseare going towards

the prosumernetwork basedcollaboration

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The Prosumer

“In the mature market of the western world, we are witnessing a broad and fundamental movement away from mindless hyper con-sumerism and toward an approach that is at once more conscious and more satisfying—and certainly more sustainable.[] Large numbers of people are dissatisfied with the direction in which society is headed and with their own personal lifestyles.”1

They still want more but now what they want is different, the new consumer, called the Prosumer is oppose to the passive role of the consumer, and is looking for longer lasting satisfactions and plea-sures.

The way the prosumer consumes represents the way he wants to live his life. The new way can be understood explaining it through 4 paradigms. The prosumer is looking for something more “real” he’s wanting to reconnect with nature and with other people. He’s looking for rightsizing, owning and desiring less, becomes the key to satis-faction. He’s willing to take responsibility, seeking to build individual competence, a DIY approach becomes a measure of control on the reality.

“ The new consumers are savvier, more empowered and more de-manding than of old, and they have a veritable laundry list of things they take into consideration when shopping. These days, they are pay-ing attention to everything from the economic and social impacts of the products they buy to their safety, design and provenance. They are more risk aware, so they feel they need to be more vigilant, but they are also more conscious of their capacity to influence the world with their consumption choices.”2

Now is the time for controlled consumption- with the consumer in control. In some cases consumption can become a political act towards the market.

The Italian experience of the GAS (Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale, sol-idal purchasing groups) are part of this emerging reality. Groups of citizens that are choosing for a critical approach to consumption, they buy directly from the producers with whom they start a dialogue creating a direct influence on what the market can offer. Buying in groups allow them to buy at affordable prices and to create through discussion and informative meetings a critical opinion on the prod-

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ucts they purchase. Their aim is to bring people and relationships at the centre of the economy.3

The GAS, as the Fair Trade on a more international level, are mostly involving the purchase of food but it’s slowly moving to other typol-ogy of goods like clothing or cleaning products.

1. Prosumer Report vol 8, The New Consumer in the Era of Mindful Spendine, Euro RSCG Worldwide, Summer 20102. ibidem3.GASP Gruppi di acquisto solidale e partecipativo, AA.VV. , I Tascabili di Punto Rosso, May 2009

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Purchasing in the NetworkOnline shopping exist since the beginning of the World Wide Web, already in 1991, just one year after his creation, the web was used for commercial use.But the big impact on the market was felt just few years later , in 1995 Amazon was launched and the year after eBay was open.1What online shopping provides is a cut on display costs and the creation of an infinitive virtual storage space for titles and products. That means that narrowly-target goods and services can be as eco-nomically attractive as mainstream fare. This phenomenon is known as the Long Tail.

Online shopping is also facilitating the connection between pro-ducers and consumers, generating phenomena like production on demand, and giving the opportunity for development of niches.

EBay started a trend in providing an online service where for the first time consumers could be connected with consumers, to become sellers or even producers. Other successful websites include Etsy.

This gave a big push to the second-hand market and to the business of handmade items. The feedback system is used to comment on the quality of the products and service both in a regular or peer online shop Elements of trust and reputation became crucial in transaction between peers, as feedback from peers in the community became very important informing other peers’ consumption. 2

The latest evolution of online shopping is the purchase of good without a monetary exchange. The net is used to create connection between people that own goods they want to get rid of and people that are looking for those goods. Websites like Swap or Frecycle are continually becoming more popular and trusted. Swap.com, active from 2004, has 1.9 millions of members and facilitates trade of personal media between users using algorithms. 3

Bartering physical goods online is evolving a step further facilitating the exchange of skills and knowledge between users both physically and virtually.

“OurGoods.org, is an online bartering site specifically geared toward the creative community. New members set up profiles and through a system of “Haves” and “Needs”, detail specifically what they’re

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seeking and what they have to offer to trade. Few skills are off limits; members share a wide array of expertise — from web design to cookie baking to construction.”4

1. History of online shopping, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_shopping consultation day May 20112. Changing Models of Ownership, Rich Radka, 08.02.2011 http://www.shareable.net/blog/changing-models-of-ownership-part-i consultation date February 20113. http://www.swap.com/, consultation date May 20114. Amid Recession, A Return To Bartering, Maya Millett, The New York Times, December 8, 2010 http://eastvillage.thelocal.nytimes.co¬¬m/2010/12/08/amid-recession-a-return-to-bartering/?scp=1&sq=swaptree&st=cse, consultation date February 2011

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Collaborative Consumption

A renewed belief in the importance of community, a torrent of peer-to-peer social networks and real-time technologies, pressing unre-solved enviromental concerns and a global recession that has fun-damentally shocked consumers behaviours, these are the drivers of the shift that is changing not just what we consume but how we do it. We are moving from a soicety of ownership to a society of access.

