Superlocal

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Description

Andrea de Chirico:

"I’m a designer and I’m capitalist by conviction and by profession. I believe that’s the best economic system available as it rewards entrepreneurship and risk-taking. What we need however is a shift from the industrial capitalism era to a “constructive capitalism”. That’s because industrial capitalism is an economic model that is disappearing as it doesn’t work anymore. Labour as we know it is going to change. If we look at the European situation, stats are showing that full-time employment is going down, and part-time jobs are becoming the normality. Job vacancy rates are going drastically down since 2008, and there is always a greater gap between the employer wage and the workers one. That’s because industrial capitalism produces “thin value”, and it is not sustainable from a social and environmental points of view. It is artificial, often gained through harm or at the expense of the people, communities and society. That brings for instance to the decentralisation of production to cheaper countries, off-shoring and out-sourcing. What we need now is the “thick value”, and therefore the will to centralise the various production steps as a way to centralise responsibility. Thick value is authentic, meaningful and sustainable. It lasts beyond production and consumption. It grows in time and it benefits boardrooms, shareholders, people, communities, societies, and the natural world. SUPERLOCAL addresses the “thick value”.

It is urgent that we update our methods of production. We are a group of designers who believe that the future of production will be characterized by making things locally. We believe that there is a need for an alternative to the traditional, industrial way of producing goods. We believe in the raise of networks as the new and best generators of social and economic value. Finally, it's a fact that producing locally means less shipping and therefore less pollution. We designed some production lines in the town of Eindhoven, finding and connecting resources, materials and labor all found within a short bike ride, in order to make everyday objects: an hair dryer, a dressing table, a mirror, a lamp and a stool (production 1.0). The production 1.0 (beta) is released in open source on the system website, and serves as the starting point for an evolutionary process applied to objects.

The goal of SUPERLOCAL is to provide an open production database for making everyday objects, and thereby give creative and critical tools to people for re-creating their world." (http://cargocollective.com/SUPERLOCAL/About)

More Information

Thesis: http://issuu.com/andreadechirico/docs/thesis_5.3.compressed/1