Polymat: Kitchen Grip Assistance is a silicone grip mat designed to tackle issues involved in the kitchen where the user cannot properly grip an item which will otherwise slide about.
For the first Unit 7 project we were asked to consider the concept of a multi-generational kitchen in the context of human-centred design. Minority groups including the disabled and elderly are often if not completely overlooked in design with a great many products promising to cater to their needs being ‘gadgety’ attempts to make a quick dollar.
Alex demonstrating basic cooking and cleaning functions with the main use of one arm
Less than a quarter of people with physical disabilities are born with them, working with Alex (in the images above) we explored the idea of how even a minor impairment (in his case the depleted ability of the left side of his body) can greatly affect the manipulation of kitchen equipment. In particular because a lack of ability to stabilise an item leads to it sliding around.
I became interested in the idea of onset impairment or impairments that will go away eventually (eg broken limb). The market is full of gadgets and products ranging form the genuinely innovative to the obstructive and absurd.
I focused primarily on the kitchen sink, as washing dishes proves a key point of importance to food preparation, looking to create a responsive basin which provided variable resistance to pressure. The idea is that, where sliding objects becomes an issue, the user will simply push harder and the basin will grip the object.
developing CAD models of the samples I wanted to test, I was able to use a two-stage moulding process at great speed
I needed a final appearance model to communicate the idea appropriately. The silicon samples served as proof of material properties but could not be cast at the right scale within time and budget constraints. I CNC routed the model in one piece with laser cut polymethacrylate adding detail underneath. A rubber spray was applied to create the correct surface effect.
final appearance model being shown in-sittu
This idea developed into a silicone mat with a variable texture surface designed to provide a range of friction across as large a range of items as possible. Many sample patterns were designed, 3d printed and cast to settle on the optimal pattern.
Second Final Presentation Board
A final ‘looks-like’ model was produced largely by CNC milling, Laser cutting and painting with a silicone rubber. It was unfortunately deemed too costly to cast in the target material.
Reflecting on the project I wonder how imaginative the solution actually was. Visually striking perhaps but does it not simply add the plethora of Gadgets? Would users actually consider using it after or before impairment? Was there actually a change to the kitchen ‘System’? Did I play it safe?
This project especially was a chance to consider my position in relation to design, whilst I am more than happy with the outcome I find it imperative to recognise what this product is not, and what future outcomes must try harder to incorporate.
The Root to Root Initiative is a piece of systems design which manifests towards the public as a supermarket campaign and aims to address some of the systemic underpinning of food waste.
Almost half of all food produced for consumption is wasted in the west. This brief asked us to consider the problem from the perspective of behaviours and human-cantered design.
Beginning research, I wanted to analyse the underlying systemic issues to see if the behaviours they produce could be subverted. I rejected the reductive notion that ‘people are just lazy and wasteful by nature’, that no underlying systems played into domestic food waste and all that mattered was “consumer behaviour”.
However I was taken aback by the claim that the majority of western food waste is domestic, as opposed to in the global south where almost all waste happens at production.
Still to this day, the predominant mode of building housing outside of the M25 is based on a low-cost, unsustainable, atomised fantasy from the 1960’s.
The research to follow explored a range of topics:
The suburban model of urban planning as it relates to food source availability. With a fixation on large do-everything supermarkets and shopping centres, packaged goods in standardised portions, usually one per suburban area or multiple in the same locale.
Policy fixation on automobile dependency, auto-centric infrastructure, and how this drives people towards a concept of “the weekly shop”, i.e. larger purchases (in terms of number of items and quantity), more spontaneous and speculative purchases.
Both feed into a cycle of building larger appliances, greater kitchen storage space focus, and reduced meal planning. This leads to increased date-code expiration, re-purchasing of items forgotten about, higher usage of repeatable meal patterns. Often accompanied by repeatable meal planning with an emphasis on pre-processed foods from unsustainable practices.
And of course, how time pressures facing people reinforce these patterns, drive over purchasing, and negate meal planning capability.
The submission ‘hero image’ showing the three touch points and the scheme’s logo.
Root to Root, the name inspired from ‘Cradle to Cradle’, has three main consumer touch points aimed at closing the loop of food production and communicating an idea of circular economy in customers with the intention of driving not only change in individual behaviours but also attitudes towards waste in general.
