new ideas

i put a few pictures up on my blog
comment if you would like....

A new home for old dental tools

This is an email I just sent out to about 30 dentists around Melbourne. I hope it is all spelt correctly. And if you know anyone in this industry who you think might be helpful for me or who I could contact, please leave a comment. Thanks

Hi,

My name is Mark Whiting; I am an RMIT student studying Industrial Design. Currently I am working on a project that intends to re-purpose retired dental picks for use by model making and sculpture students. Tools currently sold for this purpose are low quality and the higher quality alternative, new dental picks, are prohibitively expensive for students.

Does your company regularly cycle its picks and would you be interested in contributing to this project? We would be very appreciative of anything you have to offer.

Many Thanks,

Mark Whiting

Mobile: this was in the real email

Email: S3078530 the rest was in the real email

superuse.org

Superuse is an awesome site / community that you and your products can become a part of.


it features things like......
and much more

produced by Pervisioni

-

Story:
Cutting Up Knives is a production of selected knives, modified to become bottle openers through the application of an industrial process.Each bottle opener is individually chosen and cut. Beautiful name brand knives have been ruthlessly transformed, while factory rejects and second hand knives have been recycled, modified to become useful once again, functionally reassigned , yet still connected to their own unique history.

craft victoria

Craft Victoria has lots of infromation and projects that will be useful:

the south project looks at the special practices of nations /cultures in the southern hemisphere - lots of recycling ased craft practices
http://www.southproject.org/keys/trashtreasure.htm

they have a blog that has lots fo great information
http://craft-victoria.blogspot.com/

and another ongoing project called common goods
http://www.craftvic.asn.au/commongoods/

This is an exerpt from an email from John Gertsakis who I contacted about electronic waste while I was looking for secondhand keyboards. He is very helpful and is interested about the outcome of the project. I said I'd let him know how my project ended up but if others are interested I'm sure he would like to see them....

"The best person to speak with about what IT manufacturers/suppliers are
doing in Australia, is Josh Millen. Josh is the best person to give you
an industry wide view. He is the environment/sustsainability person at
the Australian Information Industry Association. The AIIA represent
companies such as HP, Dell, Lenovo etc.
Josh Millen jmillen@aiia.com.au

From a policy and projects perspective talk to Jan van DeGraff. Jan
runs the Bytback project and he knows lots about It recycling related
things. Tel: 8626 8700

I'm also developing a national take back and recycling scheme for one
of my clients (Product Stewardship Australia) and their focus is on TVs.
Our members include Sharp, Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic etc. Some
cross-over here with your interests. More importantly out web site has a
resources page that lists several of Australia's main ewaste
recyclers. See: http://www.productstewardship.asn.au/organisations.htm"

For all those asking about Wilkins and Kent here is the info

http://www.wilkinsandkent.com/

Address:
230 Brunswick St,
Fitzroy, Victoria,
Australia.

Phone/Fax: +61 3 9419 5251

Email: info@wilkinsandkent.com

They do furniture plus other design knick knacks

So thats where all the seagulls are

As I was riding high on a couple of strong morning coffees I headed out to the Melbourne Waste Transfer place out on Dynon Rd after class; this is that story.

Well it turned out that I couldn't get access to the site at all because I was,
- not in a car (I was on my pushie and therefore 'pedestrian traffic')
- I didn't have any rubbish to dump

So you can't actually get in there and you can't have a look around. The guy at the gate told me that they used to have a recycling centre but not anymore, so what can be sold is but the rest goes to landfill.

