Designing with What Remains

Goods are designed, produced, and eventually purchased by consumers who will typically use them as their marketing and branding suggests. What happens when, instead, existing products are used to provide the foundational components for novel devices? We argue that post-consumer product reuse should be a central and ongoing concern in the design of interactive devices. This paper examines four case studies of interactive devices produced by reusing and repurposing existing consumer products. By critically analyzing these case studies, we demonstrate how reuse is leveraged in practice to exploit macro and micro economic niches. These case studies illustrate factors beyond noble ecological intent that make reuse sustainable: mechanical robustness, affordability, and technological bootstrapping. We conclude with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities inherent to this mode of production.