From the moment of purchase, pristine objects are subjected to an array of stimuli including
wear, impact, heat, light, water and air which alter their tactile and aesthetic properties. Material change is often regarded as ‘damage’ or ‘degradation’, but has potential to be used as a tool to engender emotional engagement to an object and extend product lifetimes. The potential benefits, and complications, associated with material change in the context of designing for the circular economy and other sustainable product service systems is discussed. We present a framework for designers to better understand how materials change with use, and in turn how people respond to materials as they change. Key challenges are identified which must be
overcome to use this framework in design practice: people’s physical interaction with objects is poorly understood, it is difficult to simulate material change, materials resources for designers do not provide information about material change, and people’s responses to aged materials depend on a complex web of interacting factors.
Funding
This work was supported by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council who provided all funding for this work as part of the Closed Loop Emotionally Valuable E-waste Recovery project (EP/K026380/1), and Granta Design (https://www.grantadesign.com) and SCIN (http://scin.co.uk) who provided access to their materials specification resources.
History
School
Design
Published in
PLATE 2017 Product Lifetimes and the Environment
Citation
BRIDGENS, B. and LILLEY, D., 2017. Understanding material change: design for appropriate product lifetimes. IN: Bakker, C. and Mugge, R. (eds.) PLATE: Product Lifetimes and The Environment, Conference Proceedings, 8-10 November, 2017, Delft, NL. Amsterdam: IOS Press, pp. 54-59.
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Acceptance date
2017-02-27
Publication date
2017
Notes
This is an Open Access Article. It is published by IOS Press under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b-nc/4.0/