Sessions
Session 6
Green Customization: Customer Value and the Example of the Building Industry
Monday Oct 5 2009
14:05-15:25
Niinimäki, Kirsi (University of Art and Design Helsinki, Finland)
Developing sustainable products by deepening consumers’ product attachment through customizing
This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of consumers’ product attachments in the field of home textiles. The study approaches product attachment through the user’s emotional bonding with home textiles. The paper also explores the meaning of individuality, uniqueness and customizing in textiles. Thus this study seeks to address the following questions: how consumers become attached to home textiles, what the meaning of uniqueness is in home textiles; if individual and customized design can deepen product satisfaction and product attachment and in this way if the product lifetime can be extended and sustainability in consumer choices increased. Uniqueness and customizing is approached through the use of digital textile technology together with a design service.
Thuesen, Christian (DTU Management, Denmark)
Jespersen, Kristina Risom (Aarhus University, Denmark)
Building a design community for sustainable homes through configuration and open innovation
This paper presents a development project which aims to create a market place for sustainable homes – around a design community where the uses and producers collectively can develop new energy efficient solutions and thereby reduce the emmisson of CO2. The core functionality of the design community is a configurator where the users based on the produceres templates can design their own home at a selected address visualizing and estimating the energy consumption, total cost, CO2 emission etc. All the designs will be collected and rated in a design space creating transparency over the market and technologies. Furthermore will an idea space collect and rate ideas from the users. Through a combination of technical and user driven innovation the design community will act as a learning tool for the users and producers and thereby facilitate the development of a market for sustainable homes.
Piroozfar, Poorang (University of Brighton, United Kingdom)
Popovic Larsen, Olga (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark)
Altan, Hasim (University of Sheffield, United Kingdom)
Building a design community for sustainable homes through configuration and open innovation
This paper investigates mass-customization in the context of sustainability. The research for this paper is done by comparing two schools. The case study of the two schools is presented from the aspect of customisation in construction industry with an aim of reducing environmental impact. It will compare two buildings; an old junior high school which has been abandoned and a new one which has been built using a semi-customisable building system to replace the old one. Having a thorough in-depth study on the costs involved, the two projects will be compared with each other against their energy and environmental impacts. The two examples will be monitored in the most suited and appropriate way for each particular case. In the old building the energy, maintenance and repair costs will be calculated, while in the new building, the embedded energy will be added to the energy and maintenance costs which are normally expected not be significant. Then, if applicable, a breakeven period will be calculated to figure out at which point the second building will cost-effectively surpass the first one. In a more articulate consideration, the demolition costs of the first building may also be taken into account to provide a firmer yet more precise ground for the argument.
Piroozfar, Popovic Larsen, Altan -paper pdf
Tuokko, Reijo (Tampere University of Technology, Finland)
Competitive Sustainable Manufacturing