14 ms·

Industrial Design Student Work: "How Long Should Objects Last?"

240 points by surprisetalk 3y ago

tichiian 3y ago
This is missing the fact that the stainless steel from the ultra-durable umbrella is also easy to recycle. In fact, steel is far easier to recycle than any kind of plastic. Also, the whole work seems to skip over the huge problem of insufficient customer information: There is a remark in there, that lots of people (about half) seem to choose the ultra-durable umbrella, rather than one of the less resource-intensive ones. The reason for this imho isn't that people don't care about the resources. It is rather that everyone has been conditioned to assume that products are crappier than specified. People do not and usually can not know how durable each product they are offered will be. And buying something ultra-durable-seeming at least gives you a chance at a decent product lifetime. All the rest is usually crappier than expected. One reason is that the environmentally friendlier alternatives are often also materials of lesser quality. E.g. recycled plastic degrades and is more brittle than "fresh". The other reason is greedy manufacturers, saving on necessary materials, making products less durable. And maybe intentionally building in weak points, limiting lifetime to sell more stuff.
- mc32 3y ago
  All true, but one missing is the one where people abuse things and use them in ways that were not intended by the manufacturer.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    It really sucks when the product is so fragile you can't do it. Items do not have inherent, fixed purpose, they're physical objects. If I can use my umbrella as a hammer in a pinch, that's a value-add.
- eep_social 3y ago
  Another reason I seek the durable version is that I despise change. Once I procure an umbrella that meets my needs, I don’t ever want to have to spend the time to go find another. If I manage to wear it out, I will grudgingly replace it with the exact same thing but if that’s not available I’ll go without rather than going through the process of finding a good one again. Modern casual clothing is a disaster in this regard because even the same sku often won’t be the same product year over year.
  - mrbungie 3y ago
    About clothing: that and society tends to mock those who repeat the same clothes in a short period of time, promoting cheap/mass fashion and therefore waste. I would rather focus on upcycling repairable clothes rather than promoting so much waste. Specially when a sweater I love tears, I (1) loss the sweater and (2) can't get said clothing item because as you say, the sku or even the brand may not exist anymore. Newer is not always better, both in function and form. Point in case: Mark Zuckerberg and his style change from a anime/cartoon closet full of grey tshirts and blue jeans to a typical sugar daddy atire/style just to appeal to bigger audience without any internal change. Stupid monkey brains.
    - luqtas 3y ago
      people who mock people because repeated clothes aren't at their social circle (at least in a meaningful level) or if they do, sit & talk or it's time to move on... i'm almost hitting 30, i still use some 14 y/o clothes and last time i bought stuff was more than 5 years ago because of a hobby. tho i appreciate stylistic people walking at streets. maybe fashion is not that hard to recycle if we use mostly compostable stuff? from leather of pineapple waste, (recycled) cotton and so on
    - MeImCounting 3y ago
      In my social circles youre far more likely to be mocked if you spend a lot of money on new clothes or cheap/low quality clothes. Its expected that you buy something high quality from a thrift store and wear it until it wears out/splurge on something new and high quality and wear it until it wears out and repair it indefinitely.
- Aloisius 3y ago
  > Many of the objects we use daily are made from mixed materials, ones are often difficult to separate [for recycling]. This cost can outweigh the value of the materials, so these objects are very likely to end up in Landfill. Of course, mixing materials offers functional benefits such as combinations of soft & hard structures, and nowhere else is this more true [than] with Umbrellas. FTA with context added.
- IgorPartola 3y ago
  Aside but one interesting consequence of using plastic in certain kinds of products is that it can be a sacrificial part. If you don’t design a point of failure into your system one will be assigned to it. I recently had this realization after installing a new garage door opener. The motor on it is much stronger than my old one but some parts are far flimsier. Then it dawned on me that I’d rather have a cheap plastic gear break if something goes wrong than have it burn up the unit or swing a high tension belt around. Longevity doesn’t always mean making everything out of cast iron and stainless steel. It can mean making the thing repairable using cheap and available parts.
  - thegrim33 3y ago
    3D printing options aside, there's no possibility of me replacing random plastic components that break. I'm dependent on some industrial manufacturer producing the random plastic broken part for me, and getting it to me. If something metallic fails, it's much simpler in comparison to fashion a replacement / repair the failure myself. I can work with metal. I can't work with plastic.
    - picture 3y ago
      Have you used polycaprolactone/PCL aka "InstaMorph" for hobby/projects? It's a very tough plastic that can be melted by putting it in hot water, then formed by hand. I think something like a linkage made out of this material could be a fantastic intentional failure point for certain mechanical systems, as long as the temperature requirement is not much higher than human conditions. Also, if you have a hot air blower, you can repair it in-situ. I'm honestly not sure why we don't see more of this plastic used for consumer stuff. Something that you can melt down and fix stuff or make little ornaments sounds like a great marketing gimmick. It's also generally a pretty bio-safe plastic.
      - eropple 3y ago
        In industry, it's because it's so low-temperature. The benefits of using it aren't outweighed by the potential failure risks in it in pieces not designed to be repaired. Also, just kinda--it's not well known! You can't even find it as a 3D printer filament without a lot of effort, even though those "3D pens" often use it, because the output is so unimpressive to most people. That's not that it is unimpressive, it's because they don't know much about it, much like how people act like there's a "leveling up" by switching from PLA to PETG to ABS.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
  Recyclability isn't really an issue, because the steel umbrella is not viable as a product. This is on account of its weight. > Total weight of assembled umbrella: 1.71kg The average umbrella, and the plastic one at the link, weigh roughly a quarter of that amount. There are golf umbrellas, considered extremely heavy, at ~0.9kg, e.g.: https://shedrain.com/products/vortex-vent-pro https://shedrain.com/products/vortex-vent-pro The ultra-durable umbrella is an exercise in making a product that appears to be an umbrella out of heavy-duty materials. But it's not an umbrella that's viable as a commercial product; it wasn't designed with the average user's capabilities in mind. Most people, even trained athletes, would not be happy to lug around an umbrella that weighs nearly four pounds. I'm sure it's possible to strike a balance, perhaps with aluminum or magnesium (expensive!) instead of steel. But the project didn't attempt it -- it went with steel to make a point. In real-life product engineering, though, every gram saved is worth celebrating.
