In India, there has been intense debate on "big dam" approaches to industrial development. One of the studies cited by the anti-big-dam lobby (that I go along with) is the huge investments made in constructing not just seismic-proof and 'permanent' dam structures, and the diminishing returns that these bring not long after their commissioning - in terms of un-budgeted costs such as massive human displacement, loss of productive forest & farming ecosystems by submergence, rapid siltation of the reservoir and thereby diminishing reservoir capacity, and more. (read http://www.narmada.org/gcg/gcg.html - Arundhati Roy's "The Greater Common Good" - a poetic exposition of this argument.)
I'm not aware about similar cases in so-called "Industrial Design", but the very use of concrete in building is a dramatic indictment of the wastefulness of 'permanent' materials. (read http://www.satyamag.com/apr03/miller.html - a tribute to Laurie Baker, a Gandhian architect if there ever was one.)
I read an anecdote about a supermarket checkout 'bagger' asking the customers "Chop a tree or choke the fish?" when offering them the choice between paper bags and plastic. There is much to be learnt from traditional crafts that use locally-available, impermanent and bio-degradable materials for common products. (read www.forget-me.net/en/Gandhi/hind-swaraj.pdf - Gandhi's quixotic but insightful "Hind Swaraj" text for his critique of the social impact of technology - possibly the earliest exponent of "slowness", also read http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20041119/cth1.htm#12 - a report on the problems faced by the Indian Railways' initiative to use terracotta 'kullads' instead of plastic cups to serve tea.)
Arvind Lodaya
Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology
work www.srishtiblr.org
personal geocities.com/lodaia
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