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This research project explores opportunities for sustainable design in New Zealand. Recently a new framework for sustainable design was proposed by environmental chemist Michael Braungart and architect William McDonough who suggest that the current paradigm of cradle to grave product development is unable to provide a solution to the world’s current ecological crisis, and a “cradle to cradle” framework is more appropriate. They suggest that their approach, based on examples from nature, ensures that all human activities have a positive ecological footprint, capable of replenishing and regenerating natural systems, as well as guaranteeing that we are able to develop a world that is culturally and ecologically diverse. A group of New Zealand scientists was asked to evaluate the Cradle to Cradle design framework in an attempt to determine the potential of this, or other sustainable approaches, to design New Zealand products. The key findings from these interviews are described and were utilised to propose a new sustainable design framework – “design for ecosystem function”. In design for ecosystem function, biodiversity is placed central to the design decision-making process, alongside human user needs. This framework was then used to help explore the relationship between science and design, while developing three new, innovative and ecologically beneficial products. The three products, or ecological interventions, represent a design response to a range of ecological problems. They include a toy to help children reconnect with nature in urban ecosystems, a trap to assist lizard monitoring and conservation, and a shelter designed to enhance tree survival, and the colonisation of biodiversity in native forest restoration plantings.

This research project explores opportunities for sustainable design in New Zealand. Recently a new framework for sustainable design was proposed by environmental chemist Michael Braungart and architect William McDonough who suggest that the current paradigm of cradle to grave product development is unable to provide a solution to the world’s current ecological crisis, and a “cradle to cradle” framework is more appropriate. They suggest that their approach, based on examples from nature, ensures that all human activities have a positive ecological footprint, capable of replenishing and regenerating natural systems, as well as guaranteeing that we are able to develop a world that is culturally and ecologically diverse. A group of New Zealand scientists was asked to evaluate the Cradle to Cradle design framework in an attempt to determine the potential of this, or other sustainable approaches, to design New Zealand products. The key findings from these interviews are described and were utilised to propose a new sustainable design framework – “design for ecosystem function”. In design for ecosystem function, biodiversity is placed central to the design decision-making process, alongside human user needs. This framework was then used to help explore the relationship between science and design, while developing three new, innovative and ecologically beneficial products. The three products, or ecological interventions, represent a design response to a range of ecological problems. They include a toy to help children reconnect with nature in urban ecosystems, a trap to assist lizard monitoring and conservation, and a shelter designed to enhance tree survival, and the colonisation of biodiversity in native forest restoration plantings.

In the current transport landscape, where chronic problems such as congestion, insufficient parking spaces and air pollution beset urban areas, car sharing has been suggested as an alternative to mitigate these issues. With the emergence and growing popularity of the sharing economy, a shifting perception towards car ownership has paved the way towards rapid growth in shared mobility. The car club – or car sharing – as a service, enables people to go without their own car, yet use one when they need to. This flexible transport option has grown rapidly in many metropolises around the world. In London, it is forecast that the total number of round-trips car club memberships will increase from 137,000 in 2013 to approximately 264,000 by 2020 (Frost & Sullivan, 2014). As car sharing’s popularity rises, it is critical to better understand car club users with their varied lifestyles and mindsets. Therefore, this research focuses on obtaining an in-depth understanding of car club users and exploring more deeply the role of the car club from the users’ perspective. Three key questions were asked: 1. What are the users’ perspectives towards existing car clubs? 2. What are their key suggestions as to how to improve the car club model? 3. What are the critical aspects of the proposed car club model, from the users’ perspective? The research adopts a multidisciplinary approach, with further contextual research and expert interviews with service designers in order to evaluate the role service design might play in enticing more people to consider the use of such mobility services in the future. The ultimate aim of this research is to provide a set of mobility service guidelines designed to enhance the overall level of user experience for car clubs. Advancing the operating models of car clubs should help existing operators fulfil their role as a more adaptable and reliable alternative transport mode in urban areas. The research outcome is expected to contribute to current car club operators’ future plans and provide guidance for vehicle OEMs when developing their own mobility models in the future.

This PhD by practice explores the possibilities of visible repair using a design-led methodology that aims to bring a new consciousness to the relationship between consumers and products, as part of an approach to 'circular' product design. Through a series of workshops in which participants repaired broken products, Do-Fix repair kits were developed and trialled; these kits combine new technologies such as 3D printing with traditional repair methods such as kintsugi, darning and patching, focused on making repairs both visible and engaging to carry out. Current economic systems depend on large quantities of resource and energy use that cannot be sustained with the planet’s finite resources. Producing long-lasting, purposeful and ‘circular’ products is essential in order to decrease the rate of consumption and its negative environmental impacts. Repair is an effective strategy for extending product lifespan and closing the material loops. However, increasing the product’s lifespan is also dependent upon the attitudes and behaviour of users. Therefore, the aim of this research is to explore the role of repair in user-product engagement and create a product or service that encourages people to repair products more for the purpose of awakening human sensitivity to environmental and societal problems. Conventional repair methods, such as kintsugi (a Japanese repair method using gold), darning and patching are combined with new technologies and materials, including 3D printing, with the help of ‘research through design’ methods. All the repair techniques were tested in workshops with users. The results were fed back into the research, which was then used to develop Do-Fix repair kits, providing users with the opportunity to give a second life to an object. Here the aim is not to disguise the damage, but to make something artful out of it. The Do-Fix repair kits include four different kits, namely (1) the kintsugi kit, (2) 3D-printed patches, (3) plaster patches for mending textiles, and (4) textile patches for fixing shoes and bags. The value of this research for design practice is in its exploration of potential methods and materials of product repair by providing concrete examples, as well as the creation of the Do-Fix repair kits. For academics and researchers its value lies in reframing the position of repair in the circular economy and developing design considerations related to product repair.