This economical model, based on sharing, swapping, bartering and trading is called collaborative consumption. A term used the first time by Ray Algar in 2007 and represented by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers in 2010 in their book “What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption”. In this book the authors are presenting a series of case studies to prove how “ From morning commutes to the way we borrow and lend money, to the way fashion is designed, to how we share our back gardens, different area of our lives are be-ing created and consumed in collaborative ways. We have literally re-wored our world to share- be it in an office, a neighborhood, an apartment building, a school, or a Facebook network. And this sharing is happening in ways and at a scale never before possibile, creating a culture and an economy of what’s mine is yours.”1Botsman and Rogers indentify in the trust between strangers, in the belief in the commons, in the idling capacity and in the power of the critical mass the principles that make the system of collaborative consumption work. In “What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collabora-tive Consumption” the authors are reorganizing all the case studies on three systems.

Product service system, when the consumer becomes a user and pays for the benefit of a product, without needing to own the product outright (Zipcar, GoGet, WhipCar, DriveMyCar..).

Redistribution markets, when used or pre-owned goods are redis-tributed from where they are not needed to somewhere or someone where they are.(eBay, Swaptree, Freecycle, BookMooch..)

Collaborative lifestyles, that mean the sharing and exchange of resources and assets such as time, food, space, skills and money.( Sharedearth, Timebank, Couchsurfing..)2

The next step is going in the direction of Peer-to-Peer sharing.“Peer-to-peer sharing allows for potentially unbounded scalability,

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access to more resources and often at closer proximity to us. Because peer-to-peer companies aren’t subject to the overhead cost of purchasing and maintaining a “fleet” of assets of which they own, the cost to rent is often lower; moreover, members have the opportunity to monetize their own possessions. These peer-based “marketplaces” help the environment by using the resources we already available more efficiently rather than manufacturing more new goods.” 3

1. What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers, Harper Collins, 14 September 2010 2. Ibidem3. The New Sharing Economy, a study by latitude in collaboration with Shareable Maga-zine, 5 October 2010

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Useis going towards

new models of ownershiphacking

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New models of ownership

In western society material possessions have always been the mea-sure of success, status and security. Acquisition and ownership is a source of joy and satisfaction, even when providing fast short-term gain. This behaviour generated a society of abundance, ruled by a market in need to produce and sell goods, with increasingly reduced life spans. Once again the economical and environmental crisis and the formation of online networks have been the main forces to start a radical shift from this scenario.

There are people that “feel “stuck in stuff.” They feel like their closets and garages are too full of things that don’t really make their lives much better.” And are looking forward to live a “life of simplicity, characterized by joyfulness and thoughtfulness” with less belong-ings. 1

In 2008 Dave Bruno launched, upon his blog, “the100 things chal-lenge” as a way to “fight American-style consumerism and live a life of simplicity” 2. He invites people to limit their belongings to 100 objects. He believes “that living without an abundance of personal possessions for an extended period of time is the first step we ought to take in order to realize that we don’t need ever-more stuff.”3In order to achieve the goal of 100 thing he draw 3 rules: “Reduce, get rid of some of your stuff, Refuse to get more new stuff, Rejigger your priorities.”4The time and money saved from the acquisitions of new goods will be spend to create a more valuable life.

Parallel to the search for reduction of personal belongings there is the rise of infrequently -used item sharing. People are no longer consumers but instead users, borrowers, lend-ers and contributors, they are no longer aspiring to own. In this new society of sharing and exchanging, ownership is substituted with access, and material possessions are changing from personal to communal.

