Designed For Repair: Regeneratives Design Beyond Greenwashing
A lecture by Alexandra Fruhstorfer as part of the Lectures for Future series, hosted by Kunst und Raum | Objekt.
Not only financial markets, but also designers have been deeply complicit in the overproduction of goods—and the resulting, unnecessary extraction of resources—over the past decades.
For many years, the principle of planned obsolescence—the deliberate shortening of a product’s lifespan—was successfully employed as a design strategy to stimulate consumption and increase sales.
Today, the devastating consequences of this design philosophy can be seen in ecological disasters and social upheaval around the globe. In fact, 80% of a product’s environmental footprint is determined as early as the design phase. So how can we design for a planet at its limits?
A young generation of creatives is demonstrating how design can be understood beyond exploitation and the pursuit of profit: as a caring, social, and no less innovative practice. From regenerative processes to speculative experiments, the lecture uses a range of prototypical examples to illustrate how future-oriented design can inspire us to rethink product lifecycles—and our relationship with the things that surround us.
The lecture will be in English.