Co-design and hyper-consumerism : technology, participation and ceramics

This study argues that recent design approaches that aim to mitigate hyper-consumerism have not developed a sufficient desire in consumers for environmental stewardship. The research examines historical, recent and current design approaches to environmental care. Drawing on both new-craft and co-design, the study explores the hypothesis that co-designing new-craft provides opportunities for the development of greater stewardship of the local environment. The research draws on the definition of new-craft as a combination of technology and craft and on the work of the research collective A. Telier to define co-design as a reframing of design through an assembly of human and non-human actors that shifts a designer-centred model to a participatory framework. The study describes my practice-based research and the development of a co-design game that includes new-craft technologies and locates it in relation to recent European research into co-design and new-craft. The practical component of the research, titled Play Pot Print - A New-Craft Co-Design Workshop, employed a new combination of technology, participation and ceramics. The study critically examines the insights into environmental stewardship gathered from the documentation participants’ experiences of design, sustainability and consumerism, and a series of co-designed 3D printed ceramic objects created in the workshop. The accounts participants’ experiences of local hyper-consumerism issues and their recalling of previous experiences of care for the local environment suggested a developing environmental stewardship. The conclusion accounts for the opportunities and pitfalls of a participatory 3D printing experience, as an amalgamation of new-craft and co-design, in the development of a greater awareness of environmental stewardship