  - BlueTemplar 3y ago
    Why was the handle made of stainless steel, and not, say, wood ? Looks to be a significant fraction of mass, while not being the typical part that would break ?
    - hbosch 3y ago
      Steel is more durable than wood.
      - HideousKojima 3y ago
        >while not being the typical part that would break ?
  - helsinkiandrew 3y ago
    My James Smith & Sons Umbrella has a lightweight steel frame (apparently invented by James Smith the 2nd in 1851) - weighs about 500g and has lasted 30+ years. https://www.james-smith.co.uk/product/umbrellas/gents-umbrellas/the-london/london-umbrella-with-malacca-cane-crook/ https://www.james-smith.co.uk/product/umbrellas/gents-umbrel...
- bayindirh 3y ago
  > The reason for this imho isn't that people don't care about the resources. It is rather that everyone has been conditioned to assume that products are crappier than specified. Personally I'm very aware of the labor and resources required to build a high quality item. This is why I buy them. It's made by humans, with great effort, to have a long life. Honestly, I want all my items to "positively age" with me as much as possible, and even if they become slightly insufficient (storage devices, or electronics in general), I try to find uses for them until they reach their true end of their life. And yes, I don't like crappy items. I want to buy one item once (or as few times possible) and have good performance performing its function. It can be an umbrella, a shoe, a keyboard or a pen. Anything, actually.
- goeiedaggoeie 3y ago
  Agreed on using energy consumption and how many times do you reasonably expect to use it as important considerations. Additionally you have to factor in the toxicity you introduce, especially with things like cookware. An umbrella maybe a 1000 times (massive upper bound), but a le creuset pot I would expect to use 3000 times, and we eat the foot made in it.
- spandrew 3y ago
  Ya this was the first thing I saw. It's a student project so we should be open that he's learning, but I wouldn't call this umbrella recyclable if it's constituent parts will likely end up floating in the ocean forever. If umbrella's were built with repairability in mind I would love it, though. So many I've used were destined to break under the strain of the wind.
- tonetegeatinst 3y ago
  Also keep in mind that metal is stronger than plastic. Sure it might rust if you don't use a preventitive coating....a coating is not a paint BTW theirs a massive difference. Plastic is cheaper. Sure those injection molds are expensive as fuck to make and have a limited life just like anything but the major reason plastic is seen as desirable is that its cheap, and its way easier to produce 10000 plastic spoons than to cast 10000 spoons. Casting isn't fast and takes up a lot of space and its harder to heat up metal than plastic. And even if your machining a part, plastic is just cheaper when it comes to the footprint and the density of plastic is lower than metal which means handling raw materials is easier. The downside is recycling and lifespan. A good metal part beats plastic when it comes to so many tests....but its not fast or cheap to make. Is the metal recyclable....yes....but plastic dosnt have to get up to insane temps to get it molten, and you can machine plastic with basically anything as long as its sharp, while metal machining is a process that needs really strong sharp inserts, saws, or EDM machines, and all of that means a heavier footprint both in weight,and carbon footprint.
kstrauser 3y ago
This is an exercise in externalities. Sure, maybe the cheap umbrella comes out ahead in a raw materials game: X number of crummy ones may be more eco-friendly than a nice one that lasts Y times as long. As long as you don’t consider anything else, like the fact you have to employ Y times the person-hours to make the crummy ones, and Y times the freight to deliver them, and Y times the customer getting pissed off that their cheap umbrella broke and they have to take time out of their day to acquire a replacement. I swore off buying junky stuff a long time ago. Life’s too short to be surrounded by crap that’s going to break the first time you look at it wrong, student projects be damned. (That doesn’t mean I only buy luxury items. Far from it! You can get Levi’s Premium line jeans that last X longer than the discount store ones for far less than X times the price. I’ve worn the same pair of leather boots for 6 years now. I’ve had my Birkenstocks resoled several times now instead of throwing them out while the rest of the sandal’s in great shape. It’s usually pretty easy to find the quality version of a given thing for not much more than the junky one.)
- nickff 3y ago
  I agree with some of your points, but what about the frustration when someone breaks their nice & expensive umbrella by accident, or has it stolen from them? What about the inconvenience and anxiety of not wanting to lose it? What about not having a spare to lend (but actually give) to a friend or loved one?
  - kstrauser 3y ago
    Those are valid concerns, but I've found I keep my nicer stuff way longer than the cheaper things they replace. I'm happy if I make it through a couple months with $30 sunglasses. I've had the same nicer ones for more than proportionally longer. For me, the difference is that I'm more watchful of the nice things. I'm not about to take off my good sunglasses and leave them somewhere that I'll forget about them. I know where my nice (not expensive, just nice and functional) water bottle is. I've kept the same pocket knife for many years because I'd go back and get it if I forgot to put it right back in my pocket after using it, which I wouldn't do, because it's nice and I subconsciously keep track of it. However, I'm not dogmatic about this stuff. I want to own my stuff and not have it own me. There's a half-empty six pack of dirt cheap portable umbrellas over next to my shoe rack so I can dole them out to my kids who'll inevitably lose them at school.
harimau777 3y ago
Semi-off-topic, but I carry a unbreakable umbrella and have been very happy with it. Worth a try if you are interested in a real world application of this post. https://unbreakableumbrella.com/ https://unbreakableumbrella.com/
- komali2 3y ago
  I love the videos, but 200$ is a hard pill to swallow for an umbrella!
  - jpgvm 3y ago
    Especially if living in Japan. You had best hope it came with a GPS tracker.
- bigbacaloa 3y ago
  [dead]
- Biganon 3y ago
  I think I'm missing the joke. Is it just an umbrella, or is it a weapon as well?... They seem to constantly allude to it being a weapon. Is it just because it's strong?
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Isn't any umbrella obviously looking like a weapon? Am I the only one who role-played it's a rifle as a kid (and still do as an adult, sometimes)? And then, a well-made long umbrella would effectively double as a cane, at which point it fits well in the martial art of Bartitsu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartitsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartitsu EDIT: see also Bartitsu reference and other applications here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella#As_a_weapon_of_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella#As_a_weapon_of_attack.
    - dunekid 3y ago
