The thesis is based on the background of the speed of fashion and mass consumption of apparel, and how fashion-based items do not fulfill the premises of apparel on a long-term basis – the premises mainly being expression of identity. The purpose of the study is to examine the notion of durable aesthetics in relation to the premises consumers have for apparel. The research intends to answer questions of what the premises of apparel are and how it relates to durable aesthetics, what these garments can look like and what implications these answers might have in development of long-term apparel. The study is based on earlier research of fashion theory and consumption culture, and eleven qualitative interviews with perspectives from both consumers and apparel companies. Based on the consumer perspective, the aesthetic function of apparel is identified as something communicative – mainly conveying personality. Garments that are aesthetically appealing over time are always of good quality and fulfills the aesthetic function the consumers have. Based on the company perspective, garments with durable aesthetics are always in line with the companies’ DNA and the consumer segment. The conclusion is that apparel with durable aesthetics is versatile – it can be basic or expressive. The criterion in both cases is that the expression must be in line with a consumers’ aesthetic function, which is established through personality and core style. Companies can achieve a wide product range with durable aesthetics if they are consequent to their company DNA. / Uppsatsen tar utgångspunkt i snabbheten av mode och masskonsumtion av kläder, och det faktum att modebaserade produkter inte uppfyller premisserna för kläder på lång sikt – premisser vilket huvudsakligen är att uttrycka identitet. Studiens syfte är därför att undersöka termen varaktig estetik i relation till premisserna för kläder. Undersökningen syftar till att besvara frågor kring dagens premisser för kläder och hur dessa relaterar till varaktig estetik, hur dessa kläder kan se ut och vilka implikationer svaren skulle kunna ha i utveckling av hållbara kläder. Uppsatsen baseras på tidigare forskning inom modevetenskap och konsumtionskulturteori, samt elva kvalitativa intervjuer med perspektiv från både konsumenter och klädföretag. Baserad på konsumentperspektivet, är estetiska funktioner något kommunikativt – huvudsakligen att uttrycka personlighet. Kläder som är estetiskt tilltalande över tid är alltid av hög kvalité och uppfyller konsumentens estetiska funktioner. Företagsperspektivet visar att kläder med varaktig estetik alltid är i linje med företagets DNA och kundsegment. Slutsatsen är att kläder med varaktig estetik är mångsidigt – det kan vara både basic och uttrycksfullt. Kriteriet i båda fall är att uttrycket måste stämma överens med konsumentens estetiska funktion, vilket baseras på personlighet och kärnstil. Företag kan uppnå ett brett produktsortiment med varaktig estetik förutsatt att dem håller sig till företagets DNA.

[pt] Esta tese apresenta uma proposta de modelo conceitual para a produção do açaí (Euterpe precatoria) no Estado do Amazonas, a partir de uma reflexão sobre metodologias emergentes de design sustentável. Tais metodologias buscam integrar as dimensões ambiental, econômica e social aos processos de desenvolvimento de produtos. Na pesquisa, conceitos de ecodesign, design social, design participativo, design sustentável e tecnologia apropriada são abordados. Foi realizado um levantamento dos impactos ambientais e sociais observados no modelo produtivo do açaí (Euterpe precatoria) do Amazonas, tendo como objeto de estudo a Cooperativa de Açaí de Codajás, e em seguida foi elaborada uma proposta de modelo conceitual para a produção do açaí na região, buscando responder aos princípios ambientais e priorizar a responsabilidade socioeconômica, visando ao desenvolvimento da região e à melhoria da qualidade de vida dos agricultores envolvidos no processo. / [en] This thesis presents a proposal of a conceptual model for the production of açaí (Euterpe precatoria) in the State of Amazonas, based on a reflection on emerging sustainable design methodologies. These methodologies seek to integrate the environmental, economic and social dimensions into the product development processes. In the research, concepts of ecodesign, social design, participatory design, sustainable design and appropriate technology are addressed. A survey of the environmental and social impacts observed in the açaí (euterpe precatoria) production model of Amazonas was carried out, having the Cooperativa de Acaí de Codajás as the object of study. In the sequence, a conceptual model was proposed for the production of the açaí in the region, seeking to respond to environmental principles and to prioritize socio-economic responsibility, aiming at the development of the region and the improvement of the quality of life of farmers involved in the process.