If you want to have a go I'd suggest taking a car and tell them that you have to dump some rubbish costs about a tenner I think.

a design exercise

ok - so you are stuck for ideas...
The problem here is that you do not have the time to get stuck - so you need to get over your stuckness!

so here is an exercise to get you thinking.
1. get a camera (digital)
2. set aside a couple of hours
3. go for a walk in a high denisty residential area (inner city suburb)
4. look for instances of people "fixing" things with other things.
eg.) car wheels bolted to walls for garden hoses to be stored, coat hanger car arials etc
5. photograph every instance (no matter how bizzaar or boring) once and find as many as you can.
6. pull all of these photos into some sort of grid (a 9x9 square matrix works well = 81 photos)
7. print out the matrix and start looking for patterns, methods, materials etc.
8. if you do not have at least 10 new ideas form doing this in a two hour period than you are not utilising your creativity - so force yourself to think - quicky sketch the idea on an A4 page.
9. spread all of your A4 concepts out on the floor and in your mind transplant the idea into a 'high design context" -
10. discard ideas that either simply don't cut it - or those those that easilly fit in that context /market (these will be predictable -and therfore won't work)
11. further develop the ideas that you are unsure about
12. illustrate them
13. apply a material that has some relationship / contrast to the application
14. go looking for that material
15. make it

good luck

By Product: Materials, Systems And Processes

What is Material?

ma·te·ri·al

–noun

· the substance or substances of which a thing is made or composed

· anything that serves as crude or raw matter to be used or developed

· any constituent element.

–adjective

· formed or consisting of matter; physical; corporeal: the material world.

· relating to, concerned with, or involving matter: material forces.

[Origin: 1300–50; ME māteriālis of, belonging to matter.]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

What is Waste?

‘Waste’ in relation to the utilization of material is in some senses a misnomer. The only waste that can really happen in the production of anything from material is in the gradual entropy that occurs in the transfer of energy from one form to another. That is – material is still material even if it is not used – but:

· in not using it there is an expenditure of energy that is not capable of being included in the ‘outcome.

· There is a gradual degradation /decay / disappearance of material through a process of transference from one form to another

Deciding that something (material) is not useful is not ‘waste’ unless it is not recaptured and put into another system (ie: it gets suspended in land fill)

In short – There is no such thing as “waste material” – only neglected material resources.

This “waste material” can be categorized simply in three main ways:

1. Virgin Material waste

2. Pre-consumer material waste

3. Post-consumer material waste

For a good overview visit: Solid Waste Characterization Database

http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/wastechar/MatDefs.htm

In each of these categories the material type can further define its capacity for being integrated into a production system. The complexity of the material and its processing systems generally increases as the material / product goes from:

virgin material - product - Pre-consumer material waste (from product manufacture) -- distribution (product to market / packaging etc) --
poiint of purchase (additional materials) --wear and tear in use-- end of life -- post consumer waste --- being mixed with other waste materials.

Dealing with waste

Sources: where do you find a reliable source – this stage requires you to think like a miner – waste material is valuable, and its scarcity can elevate its materal value. (eg. Highly recyclable materials are generally put back into the system rapidly.)

Collection:

Collecting can be difficult and the input needs to be included in the actual calculation of the value of the material.

The quantity collected needs to have some relationship to the end product value and the waste stream.

Collected material may need to be sorted (infrastructure implications)

The source and process of collection needs to have some relationship / position in the identity of the end product (ie. it becomes part of the product story)

Processing

There are over arching two ways to process materials:

1. Low Input: simple ways of either – cleaning, re-forming, recontextualizing the material in the form in which it is collected

2. High Input: returning the material to a base state so that a manufacturing process can be used to treat the material as a virgin material might be treated (ie: grinding it up into a material with no real form and forming it / Melting it down / Crushing etc)

Systems:

The systems designed and deployed are as important as the product you are designing. Without a robust set of systems for: sourcing / supply, collection, materials sorting, manufacture, distribution (taking the product to market) – you don’t really have a product to mention. In all systems there is a process of “loss” – not all material can or will be used (scrap). Energy inputs will be needed to service the systems which must be incorporated into the product cost / business planning.

So how do you do it?

You need to project the perceived value / retail price of your design and then compare that against the estimated costs incurred form your processes and systems needed to “make’ the product. You need to think of inputs: Time, cash, infrastructure, utilities, expertise etc as all having a dollar value.

If your ‘perceived value’ is less than the cost of delivering it then you need to rethink the product and the systems deployed.

The trick is to aim for minimal inputs and maximum return.

