LIKE LONG LIFE PRODUCTS
Ezio Manzini has proposed that all products should be one of only three types:
1) If it is foreseen that they will have short use-life, then they should be made of components and materials that can be disassembled and reused (before being recycled or biodegraded).
2) If it is foreseen that they will have a changing medium-length use-life, then they should be made in a modular fashion that allows maintenance, upgrade and repair, and then, at the end of their life, disassembly for components and materials reuse (before being recycled).
3) If it is foreseen that they will have a long use-life, they should be made reliable, durable, maintainable and repairable.
However, for type 3 long-life products, more is required than careful design of the materiality of the product. Part of the world's unsustainability comes from the fact that too many type 1 short-life products are made from materials that are best suited to type 2 and 3 products. The consequence is waste; vast quantities of broken or discarded products that refuse to break down.
More significantly in regard to sustainments, products made of fragile materials or in fragile ways can be made to last a very long time, if treated carefully. This suggests that making a type 3 product, or extending the life of a type 2 product, requires as much design of the context of a product's use as it does design of the actual product itself. It is in this way that long-life products are the cause and result of sustainments.
Eternally Yours for example, a group of Dutch designers, researches the psychology and sociology of things, discerning how people relate to the products they use. From what they learn, Eternally Yours make recommendations about how relations with products can be designed into products so that the use-life of those products are extended. (Which products for example would you repair rather than replace, even if repair costs more than replacement?) The outcome are sustainments, product-use-environments that promote and sustain more sustainable ways of living and working.
Many people however believe that the world is changing too fast to make long-life products possible or desirable. A long-life product however is a sustainment precisely to the extent that it slows the pace of change down and allows judgements about the future to be made with more forethought.