      I think this is cool and has been referenced in the Kingsman?
brnaftr361 3y ago
I think Gandhi sorta covers the penultimate conclusion of this train, and that's highly local production. A sort of sentimentality and pride. Maybe you chipped in somewhere along the chain, all the socks in the city have a little bit of your blood, sweat, and tears in the fibers. I think we try to replicate these sensations with all the green-washed corporate mission statement bullshit, and psychologically I think it's a very successful line. Practically, though, not so much. This of course comes with the curing of all the one-size-fits all shit, too.
hcarvalhoalves 3y ago
Excellent article. I’m fascinated with this subject. There is a temple in Japan that exists for hundreds of years. It’s the same temple only in a “Ship of Theseus” sense, as it gets rebuilt every 20 years by experts. But in a sense, it’s the same temple. Or take another example: dressing shoe. A shoemaker can reform your father’s and grandfather’s shoe back to brand new if you so desire. The materials are easily sourced, all it takes is trained labor. Why can’t we have this for everything? Modern economic practice has optimized for cutting back intensive labour dependency in favor of simpler disposable goods. It’s a “win” from multiple angles: less durable goods means more sales, costs of materials and residue are externalized anyway so that makes up your margin, and you don’t have to deal with expert workers demanding better pay. It’s beautifully optimized - just not optimized for what matters. If you think about it, bottled water is the ultimate bullshit product. We put a freely occurring natural element in a plastic bottle, and create an object with the absolute worst utility-to-cost ratio. The object utility ends the moment you drink all the water, the plastic will stay as a residue for thousands years. But like a professor once said: water is free - therefor we pollute the rivers with plastic by selling bottled water since free water doesn’t contribute to the GDP. This discussion (how long should objects last?) is fundamentally tied to current economic practice and incentives.
- userbinator 3y ago
  Bottled water is invaluable in places where the naturally occurring water is not potable.
  - hcarvalhoalves 3y ago
    It is. That also isn’t the reason keeping anyone in the bottled water business. The top 10 bottled water markets are countries with good to excellent public water service.
    - fragmede 3y ago
      is flint, Michigan located inside one of these countries?
engineer_22 3y ago
TLDR: guy builds a bunch of umbrellas, but fails to answer the question posed in the title.
- radus 3y ago
  The answer is “it depends”
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  At least we got to see a milspec umbrella.
- jkestner 3y ago
  I think the point was to explore different approaches and spark discussion about what we care about.
userbinator 3y ago
As long as they can. I can actually see all 3 of these umbrellas as being repairable, just by different methods, and if I were forced to use any of them, I would definitely attempt to keep them working as long as I could. Maybe that's the ultimate lesson here. An example is a coffee lid, sometimes it's active use is less than six seconds, but it's 'actual' life may be over a thousand years. A thousand years of "sleep", during which it may be reused or recycled by those in the future in some as yet unknown way, meanwhile continuing to store the energy that was expended in its production. I like to think of "waste" as things which are merely not currently useful.
- dawidloubser 3y ago
  That's a nice thought, but unfortunately the environmental cost of "storing" all of this material - i.e. all the billions of tonnes of plastic pollution already out there, and in there (inside you in the form of microplastics) - doesn't come for free. It's a current problem, and we don't seem to have the technology or even the political will to solve it currently.
Nevermark 3y ago
That "Pretty Illogical" blob on the bottom-right would be all the plastic packaging in the world. A line between each "useful longevity" point, to the respective "physical longevity" point (which in turn could be colored for "benign" or "harmful"), would be provocative.
foota 3y ago
I think they're missing a dimension, how annoying is something to replace. In particular for car tires this called out to me. Going to an auto shop is an all day adventure for me, whereas almost anything else can easily be ordered or picked up without too much hassle. Furniture is another category though where there's a non trivial investment required to replace it. Therefore, these should be more durable, even if they're not something we're otherwise attached to. You could also think about the consequences of something breaking, and the cost of the loss of use. E.g., for a car, if it breaks down you might run the risk of an accident, and while it's broken down you might not be able to commute to work, etc., whereas some things are relatively inconsequential when they break.
- bongodongobob 3y ago
  Car tires take about an hour and are actually one of the things I buy used every time. 90% of the tread for 1/4 the price.
hydrox24 3y ago
@dang it would be good to link to the student's original website with RCA rather than this reproduction on Core 77. The article at Core 77 is almost entirely copy-pasted, and doesn't add any value. Original: https://2021.rca.ac.uk/students/charlie-humble-thomas/ https://2021.rca.ac.uk/students/charlie-humble-thomas/
- nickm12 3y ago
  Thank you! The Core 77 version was chewing up my CPU.
  - mkerrigan 3y ago
    Same thing happened to me so I'm glad I'm not the only one.
- amykhar 3y ago
  The other cool thing about the original article is you can find other student projects there - some of which are quite fun.
- twic 3y ago
  For anyone in or near London, the RCA degree show is worth a visit: https://www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/rca2024/ https://www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/rca2024/ Lots of really interesting work across a huge range of disciplines, from industrial design like this, through digital stuff and service design, to architecture, to fine art, to animation. I've been many times. It's hell on my feet but worth it!
- jimbobthrowawy 3y ago
  @dang is a no-op. Someone shoot off an email.
c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago
How is the technology in a product expected to change over time? If you're expecting modest or radical changes (with presumably big boosts in efficiency, performance, etc.), why build a long life span product? In a rapidly changing environment, keeping old equipment can be detrimental. Servers can last longer than what they are rated for. Depending on SKU, Intel CPUs are rated for 3, 5, or even 10 years of use, however, servers are refreshed/replaced because of the ongoing performance increases per unit electrical consumption from newer CPU SKUs. In businesses where IT equipment isn't core to the business, old equipment is kept around if IT efficiency isn't really a concern, there's a very high cost of re-engineering, or re-certifying a system. If changes are not reasonably expected, then build products that last a long time. One of my children will inherit my kitchenaid blender.
moonchild 3y ago
Is the full dissertation available anywhere? The link on the author's website is dead.
ooterness 3y ago
The durable umbrella weighs in at 1.7 kg / 3.7 lb, four times what a normal umbrella would weigh. That is absurdly impractical.
