PRODUCT DESIGN METHODS WITH RECYCLED MATERIALS BASED ON BIOMIMICRY Academic Article in Scopus uri icon

abstract

  • The damage that human activities have caused to our planet is undeniable, especially since the Industrial Revolution. We are in the era of the Anthropocene: characterized by the excessive consumption of natural resources and the generation of greenhouse gases, which have had a significant impact on the climate and biodiversity. Fortunately, in recent years related initiatives have emerged to reverse the above. Some of them are zero waste, recycling, downcycling and upcycling design, related to the reduction and maximum use of waste, as well as the extension of the useful life of products and/or the use of their materials. The circular economy, a production and consumption model that allows the useful life of products to be extended, has also brought benefits to the environment, the economy, and people. In congruence with the above, in the Product Design course, last year elective open course of the Industrial Design program, two design methods have been proposed based on the Biomimicry design spirals, for the development of products based on the use of recycled materials, especially derived from wood and plastics. The general objective of this work is to disseminate the new design methods and share the first results of their implementation. This paper shows the new methods and the results of their implementation in three courses, taught to students from different disciplines, this in the academic periods Summer 2022, February-June 2023 semester, and August-December 2023 semester. © 2024 Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education: Rise of the Machines: Design Education in the Generative AI Era, E and PDE 2024. All rights reserved.

publication date

  • January 1, 2024