Since the first experience of bike sharing, in the ’60 in the Neth-erlands, sharing evolved and broadened out to many other object typologies; from cars, to fashion items, from spaces to tools.The sharing system developed in two directions, a brand based ser-vice and a peer-to-peer network.The first consist in a community of users sharing goods owned by

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a company. Very successful examples of this format are Zipcar, a membership-based car sharing company providing automobile res-ervations to its members and Netflix, an American-based provider of on-demand internet streaming video.The peer-to-peer sharing approach means a community that is shar-ing goods owned by all the users or by singular individuals in the community, as with website’s ShareSomeShugar or NeighbourGoods. Both websites where neighbours are getting connected in order to borrow each others goods and skills.5

1. Changing Models of Ownership, Rich Radka, 08.02.2011 http://www.shareable.net/blog/changing-models-of-ownership-part-i consultation date february 20112. http://guynameddave.com/about-the-100-thing-challenge/, consultation date No-vember 20103. ibidem4. ibidem5. All That We Share, A field guide to the commons, Jay Walljasper and the On the Com-mons team, December 2010

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HackingThe contemporary active consumer no longer accepts products de-signed for a fictional average person, he sees himself as an extension of the design and production process and he feels free to adjust his goods according to his own personal needs.

Many brands, like Nike, tried to respond to this behaviour by offering platforms for customization of the product, but the consumer-hacker is looking for more than just fundamental alteration of the product appearance.“The consumer applies a hacker’s outlook to physical products and is constantly questioning and experimenting, to discover how he can make the goods around himself perform better.”1Once the product leaves the store aesthetic appearance and even function can be radically altered.

In 2008 the Dutch collective Platform 21 initiated Hacking IKEA, an open call to designers and amateur to appropriate, adapt and trans-form existing Ikea products. It was a way to present this wide move-ment of consumers and designers that are making individual altera-tions to off-the-shelf products. As Platform 21 said “In the process, they [hackers: consumers and designers] pay little or no attention to a product’s original function. Some do it for fun, others out of necessity, and still others out of a critical attitude toward mass production”2

For some, the ultimate tool for the consumer-hacker is the Sugru, “a silicone-based, putty-like substance that is fully mouldable, bonds with anything and once set, is durable, flexible, heatproof, and dish-washer-friendly.”3With this material the consumer-hacker is free to make those little adjustments that make the product designed for the average con-sumer an individual custom product.On the website where you can purchase the Sugru, managed by the Sugru’s inventor, Jane Dhulchaointigh, it’s possible to see how other hackers have used the material to hack objects, as a source of inspi-ration.

Indeed the web has a relevant role for consumer-hacker, online he shares skills and tools for his hacking. On website like instructables.com, hacknmod.com and many others the hackers community has a non-stop dialogue on how to get appropriation on the physical reality.

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1.The citizen hacker, Exploring the ways we will live, Viewpoint, issue #272. Platform21 = Hacking IKEA, All IKEA hackers unite!, http://www.platform21.nl/page/3293/en, 28 September 20083. Jane’ll Fix it, Exploring the ways we will live, Viewpoint, issue #27

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Conclusions

Design ProposalVisual Presentation

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Design Proposal

The aim of my research, as stated in the introduction, is to find in the behaviour of the “new consumer” opportunities to propose a design that will bring back, to the consumer household, the act of repairing.Throughout this body of the research I have tried to provide an over-view of the main tendencies/trends that are characterizing the new market. The main conclusions that can be drawn is that this society is based on networking and communities, where the crowd is the main active subject, generating economy and new cultures.

Design will need to engage with and react to these changes.

My thesis is an attempt to relate with this reality, embrace it and use it Therefore if, as said in the introduction, the repairing activity is related to a particular mindset, my project needs to refer to the new consumer behaviors, of the new consumer mentality and re-interpret them in function of this activity. For example if I learnt, through my research, that the prosumer has the will to re-appropriate products through hacking, my product will invite the consumer to hack it through repairing techniques.

As a materialization of my thesis I designed a pair of shoes that can be repaired by the consumer.I chose to use shoes as a medium for my message for two reasons, first they are a essential, commodity objects, everyone owns them and used them and everyone has experienced at least once in life a broken shoe, so it’s easy for the consumer to relate in a personal way with this product typology. Secondly shoes are a product that, with the rise of consumerism and mass production, drastically evolved away from a total repairable object and the active social-economical structure that was around shoe reparation is slowly disappearing. The cobbler is one of the dying professions.Therefore the shoe becomes an emblem of how the evolution of design objects, in relation to the evolution of manufacturing tech-niques, can affect the relation between the user and the product. Most of the contemporary shoes are not repairable, their low costs reduce the will to repair; the consumer is more is more likely to ac-quire a new model at a lower cost.

