PolyU creates the first Regional Eco-material Archive to enhance students’ understanding of design for sustainability
Concepts like Design for Sustainability, eco-material-driven design, eco-design strategies may appear foreign in the eyes of an ordinary citizen of the territory, but they occupy an indispensable role in formulating the academic programme of PolyU’s product design discipline. This is being manifested by the establishment of the Regional Eco-material Archive by PolyU’s School of Design, which is initiated and steered by two faculty members Mr Benny Leong and Mr Brian Lee.
Currently being displayed in School of Design’s Material Resource Center (MRC), Regional Eco-material Archive is the first of its kind in Hong Kong and probably in China with an objective of enabling students with the know-how about local eco-material resources. “Our students have comprehensive access to abundant examples of design cases and material resources done at overseas. What we want to do is to establish a truly ‘local’ and ‘eco’ material resources archive. Our students will then be given the authentic and first-hand experience of these eco-materials and to erect a deeper understanding of them. We envision that students in the long run will be encouraged to make use of local and environmentally-friendly materials in their designs, and be more aware of how these materials and their finished products may impact our consumption behavior and also the environment,” said Benny.
Brian Lee (left) and Benny Leong (right) holding the index boards of the Regional Eco-material Archive
This archive is more than merely a showcase of materials and information. Benny and Brian collected over 40 selective regional eco-materials and classified them with their unique ‘Materials Index’ which includes naming, category, composition, location, certification and lifecycle nature. What’s more, a carefully documented handbook was produced which provides related case studies and elaboration on concepts like Design for Environment and lifecycle thinking. Heavy research work was carried out in the making of this archive. Design students by referring to it can learn more about different types of eco-materials and their geography specificity such as their places of origin, production and supply, and also contacts of the manufacturers or production plants. This archive is therefore a reliable teaching tool for teachers and simultaneously a handy application for students since it offers real samples, real cases and a bridge to relevant stakeholders of the same industry and discipline.
“Students can now ‘visualize’, physically touch and identify selective regional eco-materials based on our categorization and these solid samples will much strengthen their learning. We receive very good feedback from students and they are now more inclined to think that regional eco-materials can be some good options for their design, and eco-materials are a more sustainable and better alternative to other commonly-used materials,” Brian supplemented.
Regional Eco-material Archive sample boards being displayed in Material Resource Center, PolyU Design since July 2015
Items being collected in this archive range from natural and synthetic eco-materials to finished products such as iPhone Speaker made of recycled paper and upcycled newspapers clutches. They are all categorized by the Material Index System which provides comprehensive information about the material or the product. By reading the index card below the material/product, one will be able to know whether it is ‘metals & alloys’, ‘glasses & ceramics’, ‘polymers’, ‘biological materials’ or ‘composites’ as well as its source location and fabrication location using Hong Kong as the base spot. More importantly, a ‘life-cycle’ indexing is provided to show how far is this material/product being defined in terms of ‘natural’, ‘renewable’, ‘recyclable’, ‘recycled’ and ‘degradable’. All information being shown is clear, concise and easy to comprehend.
the unique Material Index system
They encountered much difficulty in establishing this archive. They spent more time and efforts than originally anticipated in researching into each material and product, and some suppliers, designers or manufacturers were unable to provide sufficient background information to aid their indexing. Yet they still moved on to put all the pieces together and the archive was applied in teaching since the summer of 2015. Benny and Brian aimed to include more items in the long run with more funding support as they believe this archive can be extended to serve students of other disciplines and professionals of the same field as well as existing PolyU design students.
PolyU has been taking a steering role in driving upcycling and related design applications in Hong Kong and Asia for over 15 years, while the Regional Eco-material Archive is one of its many initiatives of supporting the teaching of Design of Sustainability. Its faculty members, students and graduates are collaborating with various commercial corporations, NGOs or organizations sharing the same vision to actively promote concepts of sustainability to the public. Witnessed by Benny and Brian, students and graduates are becoming more and more ‘eco-conscious’ and are keen to put this into practice. Some PolyU graduates have established themselves as successful upcycling product designers in Hong Kong with a viable business model.
Benny and Brian held the belief that more can be done, especially in educating the public and re-shaping their daily behavior and consumption pattern. They are currently involved in another project named the SMAD platform (http://www.sd.polyu.edu.hk/sldi/), which is an acronym of “Sustainable MAKE, ACT, DO” platform. It is an online platform which aims to promote and stimulate social-wide change towards green consumption and lifestyle through dissemination of sharing of sustainable wits or flaws of daily life among urban dwellers in Hong Kong and the Mainland China. This free platform invites contributions of articles and data from the public and is a communication channel for them to share what they know about leading a sustainable life, which in turn influences and motivates more people to go green.