- pxndxx 3y ago
  From TFA: [...] the assumption of 'less but better' being a superior approach to product design is rarely practically evaluated. The third umbrella in the series takes durability to an almost cartoon-like level [...] This was a study of materials and design, not a product someone would like to sell . It's research on object longevity.
  - xg15 3y ago
    Yes, but with all studies, it can be made in an objective way or in a way that already enforces a particular conclusion. This is why, in serious scientific work, so much focus is placed on methods and reproducibility. Here he used the less rigorous field of arts and design to wiggle out of that responsibility and present a blatantly biased study.
    - dunekid 3y ago
      We can think of it as the arts equivalent of the spherical cows in vacuum.
foobarkey 3y ago
Objects should completely break down 1d after warranty expires so we can sell another one to the customer. This will increase economic growth, profits and GDP and helps with yacht purchases
wtcactus 3y ago
A find this topic fascinating, and several times in the past I tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to buy items (mainly clothing and shoes/boots) that are made to last a long time. Is there any project that tracks these high durability items?
- landgenoot 3y ago
  Reddit r/BuyItForLife
  - alextingle 3y ago
    That subreddit is basically just an ad for various crappy US brands. There is zero interest in discussion of actual BIFL products, or practices.
    - ericmcer 3y ago
      If I wanted to hire a bunch of fake accounts to upvote my shill posts it does seem like a great subreddit to do it in.
Tabiroxx 3y ago
industrial Design Student Work @data #story
xg15 3y ago
Yeah, sorry. If you prop-up the "recyclable" umbrella with corpospeak sentences like this one: > The Recyclable Umbrella is a reappraisal of the potential for plastic, a material which if properly managed offers carbon savings and excellent recyclability when compared with many organic alternatives. (ignoring that this construction would probably break on a moderately windy day, and naively assumes that it won't end up on a landfill only because it could be recycled) and then purposely over-engeneer the "long-lived" variant so it weighs 1.7 kilos and is practically unusable, you have motivated reasoning. The whole artsy handwaving of this piece also ignores that planned obsolescence often happens in products where the amount of uses is well-known and generally independent on the product's materials, e.g. dishwashers, fridges, etc.
pfdietz 3y ago
I'd just go with some kind of raincoat.
Temporary_31337 3y ago
Once you start optimising for one parameter the other ones suffer. Over 500g for an umbrella is not acceptable in the space age. I bought a cheap Chinese umbrella for $10. It almost never gets used. It probably is not designed to be repairable or durable yet I have had it for over ten years so the environmental impact is minimal. It is also very lightweight so I have it with me often.
hamilyon2 3y ago
I really appreciate that they added weight to the description. Puts things into perspective. Nowadays typically umbrella weights 300 to 500 grams
spintin 3y ago
[dead]
remorses 3y ago
Insurance period minus one standard deviation
v3ss0n 3y ago
I thought its about programming and someone is planning to implement timer based garbage collectors.
jameshart 3y ago
I am confused by what people in the academic design/art community think the word ‘celebrate’ means.
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
If I have to use the stainless steel umbrella x6 just for it to be equal to the garbage-tier plastic umbrella, then I will landfill six of the plastic umbrellas. I know it's meant to be recyclable, and I will dutifully put it in the recycle bin, but then my city government will contract it out to some outfit that picks through to find some token recyclables and sends the rest to landfill anyway. So, out of 100 uses of the durable umbrella, or 100 uses of the garbage umbrellas (across six of those), which is a more pleasant experience? Am I wrong to think that it's the obvious one? The umbrella that doesn't flex in the wind like it's going to snap off? The one that doesn't feel slimy for the three days it'll take to dry, the one in fact that won't take that long to dry? The one that doesn't accumulate grime but if it did could easily be wiped off and then be as clean as the day it was bought new? How often does thermoset plastic get a bad mix and end up being a little more brittle than usual? How often does the injection mold not fill completely, but it sails past QA, and so the umbrella handle will snap off when there's a gust... and with my luck when I'm halfway between the car and the building? If someone had a toddler chewing on it, or a dog, which holds up better? The worst you can say about the stainless steel is that it might prompt a trip to the dentist. For anything that I'll use throughout my life, I think I prefer the "durable", unless it's just impossible from an engineering standpoint or is cost-prohibitive.
contingencies 3y ago
Of course it's going to be a commercial question. But from a design standpoint, there are four major components to the umbrella. The cover, the stem, the handle, and the lever-branches (if collapsible) or straight branches (otherwise). The cover is typically a synthetic polymer based material. In collapsible models, due to levers and fiddly connections it's hugely PITA to replace. If it rips or develops a hole you could theoretically push to use a more readily patchable material, however, the high tension at which this is often maintained will rapidly break down many approaches to patching. Realistically, this sort of thing is best done at a factory given the input costs. The stem and handle virtually never break down and can be any form of metal or wood, depending upon whether you want a telescopic collapsible design or rigid full length. Aluminium is supposed to be the best recyclable metal in terms of recovery rate and is also light, however is prone to deformation in thin configurations. It may be possible to consider carbon fiber, which is very cheap now. The lever-branches of a collapsible model are the biggest problem. They are fiddly, prone to breakage in most designs, and in most designs relatively tedious and difficult to securely re-attach to the cover should the cover require replacement. Original suggestion: Design instead a standard interface between the umbrella stem and the cover-and-lever assembly. This would allow easily replacement of the cover-and-lever assembly as the most frequently broken portion. Alternatively, seek out a full length umbrella with strong branches instead of the tiny collapsible ones. Probably these days you could make them with carbon fiber quite cheaply.
throwaway14356 3y ago
I think the main market is people who buy umbrellas when it rains then leave them behind or pile them up in the garage.
Zababa 3y ago
An interesting thing is the graph mapping user bond against physical longevity: https://res.cloudinary.com/rca2020/image/upload/f_webp,h_1080,w_1920,c_fill,g_auto,q_auto/v1/rca2021/60c520e0a98c7847e50197c5-108181?_a=AXAH4S10 https://res.cloudinary.com/rca2020/image/upload/f_webp,h_108.... I would love something like this with more object, but also a third dimension, how possible it is to do it yourself. For example, wooden furniture is pretty doable, and considering the strong user bond and long-lasting life, I see why so many people pick up woodworking.

