This thesis aims at exploring how design can improve the sustainable business model of circular economy (CE) by evaluating the consideration of human needs instead of materiality. Assuming that the model is feasible and identifying a weakness of the CE model - the lack of considering human needs - the research part of the thesis will explore barriers, limits, driver factors, opportunities, development perspectives, case studies, school of thoughts and role of associations and personalities with the aim of improving the model and understanding how to accommodate for this. Part of the thesis will be driven by dialogues with realities and personalities that are active in this topic. The thesis wants to provide an alternative approach to the sustainability discussion in which the role of the designer would be to not focus on the material circularity but rather minimize environmental impact by meeting the human and system needs. The research questions are: Which is the main obstacle in the sustainable model in relation to users? How can we design by better considering the socio-ethical dimension of sustainability? The analysis identifies the furniture market as a way to show the new findings since it represents an excellent system for improvement of the sustainable model because it is strongly related to users’ behaviours and on the interaction between people and the surrounding environment. Furthermore, the furniture market can be improved in a sustainable way since it has a big impact on the environment balance sheet: "European businesses and consumers discard and estimated 10 million tonnes of furniture each year. Simultaneously, 10.5 million tonnes of new furniture is produced annually with remanufacturing accounting for less than 2%." The research part identify that the main obstacle for products in a CE framework is the psychological obsolescence, which can be avoid by design taking in consideration users’ needs; that to improve the sustainable model it is necessary work on the socio-ethic dimension by considering behaviors of the people in the space as their needs. The experimental part is organized in two workshops and a final project. The two workshops will be used to show the validity of the theoretical part and as a brainstorming stage of the project. The project will represent the application of the findings in which the guidelines are: sustainable production, system thinking and users behaviours. The goal of the project is to design a furniture system for public transitional areas, also called non-space by the French anthropologist Marc Augé - like airports, exhibitions, museums, entrances,.. - that follows users behaviours in order to avoid psychological obsolescence. In other words design a product or a series of products that will have an increased lifespan.
Questa tesi mira ad esplorare come il design possa migliorare il modello di business sostenibile dell’economia circolare valutando la considerazione dei bisogni umani anziché l’aspetto legato ai materiali. Supponendo che il modello sia possibile e identificando in esso la principale debolezza - la mancanza di considerazione rispetto ai bisogni delle persone - la parte di ricerca della tesi esplorerà barriere, limiti, fattori trainanti, opportunità, prospettive di sviluppo, casi studio, scuole di pensiero e il ruolo che hanno associazioni e personalità con l'obiettivo di migliorare il modello e comprendere come adattarsi a questo. Parte della tesi sarà guidata dal dialogo con realtà e personalità attive sulla tematica. La tesi vuole fornire un approccio alternativo alla discussione sulla sostenibilità in cui il ruolo del progettista sarebbe quello di non concentrarsi unicamente sulla circolarità dei materiali, ma piuttosto ridurre al minimo l'impatto ambientale soddisfacendo le esigenze umane e del sistema. Le domande di ricerca sono: Qual è il principale ostacolo nel modello sostenibile in relazione agli utenti? Come possiamo progettare considerando meglio la dimensione socio-etica della sostenibilità? L'analisi identifica il mercato del mobile come il settore in cui mostrare i risultati della ricerca, poiché rappresenta un eccellente sistema in cui migliorare il modello sostenibile dal momento che è fortemente correlato ai comportamenti degli utenti e all'interazione tra questi e l’ambiente circostante. Inoltre, il mercato del mobile può essere migliorato in termini di sostenibilità poiché ha un grande impatto sul bilancio ambientale: "Le imprese e i consumatori europei scartano e stimano 10 milioni di tonnellate di mobili ogni anno. Contemporaneamente vengono prodotti 10,5 milioni di tonnellate di nuovi mobili annualmente con una contabilità di rigenerazione inferiore al 2%. " La parte di ricerca identifica che il principale ostacolo per i prodotti in un quadro di economia circolare è l'obsolescenza psicologica, che può essere evitata progettando tenendo in considerazione le esigenze degli utenti. Inoltre prova che per migliorare il modello sostenibile è necessario lavorare sulla dimensione socio-etica considerando i comportamenti e i bisogni delle persone nello spazio. La parte sperimentale sarà organizzata in due workshop e un progetto finale. I due workshop verranno utilizzati per dimostrare la validità della parte teorica e inoltre come fase di brainstorming per l’avvio della fase progettuale. Il progetto rappresenterà l'applicazione dei risultati in cui le linee guida sono: produzione sostenibile, pensiero del sistema e comportamenti degli utenti. L'obiettivo del progetto è quello di progettare un sistema di arredo per aree di transizione pubbliche, anche chiamate “non-space” dall'antropologo francese Marc Augé - come aeroporti, mostre, musei, ingressi, ... - che è progettato seguendo i comportamenti degli utenti al fine di evitare la sua stessa l'obsolescenza psicologica. In altre parole, progettare un prodotto o una serie di prodotti che abbiano una durata di utilizzo maggiore.
