Case studies, People, Design

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In producing the Sayl chair, we removed 30% of the materials for a chair in this category, of this caliber.  The first consideration in building a chair is structural.  When we removed so many materials, less had to do a lot more.  The materials we chose had to carry a lot of weight and maintain structural integrity and function.  The choices were not about what the material was, but more along the line:  “This material of reinforcing fibers (glass and nylon) is what’s allowed without having a visual implications or being oversized.”  It was a game of visual and size considerations to accomplish structural integrity.

While C2C doesn’t recognize dematerialization, per se (I think it should), it does recognize the impact savings associated with shipping a lighter product.  For us, this was substantial: by designing a light chair to fit together in two pieces — a 5 second assembly process by the buyer — we were able to fit the chair into a package half the size and volume of a comparable chair.  In return for this “labor,” we thank our customers for helping achieve a significant savings in carbon and cost.  We need to consider how to make things better, but also consider the elements of dematerialization.  “Less” and “better” both have to be considered.

Ideally, I’d like to get a sense of a material palette — which we did with some of the obvious elements.  Having a palette where you could see the strength ratio relative to the C2C criteria would be interesting.  Then I could make these choices in real time.  These alternatives are presented more toward the end of the process, not in anticipation of the design or even during the exploration, but once the design has been finalized.  At that point, you can maybe use A or B.  If we could make informed choices during the process, the product would be intelligently designed. 

Materials have to come within cost projections, and be able to be multi-sourced.  Materials in the eco-design space are very niche, constraining our ability to use them, and cost prohibitive.  The challenge isn’t just to find the right materials to make 5 or 10, but to apply them to much higher levels of production. 

The category change where I’d like to see the most change is plastics.  When you can, using metals or natural materials is a straight-forward choice.  Plastics variations and combinations, on the other hand, are vast.  The scale of a plastic material’s use, and the specific demands of the manufactured product, are performance and cost-driven.  This keeps most alternatives out of the realm.  We need to be able to point to, push toward, and start using these materials in quantities to bring the price point down.  I’ve seen that happen in other places, like compostable shopping bags, where the ability for cities to impose the use of compostable bags has triggered an entire industry to develop that makes the whole idea feasible.  Specifically, this has happened in San Francisco, but it’s happened elsewhere, too.

Companies do want to be leaders, but the awareness of those alternatives, responsibilities and what they mean in the long-run need to be easily findable.  That’s what the Institute can do.