The shoes I designed exist also in relation to an online platform, a website where the content is half generated by the users and half by

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the Shoe brand.The aim of the website is to become a platform to generate discus-sion and content exchange on the topic of repairing, using the Shoe as a medium. The brand will give information on the product, from the Shoe models to the blueprints, will collect information on repairing techniques and projects related to the repairing culture. The website will also function as a selling platform. The consumer will be asked to share his personal experience with the Shoe with the other customers, through uploading images, videos and text in the form of a blog; documenting the wear of the Shoe and the repairing of it. Inspired by websites like Instructables, the Shoe along with the website would aim become a platform for insight and enrichment between the consumers.

I’ll refer to the shoe I designed simply as the Shoe

Shoes, both crafted and industrially manufactured, are almost always assembled through irreversible connections, stitching and/or gluing. This means that the components such as the sole and the upper, although commonly made of two very different materials are inseparable.Throughout the use, shoes get worn and damaged both in the sole and in the upper.Looking at the theory of design for disassembly, I saw the potential of developing a reversible connection between the sole and the upper, allowing me to treat the reparation process in a more open, but spe-cific way in relation to the material the component is made of.

The Shoe is composed by 3 components: sole, upper and insole.

The sole and the insole, both made of rubber, are designed with a female-male snap system, in order to clamp the upper when they are connected.The upper is constructed as a close shape, similar to a moccasin (did you already define this as I don’t know it) but with the stitches on the traditional line of connection between the upper and the midsole. The bottom is perforated to allow the male snaps to pass through from the insole to the females connections of the sole. The sole’s connection allows the exchange/replacement of the sole when it gets too worn, I concentrated on the potential for repairing the upper part.My proposal is a series of three shoes, each one reflecting on a dif-

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ferent repairing technique. The techniques are felting, patching and darning.

Felting re-creates the damaged structure of the textile with felt wool and a punching needle.Patching covers the damage, ironing another piece of fabric coated with a thermo-glue.Darning also re-creates the damage structure weaving it again with needle and thread

My aim is that the consumer, buying the Shoe, will gain possession of the tools and the knowledge for repairing therefore each shoe comes with a tool kit.

Each pair of shoes is formally characterized by the technique it is trying to present. The upper is made of organic cotton and on three spots there are reinforcement realized in each shoe with its own particular repairing technique.This allowed me to introduce in the form’s language the repairing technique. When the damage occurs, fixing will enlarge the existing visual language of the shoe.The location of the reinforcements reflects the wear observed in used shoes. There are three areas where the upper becomes more damaged through use: the back, the external front side and the inter-nal middle point.

Working on the form language of the Shoe I chose an archetypal shoe shape. The aim was to create a shoe that could be disconnected from the fashion rhythm, as fashionable objects designed for short time consumption, the season of a fashion.I also believe that to associate the concept of repairing to a visually known object can increase the possibilities that the consumer will apply the repairing technique learned on the shoe to other shoes, or other objects. Having a too characterized shape for my shoe would have created a hardly breakable connection between the repairing technique and the shoe.

The Shoe at the moment of acquisition is like a white canvas, sug-gesting it can be modified. The consumer has all the tools for aes-thetically characterizing and customizing the product according to his/her own taste. It is here that the repairing becomes also an added aesthetic value.

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In many cases the new consumer is willing to engage with the product in a more total way, he’s even ready to produce himself the product.Therefore the upper blueprints are sharable with the consumer. The design of it is simplify in order to allow the consumer to reproduce the piece with the use of commonly available machines, like sew-ing machines. As a consequence the shoe language is open to the consumer that can easily understand how the shoe is constructed. Understanding how things are made is at the base of repairing, both practically, to know how to repair, and on the level of communication of the object, to feel confident to do it. In a scenario where 3d Print-ing rubber is more widely accessible, also the blueprints (3D files) of the sole and insole can be shared to be reproduced by the consumer.

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Visual Presentation

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Home Repairable Shoe

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Design for Disassembly

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The Shoe is composed by 3 components: sole, upper and insole.The sole and the insole, both made of rubber, are designed with a female-male snap system, in order to clamp the upper when they are connected.

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Felting

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Felting re-creates the damaged structure of the textile with felt wool and a punching needle.

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Patching

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Patching covers the damage, ironing another piece of fabric coated with a thermo-glue.

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Darning

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Darning re-creates the damage structure weaving it again with needle and thread

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The upper blueprints are shared with the consumer.

Open Design

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The design of it is simplify in order to allow the consumer to reproduce the piece with the use of commonly available machines, like sewing machines.

DIY

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Hacking

The Shoe at the moment of acquisition is like a white canvas, suggesting it can be modi-fied. The consumer has all the tools for aesthetically characterizing and customizing the product according to his/her own taste. It is here that the repairing becomes also an added aesthetic value.

