Dear Norm and all.
'the social and environmental duration of objects' cannot, according to my
view, be separated from the affective duration. This latter form of
durability, which is often paraphrased as timeless, even eternal, is having
a major influence on how objects in the end are taken care of by consumers
and also continue to inspire designers. According to my opinion, the
affective competence [not to confuse with the emotional] of an object has a
defining role when we judge the social and environmental competence and
thereby the overall durability of an object. Is it possible to design the
lifecycle of our production without regard to the affective? Is the
affective dominantly personal [as often claimed] or can this competence,
which I prefer to name quality, be taken into consideration by designers,
which I claim in my work?
Also when it comes to packaging, as referred to by Chris, re-appropriation
and re-use are most probably also guided by the affective quality. Have a
look at www.menus-bebe.fr  Not only are the jars/containers made for re-use,
but this is further encouraged by the fact that they are free from labels
and other information, which would make them look 'messy' after being in the
dishwasher and create mistakes about their content when re-used. Not
labelling the containers necessitates a second packaging (horror!) BUT these
boxes are appropriate as informative toys with their high quality colour
images of best quality primary produce; what every parent want to provide
their child with and also want them to recognise. Due to affective reasons,
the boxes do never have red bulbs announcing promotion, there are no small
plastic toys inside, to mention the most important. They are simplified but
not simple, they show awareness about how human perception works etc. They
are of course recyclable. The use of the product as such is socially
important in the ongoing debate about the quality of food: 'we are conscious
parents'. Without this strong affective quality penetrating the entire
concept, it would only have come half way, and joined the ranks of in
between them replaceable products.
If you want to look further into 'affective sustainability', you may go to
my blog http://thefoundobject.canalblog.com/ where you will find the
abstract to my thesis and a link to read the entire work.

Kristina

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Norm Sheehan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 2:59 AM
Subject: Re: Instigation Design


Dear all

Extending from Francois's post the social and environmental duration of
objects and the potential form and the impact of object durability in
terms of social and environmental ethics should be central to design
research ...not just in the negative spin that social conservatives
attach to these vital measures ... but because we may learn how to
design instigations ... that is design the life cycle of our
productions?

Norm
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Francois-Xavier Nsenga
Sent: Thursday, 23 August 2007 2:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Instigation Design

Dear Juris,

In my previous post, I proposed four loci where the activity of design
occurs as an instigation to design further, eventually. You responded
with the following suggestion:

 "It may be reasonable to propose a "fifth place" to find artifacts.
My anthropological understanding of the term compels me to suggest an
"afterlife", if you will, where the artifact comes to serve yet more
purposes unintended by its maker or user (ie the historical or
archaeological uses).  I mention this not to be facetious, but to
highlight the 'green' part of the original post by expanding the
context a bit, to perhaps reconceptualize the artifact's "life cycle
(...)"

You are absolutely right but, to me, there is no "afterlife" of
whatever. What there is, in fact, is just a continuum of different
phases of existence (or use) under respectively appropriate forms or
formats. So, to be more precise, you'd rather say: "after a certain kind
of use" instead of "afterlife".

If you agree with this above, then, there wouldn't be a "fifth place",
for the fourth in my proposed categorization includes what you consider
to be a fifth. Artifacts found and used for historical and archeological
purposes, those exhibited in museum or contained in all other cultural
places, they  are in fact in one of the twelve phases in the use process
of artifacts. We named this phase "disposal" (in the sense of orderly
arrangement) at the "end" of one cycle use, till resumption of some
other next use cycles...

Yours,


Francois
Montreal