Planned obsolescence | EPFL Graph Search

In economics and industrial design, planned obsolescence (also called built-in obsolescence or premature obsolescence) is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life or a purposely frail design, so that it becomes obsolete after a certain pre-determined period of time upon which it decrementally functions or suddenly ceases to function, or might be perceived as unfashionable. The rationale behind this strategy is to generate long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases (referred to as "shortening the replacement cycle"). It is the deliberate shortening of a lifespan of a product to force people to purchase functional replacements. Planned obsolescence tends to work best when a producer has at least an oligopoly. Before introducing a planned obsolescence, the producer has to know that the customer is at least somewhat likely to buy a replacement from them in the form of brand loyalty. In these cases of planned obsolesc

Pour une participation responsable en vue d'une ère de transition. Un espace public de revalorisation de nos objets destinés à l'abandon

Pia Rochat

L'évolution des sciences et des techniques a favorisé le développement d'un système économique fondé sur une croissance sans limite, entraînant de profonds bouleversements. La dissolution du lien social et les menaces environnementales suscitent de plus en plus l'émergence, au sein de la société civile, d'un sentiment d'indignation signe précurseur d'une nouvelle ère de transition. La participation de chacun à son avènement est nécessaire. En offrant à la population la possibilité de réparer ses objets et d'acquérir des déchets revalorisés, l'état exprimerait son soutien à la lutte contre la tendance généralisée aux achats compulsifs, aux débarras précipités, à l'obsolescence programmée, aux obstacles à la réparation et à l'offre sans cesse renouvelée qui ne nous laissent aujourd'hui plus de réels choix alternatifs. En soutenant d'autre part la réinsertion sociale et les initiatives associatives encore marginales, s'inscrivant dans le respect de l'environnement, ce nouvel espace public devrait pouvoir favoriser une prise de conscience collective des enjeux globaux actuels dans un mouvement d'entraide et de solidarité combattant l'individualisation de la société. Complémentaire au tri officiel, cette nouvelle étape intermédiaire sur le parcours des déchets encombrants s'intègre au fonctionnement de leur traitement en place à Lausanne. Le bâtiment situé à proximité directe de l'usine d'incinération prolonge une passerelle piétonne existante reliant la ville à la nature.

2015

Concevoir à grande échelle

Mathieu Louis Pierre Mercuriali

Large-scale design - Mobility interface models and urban transformation strategies This research project is based on the hypothesis that the urban transformations generated by mobility interfaces constitute a key component of successful sustainable urban development. Effectively visioning and understanding these multimodal interchange hubs must therefore become a major strategic objective, in order to conceive an urban model that is compact - and networked and intelligent. With this aim in mind, this research aims to propose innovative strategies for transforming these communication interfaces into central reference points within the contemporary metropolitan landscape. Projects of this kind have already been designed and realised in most major European cities during the second half of the 20th century. These designs, characterised by their complexity and scale, formed the starting point of the major railway stations in today's cities, incorporating different forms of mobility over the course of time. Today they appear not just detached from their urban contexts - the very contexts in which they are embedded - but also unable to meet the current demand for functional mixity and communication effectively. They are undergoing obsolescence and finding it difficult to adapt to the paradigm shifts that have intervened - socially, economically and spatially. At a time when the city can no longer be conceived exclusively in terms of ex-nihilo construction, but must be viewed in terms of transforming an existing built fabric, what future can be proposed for these existing transport interfaces? What strategies can be developed to anchor them in their surrounding urban context? What capacity do they have for hosting new activities, new public and private spaces? Finally, what forms is it possible to imagine for this kind of design? Three hypotheses emerge: the development of mobility interfaces has generated specific architectural and urban forms correlating to the evolution of mobility forms themselves; the transformation and obsolescence phases of mobility interfaces offer potentials for metropolitan regeneration; and the process of producing a complex design calls for articulation and interrelation between different architectural and urban scales. To verify these hypotheses, the first part of this thesis is focused on the comprehension and analysis of these multimodal hubs, based on a review of architectural and urban theories that address the issue of how major urban projects relate to transport infrastructures. This is followed by close analysis of a series of relevant case studies within the Paris metropolitan area. The second part of the thesis proposes design tools to generate new urban and architectural design processes, derived from a process of design-based research. The final part of the thesis aims to demonstrate that this type of intervention is a design project with its own specific scale and complexity: between large building and urban fragment.

EPFL2015

Designing complexity, The relationship between obsolescence systems and densification strategies for large-scale intermodal hubs in contemporary European cities

Mathieu Louis Pierre Mercuriali

The metropolis can be analysed as an infrastructure in perpetual motion, composed of built elements – the system “hardware” – and social networks – the system “software”. The emergence of an overall city-scale infrastructure composed not of a single unit but of intermeshed projects designed by various players has given rise to an observable phenomenon of superdensity. The densification created by the development of these large-scale designs at intermodal hubs is generating new typologies, methodologies and completed projects in response to contemporary urban density. Conceived as an ensemble of services rather than as a built framework, these complex projects generate a paradox between the intrinsic stability of their construction and the instability of their functional programme. This is building within the built environment. Metropolitan development via complex design of this kind involves the production of architecture over another architecture. The city regenerates itself over itself: this is building over the built. Functional obsolescence, infrastructural deterioration, and changing mobility typologies generate the possibility of rethinking the potential of what has already been built. The built sites have been repurposed several times over. This means rethinking the accelerated modification of modes of using buildings and infrastructures by reconfiguring – at various intervention levels – projects from the 1980s and 1990s. How is it possible to intervene yet again without this intervention being the last? The process involves finding new resources for optimising an urban fragment within the existing urban fabric, in places divested of their original purpose. This is rethinking obsolescence through a new urbanism. Optimising the choices available to “building sites of the future” means finding new tools for rethinking dense urban environments. This means reconfiguring a neighbourhood by re-using what already exists, without resorting to façadism or simply gutting existing structures. In an age of “cybercities”, of networked megacities, “open core” development sites need to be created – as a way of facilitating the city’s fragmented transformation via the overlayering of decisions and interventions. The scale of the neighbourhood as urban fragment offers us an entry point for rethinking the existing urban cybercities, by applying tools adapted to a single project comprising various operational sub-ensembles. Unique in terms of their scale and complexity, these designs offer an illuminating field for developing research investigating specific aspects of the architecture profession’s future direction in the 21st century. This is designing complexity.

LIAT / ENSA Paris Malaquais2013

Designing complexity, The relationship between obsolescence systems and densification strategies for large-scale intermodal hubs in contemporary European cities

Mathieu Louis Pierre Mercuriali

LIAT / ENSA Paris Malaquais2013

Concevoir à grande échelle

Mathieu Louis Pierre Mercuriali

EPFL2015