Fourteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

Wear, tear, break-down, and failure are the inevitable consequence of use, nevertheless repair and maintenance have hardly figured in academic design discourse, at least until very recently, nor indeed, in histories of technology. The emphasis in these, overwhelmingly, has been on innovation and technological solutions that are purported to promise ways to overcome the consequences of the over-consumption of ever more limited resources. It behooves designers to consider seriously, perhaps for the first time, repair, and maintenance in design strategies, and to plan for reuse and repurposing in their approaches to products. It is true that there are calls to “design for repair”, renewed efforts to reuse or recycle both materials and design objects, and, in a move that recalls the adhocism of the 1960s, there are experiments in repurposing design artifacts, in and of themselves, or as part of a new constellation of objects. Repair is integral to the life of a design object, prolonging its life is one key to sustainable design, and in-depth discussions translated into practice promise to be fruitful for at least in some measure addressing ecological sustainability.