DELIVERABLES

Semester 1/2007 RMIT Industrial Design

Elective title: By Product

Lecturers: Simone LeAmon and Liam Fennessy

Contact: nplus1@netspace.net.au and liam.fennessy@ems.rmit.edu.au

Duration and credit points: 13 Weeks / 12 credit points

Room, day and time: room ** 11.C.012 **, Wednesday, 9.30-11.30am

By Product: <>

Participation: each week students are required to bring the following items to class:

· Evidence of research and product development

·

The following deliverables are to be completed in non-contact hours. However, you will be introduced to each task within class, alongside tutorials. Each deliverable will be used in class on the due date. Please be sure to complete tasks on time and bring copies of your texts to class, so the schedule can work effectively.

D.1 Product Idea >>Due: 4 April

Your first task is to develop a product idea that meets the demands of the learning objectives. Your product idea may take the form of a household or outdoor item, personal item, luxury good, service or facility. (We recommend that you stay away from developing jewellery products and consumables). The market potential of your product idea will be assessed rapidly so it is important that you support your ideas with good research and/or evidence of a prospective market.

Once you have a product idea you will need to attend to its design and resolve a satisfactory prototype. If your product idea is a service or facility you will need to visualise it – produce preliminary design drawings and schematics.

Further to developing your design you will need to develop a narrative for your product. This is where your material research and knowledge of its history is critical. To construct an interesting and appealing story for your market you will need to know how to ‘celebrate’ and reveal the unique qualities and features of your product. This narrative will be used to help ‘pitch’ your product idea to the European market.

Your product design and narrative are packaged together to form 8 pages in an A5 presentation book. You will need to design your own layout and submit 8 copies. Please observe the guidelines faithfully so the book can be bound successfully.

Simone will show the By Product book to retailers, distributors and people of note in Milan during Salone del Mobile in April. This exercise hopes to identify opportunities for trade, trade development and media.

The more resolved your product idea is the more seriously it will be received!

D.2 Business Flow Chart >>Due: May 9

Now that you have a product idea, design, a story and Simone in Milan toting your ideas you will need to create a flow chart to turn your idea into a business reality!

A flow chart entails much research and analysis however it can be a liberating and empowering experience to validate your ideas and designs in a commercial context. So you shouldn’t underestimate the role of design in your flow chart – the objective is to find the best possible streams for production, distribution and point of sale. The objective is to find the cleanest, fastest, most economical and reliable streams for all the material and labour inputs in your product. At this point you may start to think twice about your product and adapt your design or production to some new revealed conditions.

Your flow chart is to be a professional ‘working’ document. It will change according to external and internal conditions so, it should be formatted to make editing easy. You will be shown some examples.

D.3 Serial batch production or analysis and feasibility study >> Due: June 4

You can decide to pursue one of two directions for deliverable 3. If you are confident that you can fund and achieve batch production for immediate sale then go for it! Otherwise you can continue on from the flow chart and proceed with a feasibility study. A study such as this is often conducted when large sums of money are required to get the product up and running. For those of you who have developed a service or facility idea this will be a vital contribution to marketing your product to potential financiers and investors. Your study will require some serious business analysis and may require business advice. Part of this study might entail identifying a business mentor or advisor.

D.4 Book Contribution no. 2 >> Due: June 18

You need to re-visit your contribution to the By Product book and produce a new and up-dated version.

You sill need to supply 4 copies.

WHAT

Semester 1/2007 RMIT Industrial Design

Elective title: By Product

Lecturers: Simone LeAmon and Liam Fennessey

Contact: nplus1@netspace.net.au and liam.fennessy@.rmit.edu.au

Duration and credit points: 13 Weeks / 12 credit points

Room, day and time: room ** 11.C.012 **, Wednesday, 9.30-11.30am

By Product: SCHEDULE

This elective is structured as a micro design studio. Students will be asked to research, develop, design, prototype and set in place a robust business model for new products produced with minimal intervention from industrial waste for the European high design scene. It will be fast paced and pragmatic.