240 points by surprisetalk 3y ago

This is missing the fact that the stainless steel from the ultra-durable umbrella is also easy to recycle. In fact, steel is far easier to recycle than any kind of plastic. Also, the whole work seems to skip over the huge problem of insufficient customer information: There is a remark in there, that lots of people (about half) seem to choose the ultra-durable umbrella, rather than one of the less resource-intensive ones. The reason for this imho isn't that people don't care about the resources. It is rather that everyone has been conditioned to assume that products are crappier than specified. People do not and usually can not know how durable each product they are offered will be. And buying something ultra-durable-seeming at least gives you a chance at a decent product lifetime. All the rest is usually crappier than expected. One reason is that the environmentally friendlier alternatives are often also materials of lesser quality. E.g. recycled plastic degrades and is more brittle than "fresh". The other reason is greedy manufacturers, saving on necessary materials, making products less durable. And maybe intentionally building in weak points, limiting lifetime to sell more stuff.

mc32 3y ago
All true, but one missing is the one where people abuse things and use them in ways that were not intended by the manufacturer.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  It really sucks when the product is so fragile you can't do it. Items do not have inherent, fixed purpose, they're physical objects. If I can use my umbrella as a hammer in a pinch, that's a value-add.
eep_social 3y ago
Another reason I seek the durable version is that I despise change. Once I procure an umbrella that meets my needs, I don’t ever want to have to spend the time to go find another. If I manage to wear it out, I will grudgingly replace it with the exact same thing but if that’s not available I’ll go without rather than going through the process of finding a good one again. Modern casual clothing is a disaster in this regard because even the same sku often won’t be the same product year over year.
- mrbungie 3y ago
  About clothing: that and society tends to mock those who repeat the same clothes in a short period of time, promoting cheap/mass fashion and therefore waste. I would rather focus on upcycling repairable clothes rather than promoting so much waste. Specially when a sweater I love tears, I (1) loss the sweater and (2) can't get said clothing item because as you say, the sku or even the brand may not exist anymore. Newer is not always better, both in function and form. Point in case: Mark Zuckerberg and his style change from a anime/cartoon closet full of grey tshirts and blue jeans to a typical sugar daddy atire/style just to appeal to bigger audience without any internal change. Stupid monkey brains.
  - luqtas 3y ago
    people who mock people because repeated clothes aren't at their social circle (at least in a meaningful level) or if they do, sit & talk or it's time to move on... i'm almost hitting 30, i still use some 14 y/o clothes and last time i bought stuff was more than 5 years ago because of a hobby. tho i appreciate stylistic people walking at streets. maybe fashion is not that hard to recycle if we use mostly compostable stuff? from leather of pineapple waste, (recycled) cotton and so on
  - MeImCounting 3y ago
    In my social circles youre far more likely to be mocked if you spend a lot of money on new clothes or cheap/low quality clothes. Its expected that you buy something high quality from a thrift store and wear it until it wears out/splurge on something new and high quality and wear it until it wears out and repair it indefinitely.
Aloisius 3y ago
> Many of the objects we use daily are made from mixed materials, ones are often difficult to separate [for recycling]. This cost can outweigh the value of the materials, so these objects are very likely to end up in Landfill. Of course, mixing materials offers functional benefits such as combinations of soft & hard structures, and nowhere else is this more true [than] with Umbrellas. FTA with context added.
IgorPartola 3y ago
Aside but one interesting consequence of using plastic in certain kinds of products is that it can be a sacrificial part. If you don’t design a point of failure into your system one will be assigned to it. I recently had this realization after installing a new garage door opener. The motor on it is much stronger than my old one but some parts are far flimsier. Then it dawned on me that I’d rather have a cheap plastic gear break if something goes wrong than have it burn up the unit or swing a high tension belt around. Longevity doesn’t always mean making everything out of cast iron and stainless steel. It can mean making the thing repairable using cheap and available parts.
- thegrim33 3y ago
  3D printing options aside, there's no possibility of me replacing random plastic components that break. I'm dependent on some industrial manufacturer producing the random plastic broken part for me, and getting it to me. If something metallic fails, it's much simpler in comparison to fashion a replacement / repair the failure myself. I can work with metal. I can't work with plastic.
  - picture 3y ago
    Have you used polycaprolactone/PCL aka "InstaMorph" for hobby/projects? It's a very tough plastic that can be melted by putting it in hot water, then formed by hand. I think something like a linkage made out of this material could be a fantastic intentional failure point for certain mechanical systems, as long as the temperature requirement is not much higher than human conditions. Also, if you have a hot air blower, you can repair it in-situ. I'm honestly not sure why we don't see more of this plastic used for consumer stuff. Something that you can melt down and fix stuff or make little ornaments sounds like a great marketing gimmick. It's also generally a pretty bio-safe plastic.
    - eropple 3y ago
      In industry, it's because it's so low-temperature. The benefits of using it aren't outweighed by the potential failure risks in it in pieces not designed to be repaired. Also, just kinda--it's not well known! You can't even find it as a 3D printer filament without a lot of effort, even though those "3D pens" often use it, because the output is so unimpressive to most people. That's not that it is unimpressive, it's because they don't know much about it, much like how people act like there's a "leveling up" by switching from PLA to PETG to ABS.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
Recyclability isn't really an issue, because the steel umbrella is not viable as a product. This is on account of its weight. > Total weight of assembled umbrella: 1.71kg The average umbrella, and the plastic one at the link, weigh roughly a quarter of that amount. There are golf umbrellas, considered extremely heavy, at ~0.9kg, e.g.: https://shedrain.com/products/vortex-vent-pro https://shedrain.com/products/vortex-vent-pro The ultra-durable umbrella is an exercise in making a product that appears to be an umbrella out of heavy-duty materials. But it's not an umbrella that's viable as a commercial product; it wasn't designed with the average user's capabilities in mind. Most people, even trained athletes, would not be happy to lug around an umbrella that weighs nearly four pounds. I'm sure it's possible to strike a balance, perhaps with aluminum or magnesium (expensive!) instead of steel. But the project didn't attempt it -- it went with steel to make a point. In real-life product engineering, though, every gram saved is worth celebrating.
- BlueTemplar 3y ago
  Why was the handle made of stainless steel, and not, say, wood ? Looks to be a significant fraction of mass, while not being the typical part that would break ?
  - hbosch 3y ago
    Steel is more durable than wood.
    - HideousKojima 3y ago
      >while not being the typical part that would break ?
- helsinkiandrew 3y ago
  My James Smith & Sons Umbrella has a lightweight steel frame (apparently invented by James Smith the 2nd in 1851) - weighs about 500g and has lasted 30+ years. https://www.james-smith.co.uk/product/umbrellas/gents-umbrellas/the-london/london-umbrella-with-malacca-cane-crook/ https://www.james-smith.co.uk/product/umbrellas/gents-umbrel...
bayindirh 3y ago
> The reason for this imho isn't that people don't care about the resources. It is rather that everyone has been conditioned to assume that products are crappier than specified. Personally I'm very aware of the labor and resources required to build a high quality item. This is why I buy them. It's made by humans, with great effort, to have a long life. Honestly, I want all my items to "positively age" with me as much as possible, and even if they become slightly insufficient (storage devices, or electronics in general), I try to find uses for them until they reach their true end of their life. And yes, I don't like crappy items. I want to buy one item once (or as few times possible) and have good performance performing its function. It can be an umbrella, a shoe, a keyboard or a pen. Anything, actually.
goeiedaggoeie 3y ago
Agreed on using energy consumption and how many times do you reasonably expect to use it as important considerations. Additionally you have to factor in the toxicity you introduce, especially with things like cookware. An umbrella maybe a 1000 times (massive upper bound), but a le creuset pot I would expect to use 3000 times, and we eat the foot made in it.
spandrew 3y ago
Ya this was the first thing I saw. It's a student project so we should be open that he's learning, but I wouldn't call this umbrella recyclable if it's constituent parts will likely end up floating in the ocean forever. If umbrella's were built with repairability in mind I would love it, though. So many I've used were destined to break under the strain of the wind.
tonetegeatinst 3y ago
Also keep in mind that metal is stronger than plastic. Sure it might rust if you don't use a preventitive coating....a coating is not a paint BTW theirs a massive difference. Plastic is cheaper. Sure those injection molds are expensive as fuck to make and have a limited life just like anything but the major reason plastic is seen as desirable is that its cheap, and its way easier to produce 10000 plastic spoons than to cast 10000 spoons. Casting isn't fast and takes up a lot of space and its harder to heat up metal than plastic. And even if your machining a part, plastic is just cheaper when it comes to the footprint and the density of plastic is lower than metal which means handling raw materials is easier. The downside is recycling and lifespan. A good metal part beats plastic when it comes to so many tests....but its not fast or cheap to make. Is the metal recyclable....yes....but plastic dosnt have to get up to insane temps to get it molten, and you can machine plastic with basically anything as long as its sharp, while metal machining is a process that needs really strong sharp inserts, saws, or EDM machines, and all of that means a heavier footprint both in weight,and carbon footprint.

