The Future is Here

University of Brighton Faculty of Arts researcher Dr Jonathan Chapman’s work on Emotionally Durable Design is featured in a newly opened exhibition at the Design Museum entitled The Future is Here – a New Industrial Revolution.

Dr Chapman, who teaches Sustainable Design MA, argues that as well as designing with physical durability in mind, the emotional durability of a product should also be considered. While it might be technologically possible to build an electronic device for life, how could it be designed so people want to keep it for that long? Why is it that we treasure some objects while others we have no attachment to at all?

Chapman believes that designers need to consider five elements when designing a product:

Narrative - 
How users share a unique personal history with the product.

Consciousness - 
How the product is perceived as autonomous and in possession of its own free will.

Attachment
 - Can a user be made to feel a strong emotional connection to a product?

Fiction 
- The product inspires interactions and connections beyond just the physical relationship.

Surface
 - How the product ages and develops character through time and use.

The Future is Here exhibition explores the ever-changing relationships with the designed world, where the boundaries between designer, manufacturer and consumer are becoming increasingly blurred.

Significant changes in the way objects are made, the materials they are made of and the type of objects that people use, have the potential to affect commerce, industry and the environment as profoundly as any past Industrial Revolution.

The exhibition looks at what drives innovation and new manufacturing techniques, how these can lead to increased growth and productivity and how they will change your future.

The boundaries between designer, maker and consumer are seen as disappearing, with a growing movement of ‘hacktivists’, who share and download digital designs online in order to customise them for new uses.