Design and repair must work together to undo our legacy of waste

“Design” has been considered one of the large words of the 20th century. To say that an object has been designed implies a level of specialness. “Designer items” are invested with a selected form of expertise that’s prone to make them pleasing to make use of, stylish, or – less common in late-capitalist society – well made.

Due to this positive association, design has turn into an “elevator word”, to borrow a phrase utilized by philosopher of science Ian Hacking. Like the words “facts”, “truth”, “knowledge”, “reality”, “real” and “robust”, the word design is used to boost the extent of discourse.

“Repair” hasn’t had such a glossy recent history. We don’t have universities or TAFEs offering degrees in repair, churning out increasingly large numbers of repairers. Repair exists within the shadow of design, in retro, unofficial pockets. And, until recently, repair mostly passed unremarked.

British literary scholar Steven Connor points to the ambiguous status of repair in his evaluation of “fixing”. Connor discusses fixing and fixers within the context of related figures, resembling the tinker, bodger and mender, all of which share outsider status.

One is likely to be forgiven for pondering “design” and “repair” were opposing forces. The former word has turn into so certain up with notions of newness, improvement, performance and innovation that it emphatically signals its difference from the seamful, restorative connotations of repair.

If repair is hessian and wire, design is sleek uniformity. Repair is about upkeep. Design is about updating. Repair is ongoing and cyclical. Design is about creative “genius” and finish. To design is, supposedly, to conceive and complete, to repair is to make do.

But perhaps design and repair will not be, or ought to not be, as divergent as such a setting of the scene suggests. Thinking metaphorically of repair as design, and design as repair, can offer latest and useful perspectives on each of those vital spheres of cultural activity.

Repair and design have quite a bit in common

As a surface sheen that soothes us, design distracts us from any uncomfortable reminders of the disastrous excesses of world capitalist consumption and waste. The acquisition of recent “designs” becomes addictive, a fast hit of a fresh design assures us that life is progressing.

As each latest object is designed into existence and used over time, it’s accompanied by an inevitable need for repair that evolves in parallel. Repair, where possible, cleans up the mess left by design.

Design and repair are different though related approaches to the common problem of entropy. Repair may appear only to be about returning an object to its previous state, whether for functional or decorative purposes. But maintaining that state is a tough fought affair, no less invested by collective or personal value.

The act of repair can be a determinate of price. Whether at a person or collective scale, selecting to repair this, and discard or neglect that, shares much in common with the strategy of selection, which informs the design of objects, images, garments or spaces.

Apple is revered for its design

Apple’s outgoing Chief Design Officer Jonathan Ive’s influence at Apple is amongst essentially the most popularised examples of “successful design”, to which other designers and design students have long aspired. With Ive’s departure from Apple this yr, we now have a possibility to take an extended view of his legacy.

Since the distinctive bubble iMac in 1998, Ive shifted computing away from the beige, boxy uniformity of the IBM PC era, aligning computing with “high design” and investing it with deep popular appeal.

Even prior to Ive’s influence – take for instance the 1977 Apple II – Apple’s industrial design has played a fundamental role in transforming computers from machines for tinkerers, into desirable objects of self-actualisation, mixing leisure and labour with incomparable ease.

The iPhone is one amongst a collection of Apple products which have modified cultural expectations around consumer electronics, and other smart phone manufacturers have followed suit.

The ubiquity of iPhones makes it increasingly difficult to understand their strangeness. Not only do they seem sealed beyond consumer access, they almost induce a forgetting of seals altogether. The glistening surface expresses an idea of inviolability which is totally at odds with the high likelihood of wear and tear and tear.

The iPhone is maybe the final word example of a “black box”, an object that exhibits a pronounced distinction between its interior mechanics, which determine its functionality, and its exterior appearance. It gives nothing away, merely reflecting back at us through its “black mirror”, to borrow the title of Charlie Brooker’s dystopian television series.

The design of the iPhone – amongst other similar devices – forecloses against repair, each through its physical form, and in addition through the obsolescence built into its software and systems design, which defensively pits individuals against the ability of an enormous multinational company.

‘Right to repair’ is gaining ground

Apple deliberately discourages its customers using independent repair services. It has a track record of punishing people who’ve opted for independent repairs, moderately than going through Apple (at much greater expense). This is an example of the corporate’s try to keep its customers in an ongoing cycle of constant consumption.

This has put Apple – together with the agricultural equipment company John Deere – within the crosshairs of the growing Right to Repair movement within the United States. Right to Repair is centred on a drive to reform laws in 20 US states, targeting manufacturers’ “unfair and deceptive policies that make it difficult, expensive, or inconceivable so that you can repair the stuff you own”.

The movement could perhaps be criticised for focusing an excessive amount of on libertarian individualism. Other groups advocate more community-focused repair strategies, resembling the worldwide proliferation of Repair Cafes, and Sweden’s groundbreaking secondhand mall, ReTuna Recycling Galleria.

Either way, there may be agreement that something should be done to cut back the staggering amounts of e-waste we produce. In Australia alone, 485,000 tonnes of e-waste was generated in 2016/2017, and the annual rates are increasing.

This legacy of digital technology’s “anti-repairability” has been accepted as inevitable for a while, however the tide is popping. For example, the Victorian government has banned e-waste from landfill from July 1.

Designing for the longer term

Considering the increasing importance of responsible production and consumption, it is definitely conceivable that, in a not too distant future, designers and design historians might point to the iPhone as naive, regressive and destructive. An example of design with thoroughly dated priorities, just like the buildings within the Gothic revival style that provoked the ire of modernist architects.

Obscuring the wastage of helpful resources through sleek design may very well be decried as an outrageous excess, moderately than celebrated for its “simiplicity”. With the good thing about hindsight, we would finally see that the iPhone was the alternative of minimalism.

Perhaps the revered objects of this imagined future might be launched by an entrepreneur who spruiks features and services related to repair, moderately than pacing the stage, championing an object due to its slimness, sleekness and speed. Hackability, ease of access, modularity, spare parts and sturdiness is likely to be touted as a product’s best features.

Alternatively, if the usage of an object is decoupled from individual ownership, the responsibility for repair and waste might fall back on the producer. Perhaps “repair bins” will turn into a taken with no consideration feature of the urban landscape like curbside recycling bins are today.

To compel the pragmatists amongst us, such wishful pondering needs to stay mindful of the ability multinationals have demonstrated in thwarting dreams of open access. Repair-oriented practices still face vast challenges when it’s seemingly so convenient to waste. But to make use of considered one of the words of the day, aspirations should be articulated if we, collectively, need to have the prospect of living the dream.