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Purchaising in the Network

The shoe can be purchaised online, from an hypotetical brand or from peere that decide to produce it.

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Bibliography

DESIGN

DESIGN FOR DISASSEMBLYDesign for Disassembly Guidelines, Active Disassembly Research Ltd., January 2005, online published on www.activedisassembly.com/.../ADR_050202_DFD-guidelines.pdf

Afterlife: An Essential Guide To Design For Disassembly, Alex Diener, 1 Febbraio 2010, online published on http://core77.com/blog/featured_items/afterlife_an_essential_guide_to_design_for_disassembly_by_alex_diener__15799.asp

Design Out Waste, The Agency of Design, Rich Gilbert, Adam Pater-son, Matthew Laws, online published on http://www.agencyofdesign.co.uk/index.php?/currentprojects/design-out-waste-video/

OPEN DESIGNDesign for download, Droog Design, Press release, 2011http://www.droog.com/projects/events/design-for-download/

Open Standards: design for adaptation A new design vocabulary, Thomas Lommée, September 2010

Open Design Manifesto, Ronen Kadushin, September 2010

Open Structures Can we design hardware like how we design soft-ware?, Thomas Lommée

The Anarchist Engineer, Exploring the ways we will live Viewpoint is-sue #27

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_design#cite_note-3

Big Ideas from TED 2011: A Construction Set for Civilization, http://www.good.is/, Nathaniel Whittemore, 1 March, 2011

DESIGN IN THE NETWORKA.Blauvet, Towards Relational Design, Design observer, 11.03.2008, http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=7557, con-

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sultation date November 2010

http://www.quirky.com/learn, consultation date December 2010

How to make stuff, How Kickstarter became a thriving laboratory for darning prototypes and ingenious products. , Carlye Adler, WIRED Magazine, 04.2011

PRODUCTION

A NEW DIY REVOLUTIONDIY the analysis, Exploring the ways we will live Viewpoint issue #27

In the next industrial revolution, Atoms are the new bits, Wired Maga-zine, Chris Anderson, February 2010

3-D Printers Make Manufacturing Accessibile, Wired Magazine, Priya Ganapati, 11 August 2009

Handmade Nation, She’s crafty: DIY documentary chronicles indie crafts movement, film review, Devin D. O’Leary, september 2009

VIDEO. Handmade Nation, Faythe Levine, 2009

COMMUNITY PRODUCTION CENTERSThe community crafter, Exploring the ways we will live Viewpoint is-sue #27

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fablab consultation date April 2011

Betahaus Open Design City, http://odc.betahaus.de/, consultation date December 2010

SALE/ PURCHASE

PURCHASING IN THE NETWORKHistory of online shopping, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_shopping consultation day May 2011

Changing Models of Ownership, Rich Radka, 08.02.2011 http://www.shareable.net/blog/changing-models-of-ownership-part-i consulta-tion date February 2011

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http://www.swap.com/, consultation date May 2011

Amid Recession, A Return To Bartering, Maya Millett, The New York Times, December 8, 2010 http://eastvillage.thelocal.nytimes.co¬¬m/2010/12/08/amid-recession-a-return-to-bartering/?scp=1&sq=swaptree&st=cse, consultation date February 2011

THE PROSUMERProsumer Report vol 8, The New Consumer in the Era of Mindful Spendine, Euro RSCG Worldwide, Summer 2010

GASP Gruppi di acquisto solidale e partecipativo, AA.VV. , I Tascabili di Punto Rosso, May 2009

COLLABORATIVE CONSUMPTIONWhat’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers, Harper Collins, 14 September 2010

The New Sharing Economy, a study by latitude in collaboration with Shareable Magazine, 5 October 2010

USE

HACKINGThe citizen hacker, Exploring the ways we will live Viewpoint issue #27

Platform21 = Hacking IKEA, All IKEA hackers unite!, http://www.platform21.nl/page/3293/en, 28 September 2008

Jane’ll Fix it, Exploring the ways we will live Viewpoint issue #27

NEW MODELS OF OWNERSHIPChanging Models of Ownership, Rich Radka, 08.02.2011 http://www.shareable.net/blog/changing-models-of-ownership-part-i consulta-tion date february 2011

http://guynameddave.com/about-the-100-thing-challenge/, consul-tation date November 2010

All That We Share, A field guide to the commons, Jay Walljasper and the On the Commons team, December 2010