A presente tese trata da concepção de projeto sustentável para a cidade - o caso de Uberlândia, Minas Gerais. A hipótese que se coloca é que o desenho ambiental urbano, em um projeto sustentável, além de responder às necessidades básicas da cidade de habitar, locomover, trabalhar e recrear, promove, também, a conexão sociocultural com a natureza, possibilitando o desenvolvimento da consciência e da identidade cultural de um lugar e de um povo. E, a partir da visão de mundo ecológica, tem o veio d\'água como elemento-chave estruturador do desenho da cidade. É uma abordagem em que a questão reside em colocar a o desenho ambiental urbano no centro da produção da cidade. Em síntese, trata-se de destacar o projeto sustentável como fio condutor da concepção e organização territorial, contrapondo aos modelos funcionais, administrativos e econômicos, cuja aplicação tem levado o ambiente urbano a processos intensos de degradação, de fragmentação e de insustentabilidade. Tem como premissa filosófica a dimensão ecológica, que estabelece os pilares para o pensamento sobre a organização das cidades. Nessa dimensão, está a visão de mundo ecológica, os princípios das teorias não lineares (Morin, 1990), a sustentabilidade e a ética ecológica. A partir dessa visão, a dimensão ambiental (McHarg, 1969; Spirn, 1995; Hough, 2004) se estrutura em dois eixos de análise: o ambiente biótico e o urbano. No biótico, destacam-se os links ecológicos como mediadores das interconexões ecológicas em que a água é elemento fundamental a existência da vida. No urbano, os vínculos antropossociais são assinalados dos como estruturantes da dinâmica urbana e por meio da identidade cultural e urbanidade, em que o sentido de pertencimento e pertinência é fortalecido pela condição de conectividade e pela qualidade da imagem urbana estabelecidas na dimensão da teia urbana. O estudo da cidade de Uberlândia visa aplicar tais premissas teóricas na leitura ambiental e, ao mesmo tempo, auxiliar no processo de instrumentalização do processo projetual do projeto sustentável para a cidade. / This thesis deals with the conception of sustainable design for the city - the case study of Uberlândia, Minas Gerais. The hypothesis that arises is that the urban environmental design in sustainable design, beyond responding the basic needs of the city as live, move, work and leisure, promotes also the socio and cultural connection with nature, enabling the development of consciousness and the cultural identity. And, from the ecological world-view, has the watercourses as a key design, an element-key structuring the city design conception. This is an approach in which consist to centralize the urban environmental design in central urban space production. In summary, it is to highlight the sustainable design as a conductor of territorial conception and organization, contrasting the functional models, administrative and economics ones, which has been taken the urban environmental to intense process of degradation, fragmentation and un-sustainability. It has as philosophical premise the ecology dimension, which establishes the cornerstones to the thinking about cities organization. In this dimension there is the ecological world-view, the non linear theories (Morin, 1990), the sustainability and ecological ethic. From this vision, the environmental dimension (McHarg, 1969; Spirn, 1995; Hough, 2004) structures itself in two axes analysis: the biotic and urban environment. At biotic ambient, it highlights the ecological links as mediators of ecological interconnections in that the water is the fundamental element to existence of life. At urban ambient, the social and cultural ties are highlighted as structures of urban dynamic and through the culture identity and urbanity, in which the sense of belonging and relevance is strengthened by the connectivity condition and by the urban image established in the urban web dimension. The case study of Uberlandia city aims to apply such theoretical premises in reading the environmental panorama and, at the same time, to assist the instrumentalization of city sustainable design process.

The thesis aims to deconstruct the traditional dualities between design and use and blend the boundaries between them. It characterises design as a process that is complex, dynamic, and integral to other processes, such as use. The thesis utilises Latour's concept of the collective. Although this concept has been applied to architectural contexts in previous studies, this thesis expands the collective to include actors of use. The thesis elaborates on the inscription and description of technologies inspired by Akrich (1992). It shows how the collective is shaped and reshaped through such processes. Building parallels with previous studies, it analyses the importance of fluidity and fluid actors in de-scribing technologies and reshaping the collectives. The thesis utilises the case of Masdar City, which has been designed in the UK by the architectural and urban planning firm Foster + Partners and implemented in the Middle East, specifically in the United Arab Emirates. The thesis focuses on its first developed stage represented by Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST). Based on a qualitative and inductive approach, the conducted research utilises interviews and site observations with the designers, users, and other main contributors. Through this approach, the thesis reflects on the concept of sustainability that is itself contested, changeable, and vague. The thesis concludes that sustainable design processes should be seen as continuous loops between design and use. In acknowledging this, it is further suggested that concepts such as the living laboratory, which support the adaptation of designs and learning from use, are adopted at the outset in architectural production.