kstrauser 3y ago

This is an exercise in externalities. Sure, maybe the cheap umbrella comes out ahead in a raw materials game: X number of crummy ones may be more eco-friendly than a nice one that lasts Y times as long. As long as you don’t consider anything else, like the fact you have to employ Y times the person-hours to make the crummy ones, and Y times the freight to deliver them, and Y times the customer getting pissed off that their cheap umbrella broke and they have to take time out of their day to acquire a replacement. I swore off buying junky stuff a long time ago. Life’s too short to be surrounded by crap that’s going to break the first time you look at it wrong, student projects be damned. (That doesn’t mean I only buy luxury items. Far from it! You can get Levi’s Premium line jeans that last X longer than the discount store ones for far less than X times the price. I’ve worn the same pair of leather boots for 6 years now. I’ve had my Birkenstocks resoled several times now instead of throwing them out while the rest of the sandal’s in great shape. It’s usually pretty easy to find the quality version of a given thing for not much more than the junky one.)

nickff 3y ago
I agree with some of your points, but what about the frustration when someone breaks their nice & expensive umbrella by accident, or has it stolen from them? What about the inconvenience and anxiety of not wanting to lose it? What about not having a spare to lend (but actually give) to a friend or loved one?
- kstrauser 3y ago
  Those are valid concerns, but I've found I keep my nicer stuff way longer than the cheaper things they replace. I'm happy if I make it through a couple months with $30 sunglasses. I've had the same nicer ones for more than proportionally longer. For me, the difference is that I'm more watchful of the nice things. I'm not about to take off my good sunglasses and leave them somewhere that I'll forget about them. I know where my nice (not expensive, just nice and functional) water bottle is. I've kept the same pocket knife for many years because I'd go back and get it if I forgot to put it right back in my pocket after using it, which I wouldn't do, because it's nice and I subconsciously keep track of it. However, I'm not dogmatic about this stuff. I want to own my stuff and not have it own me. There's a half-empty six pack of dirt cheap portable umbrellas over next to my shoe rack so I can dole them out to my kids who'll inevitably lose them at school.

harimau777 3y ago

Semi-off-topic, but I carry a unbreakable umbrella and have been very happy with it. Worth a try if you are interested in a real world application of this post. https://unbreakableumbrella.com/ https://unbreakableumbrella.com/

komali2 3y ago
I love the videos, but 200$ is a hard pill to swallow for an umbrella!
- jpgvm 3y ago
  Especially if living in Japan. You had best hope it came with a GPS tracker.
bigbacaloa 3y ago
[dead]
Biganon 3y ago
I think I'm missing the joke. Is it just an umbrella, or is it a weapon as well?... They seem to constantly allude to it being a weapon. Is it just because it's strong?
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Isn't any umbrella obviously looking like a weapon? Am I the only one who role-played it's a rifle as a kid (and still do as an adult, sometimes)? And then, a well-made long umbrella would effectively double as a cane, at which point it fits well in the martial art of Bartitsu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartitsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartitsu EDIT: see also Bartitsu reference and other applications here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella#As_a_weapon_of_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella#As_a_weapon_of_attack.
  - dunekid 3y ago
    I think this is cool and has been referenced in the Kingsman?

