what lasts over 100s of years?

Special Interest Areas design research
5

  1. Isn’t university for inhaling dangerous chemicals, voluntarily or otherwise?

  2. Why does it need to last for “hundreds of years”? I always start by questioning the mandate. What if you could save an enormous amount of waste by replacing some product with a recycled one that is still single use or short life span? Maybe you already thought of this…

  3. Buildings don’t necessarily have long life times. Average building life span in NA is about 50 years. Japan is 25 years. Also, society changes. There are a lot of quality buildings in Detroit that have been uninhabited for 10-20 years.

  4. Back to the core question…Furniture, art, toys, decorative fixtures can all have 100+ year life spans. Watches and clocks seem to last a long time (and wouldn’t those projects fit eloquently with your mandate?). Watch a few episodes of “Antique Roadshow” and ask yourself what you could use.