A Metaphorical Design Method for Sustainable LifestyleHung-Hsiang WangGraduate Institute of Innovation & DesignNational Taipei University of TechnologyTaipei, Taiwan, ROC

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Introduction

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Towards A Sustainable Lifestyle?

Introduction

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Sustainability is conventionally thought to be conducted by a consumer who thinks ahead and tempers his or her desires by social awareness, and must occasionally be prepared to sacrifice personal pleasure to communal well-being.

(Gabriel and Lang, 1995)

Introduction

“There are professions more harmful than industrial design, but only a very few of them.…

Today, industrial design has put murder on a mass-production

basis.”

Preface to “Design for the Real World” by Victor Papanek 1963-1971

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Victor_Papanek.jpg

Introduction

Victor Papanek’s Solution:The tin can radio receiver for the Third World

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Source: Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World. Academy Chicago Publishers, 2nd edition. p. 225

Introduction

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Cover of first English edition of Design for the Real World published by Pantheon Books, New York, 1971. Photographer: Al Surrat. Source: Fineder M , Geisler T J Design Hist 2010;23:99-106

“I read this 1971 book in design school and it convinced me that design had a higher purpose than simply creating the latest consumer product.”

Book List by Tim Brown,CEO of IDEO design consultancy

Source: http://www.designersandbooks.com/designer/booklist/tim-brown

Related Works

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Design for Sustainable Lifestyle?

Related Works

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Sustainable Consumption by Design• minimizing natural resources• consuming greener products• rethinking the social and cultural function of

material consumption and affluence

(Black and Cherrier, 2010).

Related Works

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Rethinking the social and cultural function of material consumption is likely to be overlooked.

(Wells, 1993)

Related Works

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The role of the designer in developing a sustainable society is not simply to create sustainable products, but rather to envision products, processes, and services that encourage widespread sustainable behavior.

(Stegall, 2006)

Related Works

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Consumer behavior for sustainable lifestyle does not require sacrificing personal pleasure. …Corporations should also focus on the self-interested notions of taste, durability, quality, value or positive emotions.

(Black and Cherrier, 2010)

Design Example

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How to Design Pleasurable Products for Rethinking Material Consumption?

Design Example

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A Design of LED Desk Lamp with a Metaphor of Taiwanese Aboriginal Myths

Design Brief

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Designing a table lamp with the following features:• Inspiring users’ reflections on material consumption• Without sacrificing personal pleasure• Representing sustainable ethics in Taiwan culture• Energy-saving

Design Method

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A metaphorical design based on Conceptual Blending Theory

Design Method

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Metaphorical Design is• Introducing A (target) by relating A to B (source), or Creating C by blending A and B in a certain way• Useful for designing pleasurable products for evoking

users’ reflection

Design Method

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Conceptual Blending is• A dynamic process that occurs at the moment of

perception to create new meanings from existing ways of thinking

• Composed of four mental spaces: two partially matched input spaces, a generic space constituted by structure common to the input spaces, and the blended space

(Fauconnier and Turner, 2002)

Design Method

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Four types of integration networks• Simplex: input 1 consists of a frame and input 2

consists of specific elements (A frame is a conventional and schematic organization of knowledge elements)

• Mirror: a common organizing frame is shared by both spaces in the network

• Single-Scope: the organizing frames of the inputs are different, and the blend inherits only one of those frames

• Double-Scope: essential frame and identity properties are brought in from both inputs

(Fauconnier and Turner, 1998)

INPUT 2

Element, Relation Element, Relation

INPUT 1

E , R

Simplex: No R, R+E Mirror: R=R, E+E

E , R

Single-Scope: R≠R,R+E or R+E

Double-Scope: R≠R, R+R, E+E

Design Method

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Simplex Mirror Single-Scope Double-Scope

Optimality Principles 1/3

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Integration: The scenario in the blended space should be a well-integrated scene.

Web: Tight connections between the blended space and the input spaces should be maintained. For example, the selective projection should represent the relationship between an event in one of the input spaces and a corresponding event in the blended space.