HMRC (2018), Food Statistics in your pocket: Global and UK supply. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/food-statistics-pocketbook/food-statistics-in-your-pocket-global-and-uk-supply (Accessed: 04/08/2020)
In order to tackle such a large systemic issue with a meaningful product outcome, I narrowed my focus to look specifically at the suburban supermarket, and focusing on fresh foods given their high import rate, high wastage quantity, and shorter date-code life’s.
Two customer facing campaign posters advertising the initiative
Component One: Branch Layout and Assortments
First case study, a large supermarket with dedicated fresh section
Plastic bag dispensers can be re-fit for various sized paper bags. Increased dispensers with dedicated packing table added.
Second case study, a mid-sized supermarket with more facilities packed in around the fresh section. Modelled on Salisbury’s Camden Town.
A smaller packing table is added.
Third case study, a convenience store with a typical three-isle layout.
Even with such a small space, minor additions can be added without disrupting the existing layout.
Fresh produce is now sold in the style of a farmers market, with minimal packaging, replaced with paper packaging and much of the foliage and roots left on. This is done for numerous reasons; to connect users to the ‘reality’ of food (away from intensive processing), to keep preservatives in the soil, reduce packaging waste for bulk-buyers, reduce food waste for people seeking small quantities and so forth.
This also connects to the other components in that many fruit and vegetables can be revived long after they would be assumed useless by placing them in water or planting them, assuming enough foliage and roots are attached.
Component Two: Fresh Produce End-of-Life
A sample bin designed to collect user’s compost much as the users can already use a bottle bank.
Customers without access to composting facilities can bring in their food waste which, leveraging the existing distribution networks to put the waste through a process of separate-source organics, composted and reused in the production process.
A render of how one community market may be situated. Size, location and extra embellishment would depend on the active interest displayed by the locals. The same boxes used in the ‘Retail’ phase would be used, keeping costs to near zero.
Component Three: Community Engagement
I admit that, up until this project, I was highly sceptical of the whole ‘diy micro farming’ trend. I set out to try it myself, to gauge just how much experience or effort was required. I used a single store bought garlic, dumped the cloves in water (some in a large Tupperware, others in a tumbler glass) and left them.
Within days the cloves began sprouting, within a week I had shoots, and by the end, the only thing that stopped the growth of the main plants (one of which had been transferred to a compostable container, the others still in their original Tupperware) was the 2018 heat wave, with subsequent years reaching similar temperatures consistently.
Midway through I harvested the tumbler based plants to see how they would respond, regrowth occurred days later and could be harvested again within a week. I specifically mention the heatwave as it demonstrated that a truly hands-off anyone-can-do-it approach has a set of limitations but is not nearly as inaccessible as I once thought.
A mini community market will be hosted in store where people can bring in sprouted vegetables or experimentation in horticulture and give them to someone who could make use.
Customers would be encouraged to not force plant-items to last past their natural shelf life, and also to allow out of date vegetables to sprout, leveraging ‘regrowth’ techniques such as the images above. These sprouted items could be brought back in-store to be displayed along side the fresh items for other customers to take if they desire, using RtR branded low cost compostable containers such as these takeaway tubs.
Items which no one wants or could not be regrown could utilise the composting facilities mentioned above.
This is intended to build on the current trend for home food-growing and contribute to community building, creating a focal point much like a community noticeboard at the entrance to the shop.
By showing individual actors how their small actions are capable of impacting and facilitating a systemic issue, customers are empowered and given a sense of agency which will drive engagement. Inspired by the “its on us” initiative at Waitrose & Partners, the costs of running the initiative and potential impact on fresh veg sales would be inconsequential versus the reputation bolstering and goodwill generated for the host.
The promotional leaflet giving home-horticulture inspiration.An amusing and direct poster to generate curiosity in the community market initiative.
Branding and communication plays an integral role in the Root to Root scheme, this leaflet is one of a range of materials produced to aid this, communicating the precedent and system in plain terms. On the reverse side is a mini poster detailing ideas for small-scale, indoor horticulture to incentivise users to take an interest.
The second image is one of a series of simple posters, taking design cues from current advertising trends with large supermarkets. This particular poster introduces the community market by presenting a ‘useless’ vegetable and a use for it.
Overall system flow diagram.
A flow chart overview detailing the total resource flows around the supermarket supply chain once Root to Root is implemented.
