Facing the increasing environmental dilemma and the responsibilities as Industrial Designers concerning industrial production and waste, eco-design has become one of the most current methodologies in the conception and development of new products. The requirements for eco-design imply the achievements of strict ecologic conditions that reach complex products rigorous with the raw materials, machinery and available production processes, which may limit the range that the proposals want to attain. As professionals, we elaborated the following design methodology focused on the development of products based on the creation of new materials taking into account important principles such as: “Design Thinking”, “Cradle to Cradle”, “Inverse Engineering” and “Eco-design”. We propose a new process with different steps from those known in common design methods. The comprehension and exploration of unused raw materials is the first step to this procedure. Simultaneously, it is required to understand the usage opportunities for the raw material and explore how its properties may be applied in objects, products or services for the possible solutions of problematics and/or market needs. The axis for this methodology is the development of eco-design strategies and eco-efficiency that guarantees the desired environmental sustainability. There are diverse stages where the ideas are produced, a new material is explored, and in consequence, a new product, object or service is born accomplishing the requirements set by this methodology. The next step includes the life cycle analysis that encloses the phases of products from the collection and use of the raw material till the end of its usage life, understanding the critical points of each phase to be able to improve them decreasing the negative environmental impact. In the same way, the material is explored, defining its properties by testing it with official laboratory tests and categorizing it in different selection matrices. The opportunity, needs and problematics are then analyzed, taking into account the selected scenario and how the material may play an important part of the solution. This results in an extended compilation of information based on qualitative investigations that shows the character and understanding of the problem while proposing effective and precise solutions. Our premise understands Industrial Design as an user and environment-centered discipline were a new material is developed and it is placed at the service of nature and our community. As a result of this methodology, we developed a project starting with coffee grounds, an organic residue that is not frequently used in Bogotá, Colombia. We created a new material that favors the cultivation initiative in homes: reducing time, operations, processes and contaminating materials resulting of a chore that aims helping the environment and self-consume. CAFIVO is a cultivating system, 100% biodegradable, for homes based on agglutinated coffee grounds (BOA) by industrial designers: Escallón, Fernández and González. The material BOA and the product CAFIVO testifies the reaches of this methodology, the investigation of causes and alarming problems for the chosen raw material and the synthesis of a product design for a specific group of people with a widespread of application possibilities.
5d Design for sustainability (Eco-Design, C2C, product service systems)
