Kati:
"Surely Ikealisation and "high end european furniture" are not our only
options? There are millions of skillful artisans all around the developing
world, ready to manufacture reasonably priced, good quality, durable,
environmentally friendly and elegant products, quite accessible for those
willing to accept the fact that labour has its proper value."
I Understand that the Chinese are making well engineered trucks which are selling in China for around $3,000. If the Chinese were to manufacture well designed hybrid cars for a reasonable price then it may be the incentive that US and European manufacturers need to make the change if Western consumers started preferring these types of vehicles. I read recently that by the end of this century the polar ice caps may be seasonal due to global warming. The change in global centers of manufacturing may be also an opportunity for entrepreneurs to overturn unsustainable established practices in manufacturing while still making money and enabling the Chinese to improve their standard of living and allow global consumers to have cheap and attractive transport which use less fossil fuels. The thought of 1.25 billion Chinese and large numbers of consumers in other developing nations driving large inefficient and polluting vehicles should be a worrying vision for everyone on the planet. We need at the same time to find ways of getting people in industrialised nations out of these types of vehicles. Perhaps designers can influence Chinese directions in manufacturing.
Research by Michael Harris Bond, a psychology professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, found that Chinese children are better at seeing the big picture whereas US children are better at focusing on the details. Linguists believe that the cultural difference may be related to differences in the way we process information. In Chinese writing, words are represented as pictures; Chinese children learn to recognize thousands of pictorial characters rather than a series of letters. Thus, Chinese thinking tends toward a more holistic processing of information.
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R o b C u r e d a l e
Professor, Chair Product Design
College for Creative Studies Detroit
201 East Kirby
Detroit MI 48202-4034
Phone: 313 664 7625
Fax: 313 664 7620
email: [log in to unmask]
http://www.ccscad.edu
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