Lately the construction industry has become more interested in designing and constructing environmentally friendly buildings (e.g. sustainable buildings) that can provide both high performance and monetary savings. Analyzing various parameters during sustainable design such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and energy consumption, lighting simulation, green building rating system criteria and associated cost of building components at the conceptual design stage is very useful for designers needing to make decisions related to the selection of optimum design alternatives. Building Information Modeling (BIM) offers designers the ability to assess different design options and to select vital energy strategies and systems at the conceptual stage of proposed buildings. This thesis describes a methodology to implement sustainable design for proposed buildings at their conceptual stage. The proposed methodology is to be implemented through the design and development of a model that simplifies the process of designing sustainable buildings, evaluating their Environmental Impacts (EI), assessing their operational and embodied energy and listing their potential accumulated certification points in an integrated environment. Therefore, a Decision Support System (DSS) is developed by using Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques to help design team decides and selects the best type of sustainable building components and design families for proposed projects based on three main criteria (i.e. Environmental, Economical factor «cost efficiency » and Social wellbeing) in an attempt to identify the influence of design variations on the sustainable performance of the whole building. The DSS outcomes are incorporated in an integrated model capable of guiding users when performing sustainable design for building projects. The proposed methodology contains five modules: 1) Database Management System (DBMS), 2) Energy and lighting analysis, 3) Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), 4) LEED and 5) Life Cycle Cost (LCC). To improve the workability of the proposed model, a use case of abovementioned modules are going to be created as plug-ins in BIM tool. The successful implementation of such a methodology represents a significant advancement in the ability to attain sustainable design of a building during the early stages, to evaluate its EI, and to list its potentially earned certification points and associated soft costs.

Today, climate change is one of the world's greatest challenges. The main cause of this is humans' emissions of greenhouse gases, which for instance occur when burning fossil fuels. A prerequisite for meeting this challenge is that society change the way energy is produced and used. In the pursuit of fighting climate change, it is therefore crucial to create awareness among people regarding energy use. The purpose of this thesis project is to design a cultivation unit which uses residual heat. In this way, we aim to create awareness regarding the reuse of energy that would otherwise be wasted in society. To achieve this, we have used an established design process and creative methods, such as workshops, focus groups and prototyping. The thesis project resulted in a concept for a cultivation unit that in an innovative way brings attention to the reuse of residual heat. The work has been carried out in collaboration with Luleå Energi, an energy company that supplies Luleå with energy, and works to create conditions for more sustainable energy use. / Idag är klimatförändringar en av världens största utmaningar. Den främsta orsaken är människors utsläpp av växthusgaser, som bland annat förekommer vid förbränning av fossila bränslen. En förutsättning för att möta denna utmaning är att samhället förändrar det sätt energi produceras och används. En viktig del i strävan mot att bekämpa klimatförändringarna är därför att skapa en medvetenhet hos människor gällande energianvändning. Syftet med det här examensarbetet är att utforma en odlingsenhet som använder sig av restvärme, för att på så sätt uppmärksamma återanvändningen av den energi som annars går till spillo i samhället. För att uppnå detta har ett designarbete genomförts genom en etablerad designprocess och kreativa metoder, såsom workshops, fokusgrupper och prototyper. Examensarbetet resulterade i ett koncept för en odlingsenhet som på ett innovativt sätt uppmärksammar återanvändningen av restvärme. Arbetet har genomförts i samarbete med Luleå Energi, ett energiföretag som förser Luleå med energi och som arbetar med att skapa förutsättningar för en mer hållbar energianvändning.

