Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Workbench

Gschwandtl, Martin (2015) In Diploma work IDEM05 20151
Industrial Design
Abstract
It seems that people are more disconnected to the
objects they own than ever before. What has changed
in the last decades? People had tools and the skills to
use them, but due to convenience and easy consumable
entertainment, do-it-yourself was replaced by do-it-forme.
Tasks we would have handled ourselves in the past
are now done by a product or a service. This is disabling
people.

By losing skills like building and repairing things there
is also a missing relationship between people and
their products. Additionally the rising complexity in
product architecture and the lack of knowledge and/or
confidence to repair certain things are part of creating
our modern Throw-away society. Planned obsolence and
fast product live... (More)
It seems that people are more disconnected to the
objects they own than ever before. What has changed
in the last decades? People had tools and the skills to
use them, but due to convenience and easy consumable
entertainment, do-it-yourself was replaced by do-it-forme.
Tasks we would have handled ourselves in the past
are now done by a product or a service. This is disabling
people.

By losing skills like building and repairing things there
is also a missing relationship between people and
their products. Additionally the rising complexity in
product architecture and the lack of knowledge and/or
confidence to repair certain things are part of creating
our modern Throw-away society. Planned obsolence and
fast product live cylces go hand in hand with that trend.
A “passivization” of costumers.

A current movement is working against that trend, the
maker movement. From hardware stores giving courses
in how to do things and renting out tools to repair cafes,
communal organised tool libraries and Fab Labs, the
number of public workshops is growing.

The maker movement is doing more than just giving
people access to tools like digital fabrication and co.
it is also creating a new swath of educated prosumers
(producers + consumers)2 who do not only care about
price and performance but also about the transparency
and repairability of a product. The biggest challenge
though is the entrance barrier. Most of these places still
have some geeky aftertaste and are not attractive to the
majority of people.

How do you encourage and enable people
who want to build/make things?

My research showed that the biggest problem is a lack
of having a dedicated space to work and experiment on.
Using kitchen tables as a workplace and unorganised
drawers with every tool except the one that you need is a well known phenomenon which leads to frustrations
rather than a succesful project.

While today half of the worlds population is already living
in cities, by 2030 a predicted 60% of us will call urban
areas home.3 Urbanisation. The traditional spaces for
performing craftman-like work such as basements and
garages are not existing in such a packed environment.

From the garage to livingroom
- a new Workbench for a new situation.
Workbench when closed is an unobtrusive furniture with
simple shapes and warm, light materials but when in use
is an height adjustable platform which advances with
you as your skills develop. Exchangeable parts make it
easy to customize it according to your needs so the user
will make it his own. It offers a designated area to work,
build, tinker and repair anything on and a safe place to
store tools and your work in progress. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Gschwandtl, Martin
supervisor
organization
course
IDEM05 20151
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
publication/series
Diploma work
report number
ISRN LUT-DVIDE/ EX--15/50256—SE
ISSN
ISRN
language
English
id
4937139
date added to LUP
2015-01-19 16:29:16
date last changed
2015-01-19 16:29:16
@misc{4937139,
  abstract     = {{It seems that people are more disconnected to the
objects they own than ever before. What has changed
in the last decades? People had tools and the skills to
use them, but due to convenience and easy consumable
entertainment, do-it-yourself was replaced by do-it-forme.
Tasks we would have handled ourselves in the past
are now done by a product or a service. This is disabling
people.

By losing skills like building and repairing things there
is also a missing relationship between people and
their products. Additionally the rising complexity in
product architecture and the lack of knowledge and/or
confidence to repair certain things are part of creating
our modern Throw-away society. Planned obsolence and
fast product live cylces go hand in hand with that trend.
A “passivization” of costumers.

A current movement is working against that trend, the
maker movement. From hardware stores giving courses
in how to do things and renting out tools to repair cafes,
communal organised tool libraries and Fab Labs, the
number of public workshops is growing.

The maker movement is doing more than just giving
people access to tools like digital fabrication and co.
it is also creating a new swath of educated prosumers
(producers + consumers)2 who do not only care about
price and performance but also about the transparency
and repairability of a product. The biggest challenge
though is the entrance barrier. Most of these places still
have some geeky aftertaste and are not attractive to the
majority of people.

How do you encourage and enable people
who want to build/make things?

My research showed that the biggest problem is a lack
of having a dedicated space to work and experiment on.
Using kitchen tables as a workplace and unorganised
drawers with every tool except the one that you need is a well known phenomenon which leads to frustrations
rather than a succesful project.

While today half of the worlds population is already living
in cities, by 2030 a predicted 60% of us will call urban
areas home.3 Urbanisation. The traditional spaces for
performing craftman-like work such as basements and
garages are not existing in such a packed environment.

From the garage to livingroom
- a new Workbench for a new situation.
Workbench when closed is an unobtrusive furniture with
simple shapes and warm, light materials but when in use
is an height adjustable platform which advances with
you as your skills develop. Exchangeable parts make it
easy to customize it according to your needs so the user
will make it his own. It offers a designated area to work,
build, tinker and repair anything on and a safe place to
store tools and your work in progress.}},
  author       = {{Gschwandtl, Martin}},
  issn         = {{ISRN}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  series       = {{Diploma work}},
  title        = {{Workbench}},
  year         = {{2015}},
}