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ServDes2020

2–5 February 2021

RMIT UNIVERSITY, MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

Short Paper

Undo-Replay: re-scripting unsustainable toy consumption through value transference

10:30AM

11:30AM
Presenting Author(s): Kathy Qian, Liam Fennessy
03 February 2021

Please be aware that multiple presentations will take place during this session commencing at 10:30AM AEDT and share the same zoom link. Check how presentations are clustered in the program spreadsheet when adding the calendar.

This paper presents an account of the design of the Undo-Replay project: a combination of strategies from design for sustainability and product, service system design aimed at redirecting plastic toys from entering waste streams at the end of their use lives. Aimed at equipping children and adults alike with opportunities to participate in their own transferences of value, the Undo-Replay project uses gameplay and narrative to create new cultures of repair and re-making that are critical in a transition towards sustainability. The authors offer an analytical account of the socio-material systems that underpin toy consumption and waste practices, and discuss how designers might build new constructive social experiences to foster more sustainable behaviours. In considering how the project unsettles existing relations to transfer value, this paper fleshes out the tensions of environment, material, and consumption at play for designers committed to notions of sustainable redirection.

Europe (CET): 3rd February 2021 12:30 am to 1:30 am

US (EST): 2nd February 2021 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm

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Kathy Qian
Kathy Qian
RMIT University

Kathy Qian is an industrial designer specialising in sustainable product and service design. Graduating from RMIT University with first class Honours, she received the Joyce Coffey ""Outstanding Female Designer"" Award 2019 and is a DIA Graduate of the Year 2020 finalist. Kathy has a particular interest in object-user relationships, emotional durability, experience design and the roles these play in creating sustainable futures. Her
Honours project Undo-Replay tackles the growing global issue of plastic toy waste and consumer attitudes towards repair and repurposing objects perceived as low-value.

Liam Fennessy
Liam Fennessy
RMIT University

Concerned with how design practice might attend to the socio-cultural-environmental implications of new product and service development Dr. Liam Fennessy teaches Industrial Design at RMIT University. His research has two key foci: on industrial design pedagogy and practice after the project of industrialisation; and on product-service-systems design projects that deal with questions of sustainability through de-materialisation.