PPD4

1. Can mainstream designers learn anything from anti-establishment movements such as squatting?

They can learn that, it really doesn’t take much to furnish a house or building. From the videos I watched, one squatter said that she doesn’t like using cheap materials such as MDF and kept a lot of the framework of her house bare so that there was more light draping over her rooms. I saw in the video that she used the frames as shelving for decoration, it was a different style that I am not used to seeing so often and I thought it was bare and simplistic but effective; it almost mirrors the bare stone wall effects that you can get in some old houses and barns now. As squatters don’t seem to work they have to customise their house or building as best they can without it costing and it does look effective enough to be an interiors piece of artwork. The main aspect for squatters is recycling and re uses everything. They reuse derelict buildings for homes, they re-cycle materials they find in bins which have been thrown away for the décor and they are in a way a charitable organisation as they are given clothes and other objects that are useful to them by neighbours etc. so why are people who pay their way through life, pay a massive amount of money for an interior/architecture designer to make their homes equally as nice? The same also applies to fashion designers as they charge a huge amount of money for some garments, for the materials which were used, which is unnecessary as explained and shown countless times by fashion designer Vivienne Westwood.

2. If we move away from constantly replacing furnishing, what will happen to all the designers? Try to be creative?

AND

3. Do designers have to raid the world’s resources by creating new things? Are there other solutions?

If we stop replacing furnishings then it would have an impact on designers but not a massive amount. They would still be able to design and create their pieces but can just re use old existing furniture so there isn’t anything going to waste. For example if a fashion designer wanted to create a new dress, the material could come from an old existing garment. The materials don’t have to be bought again or imported from abroad, which could waste even more resources, they could come from the clothing recycle banks that are even available at some supermarkets who try and promote recycling such as TESCO. So the only impact it has on designers is that there are going to be new challenges for them to still create pieces, but get the resources and materials from already existing pieces, which I think would be a massive step forward in to helping the environment and stop Global warming.