Design Middle Class

Found a fantastic discussion about the emergence of a Design Middle Class (a new term to me) with concerns to sustainable design and product longevity. I'm not a green-fanatic, I'm up for cutting down lots of trees to and killing a few owls if it's needed, but this article does an excellent job of discussing the need for ethical product development and quality control while understanding the reality of consumer demand:

"The design middle class is defined by its lack of well defined product lifetime; These products generally function for less time than you would expect from their outside appearance. If you buy a Bang and Olufson sound system, you can expect it to last long enough to make repairing it worthwhile (probably greater than 10 years). But if you purchase a low cost stereo at Wal Mart or Target, it will most likely seem very high quality initially, but its lifespan may only be a few years.

This is fine with most consumers; the products from Target or Wal Mart didn't cost too much. And they lasted past some magical threshold where we decide if things are "crappy" or not.

But in general, these middle class products use the same amount of energy and materials to make as higher class products. They just create a lot more waste since they are cycled through much faster. And it's the waste that is causing all the problems."

To read the full article click here.

Another related article about Karim Rashid and his role in the design middle class can be found by clicking here. Karim seems to be the head of the design middle class world. If Karim had his way we'd throw everything out every 5 years because he "hate[s] antiques". His philosophy seems to be: sustainability-be-damned. This issue has seriously made me re-evaluate Karim Rashid's work. One must stop and think: Is Karim capable of designing something that isn't design kitsch? Isn't good design timeless and not thrown away every 5 years? Or is Karim just a genius business man and making his work highly date-able so we all have to buy the next years pile of plastic products that he presents to us and pad his wallet?