Altitudes. A systemic, circular and human centered furniture solution for public spaces
POLI, FRANCESCA
2018/2019
Abstract
This thesis aims at exploring how design can improve the sustainable business model of circular economy (CE) by evaluating the consideration of human needs instead of materiality. Assuming that the model is feasible and identifying a weakness of the CE model - the lack of considering human needs - the research part of the thesis will explore barriers, limits, driver factors, opportunities, development perspectives, case studies, school of thoughts and role of associations and personalities with the aim of improving the model and understanding how to accommodate for this. Part of the thesis will be driven by dialogues with realities and personalities that are active in this topic. The thesis wants to provide an alternative approach to the sustainability discussion in which the role of the designer would be to not focus on the material circularity but rather minimize environmental impact by meeting the human and system needs. The research questions are: Which is the main obstacle in the sustainable model in relation to users? How can we design by better considering the socio-ethical dimension of sustainability? The analysis identifies the furniture market as a way to show the new findings since it represents an excellent system for improvement of the sustainable model because it is strongly related to users’ behaviours and on the interaction between people and the surrounding environment. Furthermore, the furniture market can be improved in a sustainable way since it has a big impact on the environment balance sheet: "European businesses and consumers discard and estimated 10 million tonnes of furniture each year. Simultaneously, 10.5 million tonnes of new furniture is produced annually with remanufacturing accounting for less than 2%." The research part identify that the main obstacle for products in a CE framework is the psychological obsolescence, which can be avoid by design taking in consideration users’ needs; that to improve the sustainable model it is necessary work on the socio-ethic dimension by considering behaviors of the people in the space as their needs. The experimental part is organized in two workshops and a final project. The two workshops will be used to show the validity of the theoretical part and as a brainstorming stage of the project. The project will represent the application of the findings in which the guidelines are: sustainable production, system thinking and users behaviours. The goal of the project is to design a furniture system for public transitional areas, also called non-space by the French anthropologist Marc Augé - like airports, exhibitions, museums, entrances,.. - that follows users behaviours in order to avoid psychological obsolescence. In other words design a product or a series of products that will have an increased lifespan.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
---|---|---|---|
Altitudes_Thesis_Master_pt1_FrancescaGiuliaPoli.pdf
non accessibile
Descrizione: Thesis text_pt1
Dimensione
29.46 MB
Formato
Adobe PDF
|
29.46 MB | Adobe PDF | Visualizza/Apri |
Altitudes_Thesis_Master_pt2_FrancescaGiuliaPoli.pdf
non accessibile
Descrizione: Thesis text_pt2
Dimensione
106.22 MB
Formato
Adobe PDF
|
106.22 MB | Adobe PDF | Visualizza/Apri |
I documenti in POLITesi sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
https://hdl.handle.net/10589/165313