Dear Joćo,
Thank you for your message. It's an interesting and challenging PhD you
are starting.
The position you are taking on the issue you are tackling in your PhD is
interesting because it fits with some commonly held beliefs yet is
contradicted by observation of many designed products with significant
environmental effects. The assumption that 'long design life =
environmentally good' is not obviously true. For many it is part of a false
romantic emotional picture of the past rather than an understanding of the
practicalities of contemporary product production and use.
The evidence offers you opportunity in your thesis for some serious
analytical discussion on this design issue.
Increasing the length of life of products has in many cases proven to be a
'bad thing'. Increasing the length of life of products often results in
significantly increasing their adverse environmental impacts. This is the
*opposite* of what you are assuming in your research.
Obvious examples include:
* Vehicles - cars built in 2010 have only around 1% of the emissions of cars
in the 1990s. Designers designed the polluting cars of the 90s and before
for a life of 20 years or longer! It would have been better to design them
for a shorter design life.
* Paints - paint using lead continues to poison people in spite of it being
banned for some years. Designers added lead to paint to give the paint and
painted products a longer life. This has resulted in the products and paint
coatings still being around now. Paints would have been better to have been
designed for a shorter product life
* Packaging - Longevity of products requires designers to design packaging
to last longer. This can make it harder to dispose of the packaging in an
environmentally sound manner. It is better if packaging has a shorter life.
*Lighting - The recent change to compact fluorescent lights (CFL) was
justified by their 'long life'. Compact fluorescents now appear to be a
potential toxic problem at a household level leading to high level of
environmental waste. (If you break a CFL on a carpet or rug, current advice
is to carefully package the carpet / rug in plastic and dispose of the
carpet as toxic waste by taking it to the dump - preferably not inside your
car). We are likely to respond to the CFL problem by turning to LEDs, which
have their own problems and the justification is likely to be on the basis
of LEDs having a longer life...
* Design of long-life timber products - designers have used CCA treated
timber to make a variety of everyday products such as children's play
equipment. The arsenic in CCA presents a potentially significant
environmental health risk for children and adults (arsenic is a carcinogen)
and disposal of CCA treated timber is environmentally problematic as it
cannot be disposed of by decomposition or burning as both will release the
arsenic . Worse, the design life of such products is decades. Designing
products to have a shorter life would have enabled the use of less
environmentally unfriendly materials and outcomes.
* Buildings - most developed and developing parts of the world are plagued
with very large numbers of inappropriately designed buildings that are
environmentally problematic and unlikely to be replaced because of their
longevity of construction or, worse, their product attractiveness. Across
Europe, for example, there are large numbers of stone and brick dwellings
from 1850s-1950s that are environmentally problematic, often damp, have
poor energy efficiency and are environmentally expensive to maintain. Many
are toxic from damp-proofing and rot-proofing chemical treatments in the
1970s-1980s. Yet designers may problematically try to extend their design
life. Here in Australia, standards for environmental improvement change
rapidly. Houses are many times more environmentally efficient than those a
decade ago (or even a year ago). The only way to take advantage of these
changes in the standards of these 'designed products' is if they have
*shorter* design lives. Current, steel-framed buildings currently seem to
offer the best environmental opportunities, in part because they can have
short design lives and because steel is efficient to recycle and reuse in
short design life products.
*Computers and electronic equipment - the environmental design
characteristics of computer and electronic products are improving rapidly,
I'm sat in my office with several computers from 4 years ago that each draw
up to 600W. Newer computers are environmentally better - these older ones
use twice the power. The designers of older computers, however, designed
them to last a decade or more... Designing for a shorter life would have
been better.
There are many similar products in which shorter design life is better for
the environment. These products are significant because they have a larger
scale of environmental impacts than (say) the design of products such as
toothbrushes.
This is not a new discussion. The question of whether it is better to design
products for longer or shorter lives has been around since at least the 80s.
The assumption that it must be better to design things to last longer has
one of its origins in simple craft production, which in scale is now almost
irrelevant in environmental terms.
The number and scale of the factors suggesting it is environmentally better
to design for a *shorter* product life is likely to challenge you to some
interesting discussions in your literature review, methodology and
concluding chapters of your thesis as to when and where it is better to
design for longer product life and how best to evaluate the situation.
Best wishes,
Terry
____________________
Dr. Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI
Director Design-focused Research Group, Design Out Crime Research Centre
Researcher, Digital Ecosystems and Business Intelligence Institute
Associate, Planning and Transport Research Centre
Curtin University, PO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845
Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]
Member of International Scientific Council UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal
Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development
Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
____________________
-----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 Joćo
Martins
Sent: Sunday, 2 January 2011 6:52 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: PhD Research
Dear all,
My name is Joćo and I am a PhD student in Aveiro University, Portugal. In my
research I am interested in the concept of durability in product design,
more precisely increasing products life-cycle as an important contribution
to reducing the environmental impact, diminishing waste and energy
consumption caused by the design of new products.
I am at an early stage in my research so It would be great if you could
suggest bibliography, case studies or any other material that you think
might be of interest.
Many thanks in advance and a Happy New Year to everyone!
Joćo
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