Do-it-yourself (DIY) is the practice of household members undertaking home improvement or maintenance on their own, instead of hiring professional help. While DIY is a substantial and steadily growing cultural and economic phenomenon in several developed countries, in India, it is still in a stage of infancy. The objective of this research is to understand whether DIY can be introduced and developed in India as a significant consumer activity based on an understanding of the DIY markets in developed countries (like USA, UK & France) and the business models in place to service them. The concept of DIY started sometime in middle of the 20th century in the USA and it eventually spread to UK and rest of Europe in the later part of the century. Currently, in most developed countries DIY constitutes a significant portion of the Home Improvement and repair Market and there are specialized organized retail chains to cater to the DIY demand. In India and most developing countries, DIY is not an established practice and does not contribute at all to the Home Improvement and repair Market. Organized retail in most developing countries is very small and most of the Home Improvement Market is serviced through local decorative and hardware distribution outlets. Brazil is an exceptional case due to its large organized retail structure for servicing the home improvement market. Organized retail to service the Home Improvement and repair Market in China has started in a big way and is witnessing exponential growth year on year. Similar phenomenon has started in India as well. However, both in China and India, there is no specific demand for DIY products and the same clearly needs to be created. Existing research literature on DIY, focuses mainly, on the determination of variables that influence the decision to take up a DIY or a home improvement project. Apart from this, a large number of business reports and studies profiling specific DIY markets are available over the internet. Work has also been done to trace and record the history of DIY and its impact on culture and society. While there has been some research work carried out that deals with the development of strategy for DIY markets in developed countries, no such work has been done in the context of developing countries. The purpose of this research is to do just that but the scope is limited to household painting and carpentry. The pilot study (focussed group discussions) and the questionnaire survey reveal that, in India, there is a clear bias against DIY mainly on account of perceived lack of time and knowledge. But it is possible to define a demographic profile of people that will show the highest inclination towards DIY. The survey reveals that this profile varies depending on the type of the DIY activity (Electrical, Plumbing, Indoor Painting, Outdoor Painting, carpentry and Gardening). The final part of the research involves the formulation of a holistic marketing strategy, based on the research findings and the understanding of prevalent business models to service DIY in developed countries, to create and service demand for DIY products related to household painting and carpentry in India.

The thesis primarily aims to analyze the situation of DIY culture on the specific case of contemporary DIY photography through a research focused on photography students and alumni at Czech photography programmes. The research consists of fifteen in-depth interviews conducted with the students or alumni providing qualitative data that is analyzed quantitatively using the interviewees' coded answers. The secondary aim is to provide a theoretical background to the topic of DIY photography, exploring the connection between photography and DIY (Do It Yourself) in its historical context, as well as its current standing, as well as to introduce the photography medium's evolution briefly, focusing on the methods that were discovered, or applied, with a certain level of amateurism or through contribution from another field. Later, it explores the concept of DIY in different forms, subcultures, and contexts to draw a conclusion of how photography and DIY relate. The thesis' findings are centred around the struggle photographers feel when it comes to DIY in digital technologies, mainly due to limits in their skills in hands-on processes compared to analogue photography and the overall level of satisfaction with the available technology.

The project elaborates design opportunities for a future practice that could promotealternative sustainable lifestyles on waste handling through up-cycling activities. It doesthis on a small scale through engagement in the local communities of the Hildaneighborhood and Segepark students’ accommodations in Sweden. To thesecommunities, creative-up-cycling is explored which it introduced here as an approachwhere neighbors can participate in making new things from leftover materials. Throughthis work creative-up-cycling is a proposed recommendation for a possible service systemon how to share the leftover materials in the local resident’s communities, as well as, howto remake the items no longer needed.The empirical studies explore maker culture lifestyles and include how to find leftovermaterials, tools, space, and skills in order to guide people in creative-up-cyclingalternatives. These creative activities also build social relationship via the integration ofmultidisciplinary citizens who are living in the same community and explorations weredone on how could we elicit the skill sets from those people? What is a useful skill set inthis area today? Values like mutual physical experience, reciprocity, and ownership couldalso be found along the empirical workshops in this project. Additionally, this reportshows some interesting findings pointing towards the design process and the suggestionsof design elements; ‘Co-storage’, ‘Mix and Match furniture shop’, and ‘Renovation andup-cycling’ concept elements.Participatory design (designing with people) has been the core approach in this project.Additionally, I have been influenced by user-centered design, as well as service designapproaches in order to comprehend the services, system and activities of recycling andup-cycling in cities like: SYSAV, STPLN, Cykelköket, Återskapa, Toolpool. The findingpresented here are examples of practices that could make up the composition of recyclingand up-cycling activities in future local communities.