brnaftr361 3y ago

I think Gandhi sorta covers the penultimate conclusion of this train, and that's highly local production. A sort of sentimentality and pride. Maybe you chipped in somewhere along the chain, all the socks in the city have a little bit of your blood, sweat, and tears in the fibers. I think we try to replicate these sensations with all the green-washed corporate mission statement bullshit, and psychologically I think it's a very successful line. Practically, though, not so much. This of course comes with the curing of all the one-size-fits all shit, too.

hcarvalhoalves 3y ago

Excellent article. I’m fascinated with this subject. There is a temple in Japan that exists for hundreds of years. It’s the same temple only in a “Ship of Theseus” sense, as it gets rebuilt every 20 years by experts. But in a sense, it’s the same temple. Or take another example: dressing shoe. A shoemaker can reform your father’s and grandfather’s shoe back to brand new if you so desire. The materials are easily sourced, all it takes is trained labor. Why can’t we have this for everything? Modern economic practice has optimized for cutting back intensive labour dependency in favor of simpler disposable goods. It’s a “win” from multiple angles: less durable goods means more sales, costs of materials and residue are externalized anyway so that makes up your margin, and you don’t have to deal with expert workers demanding better pay. It’s beautifully optimized - just not optimized for what matters. If you think about it, bottled water is the ultimate bullshit product. We put a freely occurring natural element in a plastic bottle, and create an object with the absolute worst utility-to-cost ratio. The object utility ends the moment you drink all the water, the plastic will stay as a residue for thousands years. But like a professor once said: water is free - therefor we pollute the rivers with plastic by selling bottled water since free water doesn’t contribute to the GDP. This discussion (how long should objects last?) is fundamentally tied to current economic practice and incentives.

userbinator 3y ago
Bottled water is invaluable in places where the naturally occurring water is not potable.
- hcarvalhoalves 3y ago
  It is. That also isn’t the reason keeping anyone in the bottled water business. The top 10 bottled water markets are countries with good to excellent public water service.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    is flint, Michigan located inside one of these countries?

engineer_22 3y ago

TLDR: guy builds a bunch of umbrellas, but fails to answer the question posed in the title.

radus 3y ago
The answer is “it depends”
TeMPOraL 3y ago
At least we got to see a milspec umbrella.
jkestner 3y ago
I think the point was to explore different approaches and spark discussion about what we care about.

userbinator 3y ago

As long as they can. I can actually see all 3 of these umbrellas as being repairable, just by different methods, and if I were forced to use any of them, I would definitely attempt to keep them working as long as I could. Maybe that's the ultimate lesson here. An example is a coffee lid, sometimes it's active use is less than six seconds, but it's 'actual' life may be over a thousand years. A thousand years of "sleep", during which it may be reused or recycled by those in the future in some as yet unknown way, meanwhile continuing to store the energy that was expended in its production. I like to think of "waste" as things which are merely not currently useful.

dawidloubser 3y ago
That's a nice thought, but unfortunately the environmental cost of "storing" all of this material - i.e. all the billions of tonnes of plastic pollution already out there, and in there (inside you in the form of microplastics) - doesn't come for free. It's a current problem, and we don't seem to have the technology or even the political will to solve it currently.

Nevermark 3y ago

That "Pretty Illogical" blob on the bottom-right would be all the plastic packaging in the world. A line between each "useful longevity" point, to the respective "physical longevity" point (which in turn could be colored for "benign" or "harmful"), would be provocative.

foota 3y ago

I think they're missing a dimension, how annoying is something to replace. In particular for car tires this called out to me. Going to an auto shop is an all day adventure for me, whereas almost anything else can easily be ordered or picked up without too much hassle. Furniture is another category though where there's a non trivial investment required to replace it. Therefore, these should be more durable, even if they're not something we're otherwise attached to. You could also think about the consequences of something breaking, and the cost of the loss of use. E.g., for a car, if it breaks down you might run the risk of an accident, and while it's broken down you might not be able to commute to work, etc., whereas some things are relatively inconsequential when they break.

bongodongobob 3y ago
Car tires take about an hour and are actually one of the things I buy used every time. 90% of the tread for 1/4 the price.

hydrox24 3y ago

@dang it would be good to link to the student's original website with RCA rather than this reproduction on Core 77. The article at Core 77 is almost entirely copy-pasted, and doesn't add any value. Original: https://2021.rca.ac.uk/students/charlie-humble-thomas/ https://2021.rca.ac.uk/students/charlie-humble-thomas/

nickm12 3y ago
Thank you! The Core 77 version was chewing up my CPU.
- mkerrigan 3y ago
  Same thing happened to me so I'm glad I'm not the only one.
amykhar 3y ago
The other cool thing about the original article is you can find other student projects there - some of which are quite fun.
twic 3y ago
For anyone in or near London, the RCA degree show is worth a visit: https://www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/rca2024/ https://www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/rca2024/ Lots of really interesting work across a huge range of disciplines, from industrial design like this, through digital stuff and service design, to architecture, to fine art, to animation. I've been many times. It's hell on my feet but worth it!
jimbobthrowawy 3y ago
@dang is a no-op. Someone shoot off an email.

c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago

How is the technology in a product expected to change over time? If you're expecting modest or radical changes (with presumably big boosts in efficiency, performance, etc.), why build a long life span product? In a rapidly changing environment, keeping old equipment can be detrimental. Servers can last longer than what they are rated for. Depending on SKU, Intel CPUs are rated for 3, 5, or even 10 years of use, however, servers are refreshed/replaced because of the ongoing performance increases per unit electrical consumption from newer CPU SKUs. In businesses where IT equipment isn't core to the business, old equipment is kept around if IT efficiency isn't really a concern, there's a very high cost of re-engineering, or re-certifying a system. If changes are not reasonably expected, then build products that last a long time. One of my children will inherit my kitchenaid blender.

moonchild 3y ago

Is the full dissertation available anywhere? The link on the author's website is dead.

ooterness 3y ago

The durable umbrella weighs in at 1.7 kg / 3.7 lb, four times what a normal umbrella would weigh. That is absurdly impractical.

