LMOW #2 : * Resourceful Design * Part 1 :) DIY Covid PPE , Cuba's Technological Disobedience & Prisoner Inventions

In contradiction to what's generally thought of as desirable, the design I love most is adhoc rugged solutions created by a non-designer making do, being resourceful with what they have on hand…

Hi Pals!

I am aware I have a Masters in Industrial Design and a BFA in Furniture Design and now run a design studio, so I do regularly make and sell and appreciate * nice * things. It’s hard to be a walking contradiction :) but ultimately the design I love most is adhoc rugged solutions created by a non-designer making do, being resourceful with what's on hand…

Resourceful Design is a term I use a lot and zero’d in on about 12-14 years ago, as far as I know it’s not a commonplace phrase in the design world but for me and some of my collaborators and students it’s become a standard phrase… there are other terms that are related and I look forward to sharing books/writings of other rugged design appreciators overtime , as for today I want to share 3 of my top favorite examples :)

It seems to me American Corporate Consumer Culture would like us to only place our resourceful-ness instincts in novel places like McGuiver-ish tv challenges for mass entertainment , but the daily practice of resourcefulness can unlock the critical thinking clever designer within all of us. “They” say writing by hand on paper 15 minutes a day can cause your brain to stay sharp over a decade longer. What’s the outcome if you were to create your own solutions for needs/wants in daily life? This feels especially important alongside the AI boom threatening to cut us off from our abilities and create a robot dependent society, lol. There is still a thriving DIY culture in the US and globally but oftentimes the DIY American culture can still feel rooted in consumerism, where we can easily pop to the store and find the exact supplies/tools we need at top dollar. I believe we see the truest resourceful design come out of difficult moments, like early Covid when there were supply shortages and people were fashioning their own PPE, primarily masks, out of everyday items — check out this CNN article of makeshift masks around the world HERE

or when in the early 1990s Cuba was isolated from the global economy and their govt called on all citizens to provide solutions for themselves and their families/communities resulting in a country wide engagement with resourcefulness resulting in countless ingenious items created for daily use and later researched and documented by Cuban artist Ernesto Oroza who called this practice Technological Disobedience— read more context and research outcomes from Oroza in THIS interview and THIS documentary and check out the pdf HERE of the book their govt provided the citizens to learn everything from fixing motors to hunting to growing crops and shoe making .

Or also what happens when people are incarcerated and need to provide everyday tools for themselves within prisons resulting in items , some examples include lighters, water heaters , rechargeable batteries ect, hacked together with intelligent combinations of disparate, creatively collected supplies - see examples in this amazing book Prisoner Inventions, a collaboration between incarcerated artist Angelo and Chicago based publishers at Half Letter Press .

These three examples are foundational to my love of everyday resourceful designers — resourceful design is a place we can all experiment outside the corporate consumer systems—-I often share these examples with my design students to challenge the perceived values within product design education , asking what is good design or bad design, especially in the context of “sustainability” and the understanding that the most sustainable product is the thing you already own.

A couple awareness disclaimers

-Cuba is currently being very negatively impacted by the US govt, I am no political correspondent but feel if I am mentioning/celebrating the Cuban people’s ingenuity, I need to explicitly say I do not support my govt’s treatment of this country, read more on whats happening HERE

-also I can understand how our corporate product design culture promotes safety, there are warranties & liability insurances for a reason, providing some security of functionality and longevity, but I also believe these systems are rooted in fear and are profit driven, and even if something does go wrong, I less and less trust the system to uphold its promises, so lalala, just saying…

Thanks for reading my first round of musings on Resourceful Design :) !

Elise