Recycling and repurposing offers significant and creative opportunities for learning about design, material, production and distribution. While this avenue of design activity has strong links with the sustainability movement, DIY Communities, and design for development, it is really about the business end of design and manufacture. It is about designing commercially robust product systems that have a very high consumer value with minimal overheads and inputs. It is about understanding material, the economics of design and branding. Its about making a practical and profitable contribution to solving our desire to consume buy challenging notions of consumption through design. Its about taking design into areas that are either too messy, smelly, to corrupt for the rest to handle.

Key learning objectives

1. Enhance lateral thinking;
2. Develop fast-paced design and entrepreneurial responses to waste material;
3. Appreciate material properties and manufacturing processes;
4. Understand target markets and the demands of servicing high design retailers and distributors;
5. Develop a design-relative, material and business vocabulary;
6. Develop marketing and sales skills;
7. Be informed of the histories, knowledge and theories that support, dominate and frame your product;

You will need to be proactive – conduct work each week and move with the program.

Activities

• Discussion
• Research
• Material ‘play’
• Designing
• Reading
• Writing
• Meeting industry professionals
• Frequenting high design stores

Organise a Project Folder – use it to house and compile ALL relevant material. Keep both a digital and corporeal folder for easy access during classes.

Deliverables

1. Product Idea

2. Business Flow Chart

3. Serial batch production or analysis and feasibility study for production and distribution or service facility

• Expectations: Please arrive to class on time – 2 hours goes very quickly! Bring your material, research and support material each week for analysis and discussion.

week schedule

Semester 1/2007 RMIT Industrial Design

Elective title: By Product

Lecturers: Simone LeAmon and Liam Fennessey

Contact: nplus1@netspace.net.au and liam.fennessy@ems.rmit.edu.au

Duration and credit points: 13 Weeks / 12 credit points

Room, day and time: room ** 11.C.012 **, Wednesday, 9.30-11.30am

By Product: WEEKLY PROGRAM

28 February Introduction to course work

Discussion Topic: Scales of material value

Simone LeAmon and Liam Fennessy

Homework: Material research

March 7 Case Study: Bowling Arm

Simone LeAmon

Discussion and assessment of material research conducted in week 1

Homework: Material research and product ideas > start designing

Design store visit: National Design Centre Store, Federation Square

National Gallery Store, Federation Square

March 14 Case study: Material systems and processes

Liam Fennessy and Simone LeAmon

Group revision of material research, product ideas and design.

Design store visit: Space Furniture, Church Road Richmond.

March 21 Individual Tutorials: Product designs resolved

Simone LeAmon

Prototypes and visualisations need to be on their way!

This time is dedicated to critique and assessing your product in view of the market.

Homework: Research and compile information for your products’ narrative

March 28 Product Narratives

Simone LeAmon

Workshop: Participants will share stories, develop narratives and start writing about their products. These narratives are an integral part of your product and must be polished for inclusion in the By Product book.

April 4 Deliverable 1 Due: Book contribution

Presentations. This will be your last opportunity to speak about your product before Simone heads to Milan.

EASTER BREAK

April 18 Business Flow chart

Liam Fennessy

April 25 Business Flow chart

Liam Fennessy

May 2 Business Flow chart

Liam Fennessy

May 9 Deliverable 2 Due: Flow Chart

Simone

May 16

May 23

May 30

June 6

June 13

June 20

Reblog and Tagging

When writing posts on this blog please use useful tags to ensure the blog is well organized.

If you are interested in contributing to the reblog please put your shared feed urls in the comments of this post and I will compile them.

inhabitat for all sorts of ideas

click image

Vessel, recycled Dutch yeast container
Sudan, Darfur Province
Collected by Natalie Tobert, 1984-85, acc. 1985.
5-10456

from the Pheobe A Hearst Museum Of Anthropology

Re-contextualizing a product that has reached the end of it's legimate life is common practice in cultures where the luxury of disposal does not exist - if you by a tin of yeast - then you are buying the yeast, the material (steel), its manufactured form (can), and its surface / colour.

byproduct.org - waste brokers

ByProduct Organization is established to maximize waste diversion efforts and preserve resources.

