Abstract
Today the need for circular manufacturing is widely recognized, and designers are considered responsible for choosing sustainable materials as well as making it desirable to the product’s audience. However, the typical designer’s education and toolkit do not allow them to think about environmental impact in quantitative terms, while local waste streams and available circular materials are often obscure and mediated through specialists. The overall goal of the presented research is to find ways for effectively channeling locally available circular materials (from pre- or post-consumer waste) into the design process, and therefore back into manufacturing cycle. To tackle such challenge, multiple fields were involved including material experts, computer science and design researchers, with an initial hypothesis that updating the designer’s digital toolbox could significantly enhance sustainable design practice. To understand the possibilities of intervention, three categories of stakeholders were identified: designers, furniture manufacturers and waste transformers, investigated through an initially wide mapping, then interviews. These interactions have highlighted several unexpected issues, such as regulatory complexity, lack of trust in environmental declarations, and blurry lines between supposedly different stakeholders. Nonetheless, the interview campaign, together with the analysis of available LCA tools and platforms, has helped define functionalities for an experimental platform, characterized by the integration of georeferenced circular materials with sustainability data, plugged directly into the designer’s modelling workflow. Such approach promises to embody sustainability knowledge in design tools, providing a continuous awareness about the environmental impact of choices and helping to develop a sense about it over time.
Presenters
Viktor MalakucziAssistant Professor, Department PDTA, Sapienza University of Rome, Roma, Italy Luca D'Elia
Researcher, Planning, Design, Technology of Architecture Department, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy Mariia Ershova
Research Fellow and PhD Student, Planning, Design and Technology of Architecture, Sapienza University of Rome, Roma, Italy Lorenzo Imbesi
Professor, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Design Management and Professional Practice
KEYWORDS
Sustainability; Product Design; Digital tools; Interaction Design; User research; Stakeholders