Unpacking: Given a blended space, it should be easy for the interpreter to reconstruct the input spaces and the network of connections.

Optimality Principles 2/3

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Topology: Relations in the blended space should match the relation of their counterparts in the inputs.

Good Reason: If an element appears in the blended space, it should have meaning; the interpreter should create pressure to attribute significance to elements in the blended space.

Metonymic tightening: When metonymically related relations are projected into the metaphorical blend, the interpreter should create pressure to compress the distance between them.

Optimality Principles 3/3

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Distance: the target and source concepts need to come from semantically distant semantic domains.

Concreteness: the source concept compared to the target is sufficiently concrete (rather than abstract) to be understood and manipulated.

Design Method

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Double-Scope blending can resolve clashes between inputs that differ fundamentally in content (elements) and topology (frame); this is a powerful source of human creativity.

(Fauconnier and Turner, 1998)

Exemplar

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Excalibur toilet brush, Source: http://designmatcher.com/nl/images/objects/10856.jpg

An example of Excalibur, Source: http://media.listingstogo.com/users/JohnDonohue549/Image/ExcaliburPhoto%281%29.jpg

Exemplar

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Sustainability in Taiwan Culture

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Taiwanese aborigines myth of shooting the sun:• The topic of shooting the sun can be found in

most myths of Taiwanese indigenous tribes, such as Amis, Atayal, Bunun, Rukai, Tsou, Saisiyat, and Thao.

• These myths share the sustainable ethics of co-existence with the great nature in a harmony way, rather than in a conquering way

(Liu, 2004; Zhu, 2008)

Sustainability in Taiwan Culture

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Thao tribe’s sun-shooting myth Is highly distinctive

from the perspective of sustainability.

A Thao hunter (Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Er_nd_3014_Thao.jpg)

Sustainability in Taiwan Culture

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In ancient times there was a huge sun in the sky without the moon. The sunshine burned everything, making people suffer from the prolonged drought.A hero of the Thao tribe devoted himself to this severe challenge. His solution was to shoot the sun into two parts. The bigger part of the sun became a milder sun rising in daytime, whereas the smaller one became a feminine moon appearing at night.Thus, the natural environment became much friendlier and more energetic than ever before.

(Council of Indigenous Peoples, 2012)

Design Process

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The design process is described as the following:• Representing the input and generic spaces• Using Double-Scope blending to construct the

integration network• Transform the scenario in the blended space into the

specification of the metaphorical design.• Conceptualize and visualize the metaphorical design• Evaluating the users’ reflections on sustainability when

seeing/using the design

Design Process

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弋燈 yii lamp

弋，為古代弓的甲骨文演化而來，意為狩獵之事。以台灣原住民傳說 : 射日的神話為發想。將結合 LED 、光纖材料與竹材作為燈具材料並以隱喻的手法設計一台灣文化精品。太陽為光亮照明的代表，類比為燈光供給人類閱讀。

Results

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」

Results

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Scenario

Holding bow as a three-mode switch. String shining for the first mode.Four strings as night light for the second mode. Main light as reading lighting for the third mode.

Draw the String

First draw for top lighting

Second draw for ambient lighting

Third Draw for the both

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Results

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Evaluation by questionnaires with 36 participants (the highest point=5)• The average of comments on the lamp are largely high in

pleasure (4.1), metaphor (3.9), and sustainability (3.7)• 24 (66.7%) participants thought it is the lighting control by

drawing the string of bow and the upper half bow shape that makes the lamp pleasurable

• 24 (66.7%) participants expressed that the metaphor quality of the lamp is rather high because of the metaphor of the bamboo bow

• 21 (58.3%) participants considered the reflections on sustainability when using the lamp is significant

Summary

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• Introduction of a metaphorical design method using conceptual blending theory to developing products that can inspire the sustainable lifestyle into the users.

• A table lamp design is used as an example to test the method, by double-scope blending of the frame of bamboo bow in Thao’s sun-shooting myth and the typical LED table lamp.

• The lamp designed is seen as a pleasurable metaphorical product for the user’s reflections on sustainability, though further formal assessment is required.