The ByProduct Organization operates as part of a global recycling network of waste and material exchanges promoting by-product synergy. The Exchange acts as an information clearinghouse and not as a dealer, broker, processor/consumer of waste materials. The information clearinghouse services provided are free of charge and the ByProduct Organization is not involved in the transactions between generators and consumers of the materials listed in the Exchange.

product service systems

Product / Service / Systems:

The way in which you illustrate / visually communicate your business venture is vitally important.
Put simply: How potential markets witness your activities from a quick and initial view is how they decide to commit to either purchasing your product, investing in your system or opening up their other wise wasted material – so it is essential to do it really well.

The web links below give a snapshot of both good and bad examples of visual communication of service / business systems. Spend some time looking at how they do what, think about how you respond to the visual information and how that leads you into the “story” of that venture.

http://www.changemakers.net/studio/02july/ceibo2.cfm

http://www.sushouse.tudelft.nl/

http://www.interfaceinc.com/

http://www.myplanet.com.au/

http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/recycle/finguide/index.htm

http://www.howtoadvice.com/PaperRecycling/

http://www1.sac.ac.uk/info/External/Publications/WasteRecycling/

http://www.co.steele.mn.us/ENVSERV/waste.html


software / business systems: http://www.tegos.de/english/

Just to give you some background on Recycling Incubator...
It started with a scheme to get the Victorian Government (sustainability Victoria) to fund with RMIT Industrial Design over 5 years the development of design focused recycling businesses - I applied for a grant and didn't get it.
The economic modelling of it made lots of sense - if you supported a small business (students) with overheads (office, phone, computer etc) and gave a $25K grant per year - to five start up businesses who deal in waste materials - you could be fairly certain that within a two year period at least two businesses would survive and would be turning over around $150k pa. If you gave this grant to 5 new businesses every year for 5 years (a little over 3 million) - a further 4.5 million would be bought back into the victorian economy at the most conservative estimate - and a very large amount of waste would be intercepted and put back into the system before it got to landfill - so this is sustainability form a completely commercial angle - and it makes for very good business.
So here we are now with simone - and your ideas.

Pascal Anson

Pascal Anson.

Some of you will know – Hooria and Dan do.
Pascal came and did a workshop at rmit in 2006 – much of his work sits in the area we are working in

He did a project with wedgewood ceramics – reunifying industrial rejects in to new sets - and this lead to opshop cutlery, chairs and furniture - his work is fun and cleverly manages to recontextualise the goods we reject as imperfect or mismatched into significant design statements.

http://www.iampascal.com/web03/Rcrockandcut.html

DESIGNFORFUTURE.ORG

Made by bees 2005 > Studio Libertiny (NL)
A series of vases made by 40.000 bees in a beehive.
time: 1 week
www.studiolibertiny.com












DESIGNFORFUTURE.ORG


Links / resources

Materio
An independente information center on materials and innovative products.
www.materio.com

Environmentalpaper
An online resource for purchasers, environmental organizations, industry, and individuals. The Environmental Paper Network is a diverse group of environmental organizations joined together to support socially and environmentally sustainable transformations within the pulp and paper industry.
www.environmentalpaper.org

Designinsite
An informative guide based on materials and processing used in industrial design.
www.designinsite.dk

Re(F)USE
A program initiated by University of Delft, Netherlands. This database shows examples of sustainable and environmental friendly materials and products.
www.re-f-use.com

AZom
Search engine for materials and applications.
www.azom.com

MaterialSense
Travelling and growing exhibition of intelligent materials.
www.materialsense.com

Wasteonline
Information about urban waste, their methods of recycling for a sustainable use of resources.
www.wasteonline.org.uk

Recyclicity
Network which informs and promotes re-use of industrial waste. The waste is collected and free of charge distributed for other applications. Various links to projects and designs which have been realised within this system.
www.recyclicity.net

By Product Elective Blog

Hi everyone, this is the By Product Elective Blog. Please email me your email address with By Product Elective Blog in the subject line and I will invite you. Also if you want a manager account please say so in the email.

My student number is S3078530 and I use my student email.