On Lightness

New principles—above all lightness—inform the ways they are designed, made, used, and looked after. The design focus is overwhelmingly on services and systems, not on things. (p.4)

Following from Thackara’s emphasis on the importance of systems, his principle of “lightness” asks designers to pay attention to the ways a product is part of a larger web of processes, systems, and flows.

Every product that enters our lives has what they call a “hidden history”—an undocumented inventory of wasted or lost materials used in its production, transport, use, and disposal. (p.12)

It is only by addressing these broader relationships that we can really face a contemporary understanding of sustainability. When we think about “green” design, many will probably think of the ways that a product is made to be more energy efficient or created out of recyclable materials. Thackara categorizes these efforts as only the first layer of design intervention for sustainability; they make incremental improvements at the “end-of-pipe,” but don’t address the more systemic questions about how and why the product is used in the world unsustainably.

He illustrates this point by offering a model of four “cycles of change,” where each cycle addresses a broader aspect of a design than the last.

Among the multiple interacting cycles of change now under way are incremental improvements to present products; this is the so-called end-of-pipe approach to eco-design. A second cycle involves the radical redesign of products and services in which an element is transformed, even though the model stays the same: Putting hydrogen power plants into private cars is an example of this. A third cycle involves the development of product-service systems that replace those old models: Car-sharing schemes enabled by the Global Positioning System (GPS) are a good example of this. A fourth cycle involves the redesign of entire spatial, agricultural, and industrial systems to meet the goal of a fully sustainable society. The radical decentralization of production—in food, goods, and care—that has already begun is an example of such a systemic change. (p.24)

All these cycles are important and interrelated, but represent different time scales. Very roughly speaking, we can see that the first two cycles involve lightening the impact of the product, but not the system it is embedded in. The last two seek to revolutionize the industrial and cultural context of a product to create more fundamental effects, but are more difficult and take more time to enact. Still, much of what is exciting about concepts like service design is the potential to change systems to cultivate a human experience more harmonious with our environment.

We also see how this type of systems-focus is valuable from an industry perspective. Thackara notes how what’s good for sustainability can also revitalize a product. 

This is how a commitment to sustainability drives innovation. When organizations put design at the heart of a product and service development, they are triggered to ask fundamental questions about what they make, how they make it, and who for. (pp.17-18)

This is the promise of “design thinking” for businesses. While I think the term has been spoiled by its appropriation in design industry and media, there was always a simple core idea to it that I was attracted to. Thackara captures it well here: effective, meaningful changes start from the basic questions that are natural to a design process about who we design for and why.