Waterer Jeans* | 5 weeks individual course | Jan-Feb 10 | tutor: Leif Thies
Brief: Design a sustainable item or redesign one of your previous projects with a sustainable approach
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Waterer Jeans: a critical design concept towards ecological literacy
"Ecological literacy - the understanding of the principles of organization that ecosystems have evolved to sustain the web of life - is the first step on the road to sustainability. The second step is the move towards ecodesign. We need to apply our ecological knowledge to the fundamental redesign of our technologies and social institutions, so as to bridge the current gap between human design and the ecological sustainable systems of nature. "
The Hidden Connections, Fritjof Capra (2003)
This is an outcome of an elective course: "That Depends... Sustainability in Design Practice" which was a kind of investigative journey through world of sustainability from materials, economics to services and collaborative projects.
My ideas is inspired by three notions: "Ecological Literacy, Infinite Value and Invisible Materials & Production".
How can I design an experiential product which makes you aware about hidden aspects of a design was my main question. I chose water as one of the most important natural resources which is getting polluted every day. Then I found there is a kind of indicator for how much water we consume through consuming a product and that indicator was: "Virtual Water" concept.
Then I chose jeans as one the most popular products which consumes a huge amount of water: 10,850 liters of water for one pair of jeans!
I designed a new brand "Waterer Jeans*" to make people aware of water resources behind the product. It is a brand for jeans lovers to stop buying more and more jeans.
As you know the color of jeans gets disappear after a while, then I use this feature to show that you make your jeans empty of water during several years of consuming with disappearing the color from top to bottom.
