ABSTRACT
Landfills are packed with fully functional durable goods that slowly compact and surrender working order beneath a substantial volume of similar scrap, their downfall an inability to sustain a meaningful attachment with their owners. In this emotive sense, waste is a symptom of a failed subject/object relationship. Design has a central role in the creation of longer user:product relationships, but sustainable design methodologies have thus far attended almost exclusively to the somewhat superficial, bodily survival of manufactured objects, to aftereffects rather than causes. There is little point designing physical durability into goods if consumers lack the desire to keep them. The scope and power of emotional experiences delivered via objects produced through the current system are incredibly limited. Commercially viable strategies are needed for emotionally durable objects which engage users on deeper, more profound, levels and over longer, more rewarding, periods of time. New, alternative genres of objects could increase the durability of relationships between users and products, people and things. This will demand novel and provocative models of sustainable design capable of developing emotionally durable objects and empowering consumers to transcend the superficial urgencies of conventional consumerism and to forge deep emotive connections with their possessions.
