Sustainable design. When you hear that concept, what comes to mind? Perhaps the kind of tricky award-winning design that turns corrugated cardboard into undulating chairs and stacked plywood into side tables. Maybe a jaunty bag, a mark of pride for any worldly traveller, handmade from discarded ring pulls. Though material consideration is only half the mantra. Sure, using renewables or reducing superfluous features are beneficial, however it’s inciting behavioural change that creates lasting impact. It’s inciting adherence through aesthetics.
Adherence and Aesthetics
If you’re a woman (or ever taken a sneaky look in her bathroom) chances are you have encountered a form of adherence through design before. Medically speaking, “adherence” means your ability to stick to a prescribed treatment without your doctor’s constant supervision. The contraceptive pill is a case in point. In a standard 28-day pack, seven inactive pills (made of sugar) are included to encourage the habit of taking a pill every day. When we repeat an action, it’s likely to stick.
Adherence isn’t the whole story. Enter aesthetics. If adherence is the hashtag lifehack, that makes aesthetics the “oooh shiny”. We’ve all heard the fable. A smart German engineer with a pre-hipster beard (Karlheinz Brandenburg) found out how to digitally compress music aka MP3 in the late eighties. Microsoft got involved then got caught up in lawsuits. A few companies clamoured to release their chunky portable media players in the late nineties. No one really cared. Three years later Apple released the sleek little iPod and the world changed forever.
On the flipside, aesthetics without adherence is a bit meaningless. The ultimate example of all six-pack no brain is the notorious Philippe Starck designed citrus squeezer with a name Juicy Salif, which has likely gouged more eyes than juiced oranges in its whole zany life. If you walk into someone’s apartment and a Juicy Salif is sitting on the marble kitchen counter like a futuristic squid-like alien, he’s probably Patrick Bateman. Just saying.
The Sauron of kitchen appliances
Rethinking sustainable design
Meanwhile, a bunch of clever local designers are rethinking sustainable design. This time around they are using aesthetics to make behaviour-shifting adherence magic. Let’s call it aesthetic adherence – you heard it here first. We want these things because they look good. We repeatedly use them because they work well, and bit by bit new, better habits form. Forget wonkily woven hemp bags, the new sustainable is so darn pretty you’ll be delighted to make a difference. Good design can launch a thousand Instagram likes. Great design can change the way we approach life.
Goodbye takeaway cups
The story has become part of local design lore. Two cafe owners and a love/hate relationship with coffee. Love: caffeinated beverages. Hate: takeaway coffee cups and the huge amount of wastage. Their barista-approved solution made waves winning worldwide fans. KeepCups are noted for their sturdiness and dishwash-ability but the big part that keeps people using them is the personalisation, a mix-and-match design just for you. And if that’s not your particular soy matcha latte, you could always take a moment and sit in.
Take me to the KeepCup.
Stop flushing trees
Those who live in apartments know only two rules apply. Either that thang takes up the tiniest amount of space possible, or it’s display worthy in an of-course-I’ve-read-this-tome-on-Bauhaus kind of way. With its geometric pastel paper wrapping, one look at Who Gives A Crap and you’ll pine to line your shelves with toilet paper. Yes, toilet paper. Not just a pretty face either, our new mates have created the ultimate look-good, do-good, feel-good solution donating half of their profits straight to charity to build toilets in the developing world. Win-win.
Take me to Who Gives A Crap.
Image | The Thousands
No more plastic toothbrushes in landfill
How often do you buy a new toothbrush? Every 3 – 4 months like your dentist recommends? Only when you realised your toothbrush resembles a shag pile rug? Every time you have a sleepover and they accidentally use your brush? Eww. Let’s not debate the need for dental hygiene, however, our keenness means Australians throw out over 30 million plastic toothbrushes every year. The bamboo toothbrush is a lovely alternative. Renewable material, tick. Biodegradable, tick. Plus their wooden body is just so Pinterest worthy. You’ll be ordering a box in no time.
Take me to the Environmental Toothbrush
Image | No Trash Project http://notrashproject.com/
Rethinking disposable razors
Razors, the toothbrush equivalent for chins and pins. Don’t be distracted by that unruly hipster beard on the bus, a bunch of us still love to shave. Truly it stings twice, first at the self-serve checkout and then for the environment when you hurl the blood-covered blunt torture instrument into the nearest bin. Fortunately, there’s a new homegrown solution to prolong the life of your blades reducing both cost and waste. It’s black, it’s sleek. It’s a portable razor case that sharpens your razors. I think this is one Patrick Bateman would also like, though don’t let that deter you.
I want to find my Razor Mate
Hello reusable water bottle
We’re pretty lucky in this country, occasionally we need a subtle nudge to remember it. We can drink water straight from the tap and yet we don’t, because, because, because… but here comes the reusable water bottle you actually want to carry around with you. The size of a thick A5 notepad, memobottle is instantly aesthetically pleasing. Plus the Melbourne-founded company are the first to truly appreciate the actual effort required to jam a standard cylinder into a satchel. We’ve taken it for a test run and found memobottle surprisingly ergonomic, not to mention a little satisfyingly jealousy inducing amongst our friends. But the best part? It’s good for the environment (of course it is) since it ‘reduces single-use water bottle consumption’, the worst kind of consumption.
Image | Juan Carlos Clavijo Calderon for The Vocal
Five Ways Australians Have Re-designed Our Lives For The Better appeared first on The Vocal.