The principle objective of this study is to examine the conditions and contexts of critical design practice, specifically as it pertains to methods of identifying, presenting and producing critical design within the space of the museum exhibition. The analysis in this study seeks to reveal a better understanding of the working practices that underpin museums’ creative engagements with critical design practice while recognising the significance of critical design’s behaviours of questioning, possibilising, probabilising and activating that inform such engagements. A case is presented for combining several theoretical perspectives into a multi-layered conceptual framework for examining the ideas, approaches and conditions of both critical design and its circulation through the museum exhibition. In calling upon concepts from the art world as a means of developing a philosophical understanding of design, the concept of a ‘work of design’ is proposed to understand the shift in practice that has occurred over the past fifteen years. Furthermore, the emphasis on a ‘work of design’ is explicated through a conceptualisation of critical practice as both a design of reflexive modernity and a para-model of practice – a notable device for social and cultural research. Design’s circulation in the museum is problematised drawing upon theories of the curatorial to develop a model of the exhibition as a speculative activity that privileges critical thought, discourse, speculation and production. In this sense ‘the curatorial’ offers a space for multiple viewpoints and experiences which together create a collective endeavour that remains forever open to contestation and adjustment. Empirically, the study contributes insights into the diverse and contingent curatorial practices involved in communicating and disseminating critical design practice. The findings suggest that the new relationships that are being formed between critical design and the museum are reframing the exhibition as a tool for research – a transdisciplinary studio space whereby ideas are tested and projects take form through the performativity of multiple agents. Thus the museum is being approached as a context for experimentation; a space that exposes rather than displays, presents rather than represents, a performative space that points to a recoding of practice as production. In this way we can begin to consider the museum and its exhibitions as a model of emergence as they enter a discourse of performativity that actively engages with their subject rather than merely offering it for consumption. The result is a collective space for knowing and experiencing via the performativity of both critical design and the curatorial.

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The effect of high molecular weight carboxylate ligands as compared to naphthenate ligands on the effectiveness of transition metals as additives for reducing soot particulates was studied in the combustion of diesel fuel and distillate fuel oil by use of a laboratory scale burner. A mechanism involving pseudoheterogenous catalytic reactions is proposed. A simple system to evaluate fuel additives by burning only a few milliliters of oil was designed, developed, and used. Polybutene with an average molecular weight of 920 was the raw material in this study. The polymer was oxidized with KMnO4 to the corresponding acid from whose potassium salt the transition metal-polymer complex obtained. Special treatments were required during the synthesis because of unique viscosity and solubility properties exhibited by the polymer. The oxidation was carried out in the presence of dicyclohexane 18-crown-6 ether as a phase transfer catalyst.

The application of product families and platforms has gained attention as a promising approach to achieving organizational objectives that provide customers with mass customized products while allowing for significant savings from commonality and reuse strategies. While the single-platform strategy has been widely studied, it may lead to the over expansion of the product family. Designers have to either continuously extend the exiting platform and/or impose strict constraints on new variants in order that there is a fit. On the one hand, continuously “extending“ or “'stretching“ the platform forces the platform to become overburdened and less efficient. On the other hand, imposing strict constraints on new variants will force new variants to compromise performances. In this research, the concept of a multi-platform strategy has been put forward to reduce or eliminate negative effects of the single-platform strategy by coordinating products in a complex product family into two or more platforms to provide enough product variety as well as commonality. The method is developed by adopting and synthesizing various tools and concepts from different research areas, such as design management tools, clustering analysis, statistics, decision analysis, mathematical programming, and engineering costing. The product assets that can be shared by the products are determined through product asset value analysis and redesign effort analysis. The number of platforms is flexibly determined by a hierarchical clustering method based on product similarity/dissimilarity. The product-platform assignment problem is simultaneously solved during the clustering process. A multi-objective optimization model is formulated to determine the design specifications and address the product positioning. A Consistent Aggregate Function Formation Method (CAF2M) is put forward to convert the multi-objective optimization model into a single-dimension problem that can quantitatively balance the tradeoff among the multiple objectives. To evaluate the economic benefit from the platform-based product development, an adjusted Activity-Based Costing approach is utilized to identify the cost savings with the consideration of learning effects. A case application with seven automobile models is utilized to illustrate the proposed multi-platform strategy. The method was found helpful for determining and integrating critical design information into the design of product families and platforms. / Ph. D.

This research evaluates the problems that design engineers face when trying to include environmental issues in product design without jeopardizing other design issues. A thorough review of current literature, tools and methodologies on the topic is given whilst their gaps and shortcomings are revealed and the need for a new methodology is formulated. This sets the starting point for the research and the development carried out during this research. A methodology is proposed in this thesis that helps manufacturers of complex products apply the Eco-Design principle and the whole life cycle approach without compromising the economic performance of their products. On one hand the primary objective outlined for the methodology is to include three different issues in product design: economic impact, environmental impact and functional issues whilst avoiding a trade-off. On the other hand, since the methodology is applicable to complex products, the secondary objective is to align and integrate two separate issues: alignment of the design process progress and the product hierarchy. In order to achieve those objectives existing design tools, such as the TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) matrix and the DfX (Design for X) method, are integrated. Furthermore a computer support tool in the form of a user interface is developed that is based on the theoretical framework of the methodology. This user interface allows for a quick analysis of a product and the production of design suggestions in order to enhance the product characteristics. The validation of the research is presented through examples and the application of case studies of different products. This case study approach helps to develop and apply findings during the methodology development and validate the functionality and flexibility of the proposed methodology. Areas of future work which can help increase the knowledge base, scope and applicability of the work carried out are identified.