Architectural-Urban Dynamics of Use Efficiency

Outline

Manoochehri
July 2010

1 of 3
ABSTRACT
Sustainability in material resource consumption necessitates highly dematerialised consumer lifestyles, at the global
scale11 . That's proving difficult. This thesis contributes new tools to the sustainable lifestyle debate2, applying advanced
concepts and metrics branching from the product-service systems design literature 3 to large-scale architectural and urban
applications.

OUTLINE
Ch 1 Sustainability and Consumption
This chapter reviews the scientific and policy formulation of the sustainability crisis and its proposed solutions.
Sustainability in global material consumption, to be actioned on a constrained time-scale, is differentiated from other
forms of 'sustainability', and given priority 4. A special emphasis on urban-consumer lifestyles is identified and tracked, and
progress in policy formulations, both international and national, is reviewed5 . Scientific framings from key disciplinary
backgrounds are summarised6, in order to give a clear overview of prime solution offerings. Both the problem formulation
and the solution-set are studied critically with a view to missing or flawed analysis, in particular the viability of proposed
solutions within generally agreed parameters of required scale and speed7.

Ch 2 Sustainability and Design

This chapter explores the range of main responses to the sustainability crisis from the perspective of design disciplines8.
Within the design for sustainability discourse, product-service systems (PSS) is emerging as a leading option for dealing
with the lifestyle component of material sustainability. PSS is reviewed both from the perspective of its own theory (e.g.
product-service axis)9 and practice (e.g. ZipCar, Zilok)10, and within the broader context of efforts towards sustainable
urban-consumer lifestyles.

Ch 3 Use Efficiency
This chapter proposes some analytical and metrical supplements to the sustainable lifestyle and PSS literature. First,
concepts of 'better consumption' are examined by critically analysing the conventional microeconomic model, which has an
optimisable production function, but, curiously, no such (generally agreed) optimisable 'consumption function'11. Second,
the specific opportunities for optimisation of the 'consumption function' within PSS and related techniques are critically
assessed for robust, and quantitative, optimisation variables12. Third, analysis that culminates in a 'use efficiency' concept -
quantitatively more efficient use of produced goods, that removes the need for more production while maintaining 'use
consumption' levels - is proposed13 . This gives us a testable platform for contribution to, broadly, the sustainable urban-
consumer lifestyles issue, and narrowly, the PSS design problem.

Ch 4 Use Efficiency in Architectural-Urban Applications

This chapter attempts to unite both the continued need for large scale, globally-applicable, urban, consumerist solutions,
and the analysis and application tools developed earlier, in lifestyle-implicative applications at the urban scale, through
architecture and urban design. Specifically, apartment, apartment block, and urban-system-wide application concepts are
analysed, modelled, and drawn, with a review and comment on existing practice 14. For example: apartments and apartment
blocks with PSS washing service availability are considered from spatial and material perspectives; urban blocks and large
scales of urban form are studied with a view to optimal location of PSS carshare service facilities. Each of these
applications is now studied with a view to modellable, quantitative increases in use efficiency or produced goods, in
distinction to less testable PSS approaches.

2 of 3
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 Johannesburg Declaration 2002, Copenhagen (various) 2010
2 Manoochehri, Maniates et al, Jackson
3 Manzini, Morelli, Mont, Stahel
4 Folke and Rockström
5 Girardet, Manoochehri, Jackson
6 Daly and Cobb, Jacobs, Jackson; Dryzek; Diamond
7 Lovelock, Maniates et al
8 Thorpe, Manzini, Thackara, Papanek, Tischner, Stassi
9 Manzini, Morelli, Mont, Stahel, Ehrenfeld, Wong
10 zipcar.co.uk, zilok.com, mobility.ch
11 Manoochehri, Becker
12 Wong, Morelli, Stahel
13 Manoochehri
14 Uytenhaak, Hillier, Howard, Calthorpe

3 of 3