More and more people commute to work, travel and use the electric bicycle as a daily means of transport. The need for bicycle racks, adapted for electric bicycles is growing and the demands on bicycle racks are higher than for bicycle racks for ordinary bicycles. This as they are very expensive to buy. On behalf of NOLA Industries, a bicycle rack for electric bicycles will be designed. The bicycle rack must also meet the need to recharge the batteries while the bicycle is parked and meet all found requirements from all stakeholders, which were collected during the project. The project is carried out by one student from Luleå University of Technology, who is studying M.Sc. in industrial design with a focus on product development. The project was carried out in Luleå with NOLA at a distance in Stockholm. The aim of the project was to come up with an idea for a bicycle rack that is suitable for public environments and that also fits into NOLA’s existing product range. At the beginning of the project, the time was planned using a Gantt scheme. The process used was CDIO consisting of four different phases. After the planning was completed, a benchmarking was made of how the situation looked and how the electric bicycles in today’s society work. The theory section was planned and introduced with a description of the line of technical design. The chapter was then followed up with relevant theory for the project. In order to find out what users think of existing bicycle racks and what were the desires for future bicycle racks, a survey was sent out. The work continued with several different information collection methods which were then followed up with creative work in the design phase. The final work included CAD models and renderings from keyshot of the finished concept. The final concept meets stakeholder requirements for an electric bike rack. It fulfill the need to be able to recharge the electric bike’s battery and to lock the electric bike in several points. The roof and the bicycle racks are equipped with led lighting, counteracting vandalism and theft of the electric bicycles. The roof also protects the electric bicycles against weather conditions.

Using design methods, techniques and tools for developing interventions to tackle complex issues have been on the rise. One such area is designing for sustainable behaviour, where the role of the designer is crucial. Addressing the limited availability of information regarding design research for effectively inciting behaviour change, this thesis aims towards developing a comprehensive guidance framework for designers. This framework is intended to be used in the research phase and meant to act as a base for scouting relevant information that will contribute to the development of a relatively sensible intervention. The framework views behavioural determinants via 3 lenses – context, culture and intent. This paper primarily takes a theoretical approach with mostly qualitative insight obtained from the literature review and case-study meta-synthesis, eventually resulting in a framework and a supporting toolkit.

The construction and demolition (C&D) waste produced by the Canadian construction industry accounts for 27% of the total municipal solid waste disposed in landfills. However, more than 75% of C&D waste has residual value and, consequently, could be salvaged, recycled, and/or reused. The need for comprehensive and integrated waste management mechanisms, technologies, rating systems, and policies is widely recognized. A waste management hierarchy tool exists for reducing and managing waste that follows this order: preventing, minimizing, reusing, recycling, energy recovering, and finally, disposing of the waste. It appears that the highest level attained by the concrete industry in Canada is recycling (e.g., crushing concrete and using it as base aggregate). This study aims to explore the opportunities and barriers to advance to the next level in the waste management hierarchy by reclaiming concrete from decommissioned structures for reuse with minimal reprocessing. A survey was distributed to members of the Canadian concrete industry to answer two main sets of questions: 1) to what degree, if any, is the Canadian construction industry currently reclaiming waste concrete by recycling and/or reusing it? and 2) what is the perception of industry professionals on concrete reuse? What are the perceived benefits and challenges of such a practice? A total of 125 participants responded to the survey. Although the environmental advantages of concrete reuse were clear to all, views on the financial benefits were mixed. Many participants highlighted that a successful approach to concrete reuse should involve all parties and stakeholders. Overall, there is positive interest in the concept of concrete reuse; however, there is apparent uncertainty on how to approach it and, thus, there is a need for practical guidance to address various technical, logistical, and liability concerns in a comprehensive and holistic manner. Two cases studies – one for a bridge and one for a building – were developed to address some of the technical challenges associated with reusing concrete in structural applications. The case studies were based on local existing structures that were hypothetically disassembled then repurposed in conceptual redesigns. The design of connections to effectively recouple the deconstructed structural components was a focal, and challenging, aspect of the case studies; in support of shifting towards a circular economy, the connection designs were engineered to be reversible to facilitate future adaptation and/or further dismantlement. It is important to highlight that a desirable reuse project starts in the initial design phase, where the ultimate disassembly and repurposing of the structure is considered from the start (i.e., cradle to cradle design). However, since this is presently not mainstream practice, these case studies focus on the more complex task of deconstructing existing structures that were not designed with the intention of reuse. Although several challenges were encountered, this approach is an essential first step in the present framework to move the discussion forward in the context of reuse of structural concrete members.

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