pxndxx 3y ago
From TFA: [...] the assumption of 'less but better' being a superior approach to product design is rarely practically evaluated. The third umbrella in the series takes durability to an almost cartoon-like level [...] This was a study of materials and design, not a product someone would like to sell . It's research on object longevity.
- xg15 3y ago
  Yes, but with all studies, it can be made in an objective way or in a way that already enforces a particular conclusion. This is why, in serious scientific work, so much focus is placed on methods and reproducibility. Here he used the less rigorous field of arts and design to wiggle out of that responsibility and present a blatantly biased study.
  - dunekid 3y ago
    We can think of it as the arts equivalent of the spherical cows in vacuum.

foobarkey 3y ago

Objects should completely break down 1d after warranty expires so we can sell another one to the customer. This will increase economic growth, profits and GDP and helps with yacht purchases

wtcactus 3y ago

A find this topic fascinating, and several times in the past I tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to buy items (mainly clothing and shoes/boots) that are made to last a long time. Is there any project that tracks these high durability items?

landgenoot 3y ago
Reddit r/BuyItForLife
- alextingle 3y ago
  That subreddit is basically just an ad for various crappy US brands. There is zero interest in discussion of actual BIFL products, or practices.
  - ericmcer 3y ago
    If I wanted to hire a bunch of fake accounts to upvote my shill posts it does seem like a great subreddit to do it in.

Tabiroxx 3y ago

industrial Design Student Work @data #story

xg15 3y ago

Yeah, sorry. If you prop-up the "recyclable" umbrella with corpospeak sentences like this one: > The Recyclable Umbrella is a reappraisal of the potential for plastic, a material which if properly managed offers carbon savings and excellent recyclability when compared with many organic alternatives. (ignoring that this construction would probably break on a moderately windy day, and naively assumes that it won't end up on a landfill only because it could be recycled) and then purposely over-engeneer the "long-lived" variant so it weighs 1.7 kilos and is practically unusable, you have motivated reasoning. The whole artsy handwaving of this piece also ignores that planned obsolescence often happens in products where the amount of uses is well-known and generally independent on the product's materials, e.g. dishwashers, fridges, etc.

pfdietz 3y ago

I'd just go with some kind of raincoat.

Temporary_31337 3y ago

Once you start optimising for one parameter the other ones suffer. Over 500g for an umbrella is not acceptable in the space age. I bought a cheap Chinese umbrella for $10. It almost never gets used. It probably is not designed to be repairable or durable yet I have had it for over ten years so the environmental impact is minimal. It is also very lightweight so I have it with me often.

hamilyon2 3y ago

I really appreciate that they added weight to the description. Puts things into perspective. Nowadays typically umbrella weights 300 to 500 grams

spintin 3y ago

[dead]

remorses 3y ago

Insurance period minus one standard deviation

v3ss0n 3y ago

I thought its about programming and someone is planning to implement timer based garbage collectors.

jameshart 3y ago

I am confused by what people in the academic design/art community think the word ‘celebrate’ means.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

If I have to use the stainless steel umbrella x6 just for it to be equal to the garbage-tier plastic umbrella, then I will landfill six of the plastic umbrellas. I know it's meant to be recyclable, and I will dutifully put it in the recycle bin, but then my city government will contract it out to some outfit that picks through to find some token recyclables and sends the rest to landfill anyway. So, out of 100 uses of the durable umbrella, or 100 uses of the garbage umbrellas (across six of those), which is a more pleasant experience? Am I wrong to think that it's the obvious one? The umbrella that doesn't flex in the wind like it's going to snap off? The one that doesn't feel slimy for the three days it'll take to dry, the one in fact that won't take that long to dry? The one that doesn't accumulate grime but if it did could easily be wiped off and then be as clean as the day it was bought new? How often does thermoset plastic get a bad mix and end up being a little more brittle than usual? How often does the injection mold not fill completely, but it sails past QA, and so the umbrella handle will snap off when there's a gust... and with my luck when I'm halfway between the car and the building? If someone had a toddler chewing on it, or a dog, which holds up better? The worst you can say about the stainless steel is that it might prompt a trip to the dentist. For anything that I'll use throughout my life, I think I prefer the "durable", unless it's just impossible from an engineering standpoint or is cost-prohibitive.

contingencies 3y ago

Of course it's going to be a commercial question. But from a design standpoint, there are four major components to the umbrella. The cover, the stem, the handle, and the lever-branches (if collapsible) or straight branches (otherwise). The cover is typically a synthetic polymer based material. In collapsible models, due to levers and fiddly connections it's hugely PITA to replace. If it rips or develops a hole you could theoretically push to use a more readily patchable material, however, the high tension at which this is often maintained will rapidly break down many approaches to patching. Realistically, this sort of thing is best done at a factory given the input costs. The stem and handle virtually never break down and can be any form of metal or wood, depending upon whether you want a telescopic collapsible design or rigid full length. Aluminium is supposed to be the best recyclable metal in terms of recovery rate and is also light, however is prone to deformation in thin configurations. It may be possible to consider carbon fiber, which is very cheap now. The lever-branches of a collapsible model are the biggest problem. They are fiddly, prone to breakage in most designs, and in most designs relatively tedious and difficult to securely re-attach to the cover should the cover require replacement. Original suggestion: Design instead a standard interface between the umbrella stem and the cover-and-lever assembly. This would allow easily replacement of the cover-and-lever assembly as the most frequently broken portion. Alternatively, seek out a full length umbrella with strong branches instead of the tiny collapsible ones. Probably these days you could make them with carbon fiber quite cheaply.

throwaway14356 3y ago

I think the main market is people who buy umbrellas when it rains then leave them behind or pile them up in the garage.

Zababa 3y ago

An interesting thing is the graph mapping user bond against physical longevity: https://res.cloudinary.com/rca2020/image/upload/f_webp,h_1080,w_1920,c_fill,g_auto,q_auto/v1/rca2021/60c520e0a98c7847e50197c5-108181?_a=AXAH4S10 https://res.cloudinary.com/rca2020/image/upload/f_webp,h_108.... I would love something like this with more object, but also a third dimension, how possible it is to do it yourself. For example, wooden furniture is pretty doable, and considering the strong user bond and long-lasting life, I see why so many people pick up woodworking.