![]() Without context, it would appear to be a one-off, quirky, idiosyncratic designer object a provocative piece illustrating DIY that is destined for exhibitions, and never to be used, let alone to enter production. As part of the OpenStructures project however, it stands as evidence of the alternative value circuits that some designers already inhabit. By extension, it hints at how mundane, household items would be designed and produced in an alternate universe, perhaps one in which exchange relations are absent. The OS WaterBoiler is not your usual plastic moulded case kettle that could once be bought dirt-cheap from the nearest big-box retail store, before breaking down or melting away, never to be repaired nor recycled. Neither is it a special edition reissue of a Bauhaus design, nor a postmodern monument made for the Italian brand Alessi, targeting the tastes and budgets of those looking for more than the ordinary plastic kettle. ![]() Instead, the OS WaterBoiler is a research project on the material flows that create assemblages of parts and components. It has multiple iterations that are a result of different processes of production – the version destined for single-unit limited production has parts that are either self-produced or bought at a local retail, whereas a 100- or 1000-unit production scenario mixes local production with internationally supplied components. ![]() Can this object provide insight into how home appliances may be composed and assembled in an alternative globalisation?Īll three objects are designed by Jesse Howard, in collaboration with Thomas Lommée, and all share a common logic and are part of the larger OpenStructures project in which Lommée and his collaborators are engaged.Īgainst the inevitability of the standard plastic kettle for the mass market, it hypothetically activates a multiplicity of alternatives that are adaptable to the local economy. This project and its offsprings/spinoffs constitute the main case studies of this chapter, primarily due to their unfamiliar appearances, but essentially because of their unconventional designing process. As reminded in the previous chapter, beneath their shiny appearance, commodities mask the social relations in their creation. We also share information about your use of our website with our social media, advertising and analytics partners.Would it be possible for product design beyond the commodity-machine to do the opposite, that is, to reveal, to render legible the labour conditions of the design within the materiality of the objects themselves? OpenStructures, through its reliance on open standards and distributed modularity, is highly illustrative due to the strong correlation it presents between its physical features and the organisation of its development. We use cookies to personalize content and ads, provide social media features, and analyze the use of our website. This helps us measure the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns. Microsoft Advertising uses these cookies to anonymously identify user sessions. It also serves behaviorally targeted ads on other websites, similar to most specialized online marketing companies. The Facebook cookie is used by it's parent company Meta to monitor behavior on this website in order to serve targeted ads to its users when they are logged into its services. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for us and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. ![]() The purpose of Google Analytics is to analyze the traffic on our website. Security (protection against CSRF Cross-Site Request Forgery) Stores login sessions (so that the server knows that this browser is logged into a user account) ![]() which cookies were accepted and rejected). Storage of the selection in the cookie banner (i.e. being associated with traffic metrics and page response times. Random ID which serves to improve our technical services by i.e. Server load balancing, geographical distribution and redundancy ![]()
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