Cross-Cultural Recycling and Design Methodology; to Prove the Effectiveness of the Three-Stage Design Method of Cross-Cultural Recycling “Why-What-How”

Abstract

From a traditional standpoint, recycling has commonly been summarized within the so-called 4Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Refuse, however, today’s multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural society encourage us to seek solutions beyond the traditional 4-Rs. This paper starts from the belief that recycling is cultural activity which can fuse various intangible - social, theoretical and cultural aspects of people’s lives such as lifestyle, art, culture and ethics, a condition which we refer to as “Cross-Cultural Recycling”. Therefore, this paper aims; (1) to academically prove that recycling is a cultural activity, (2) to determine whether the consideration of cultural dimensions in the design process of recycling results in more contextualised design, and finally, (3) to establish how to define the design factors related to Cross-Cultural Recycling, which we call “Cross-Cultural Recycling Design methodology” through practical design projects from 4 recycling design workshops between 2017 and 2018 at the Hanyang University Interior Design graduate course where we applied Cross-Cultural Design Methodology in accordance with the context of recycling design. As a result of the theoretical investigation and findings from 4 design workshops, this paper proposes a three-stage Cross-Cultural Recycling Design Method; Why-What-How. The first stage, “why” deals with the three main factors considered with regards to the motivation for recycling, the environmental, economic and cultural considerations and implications. The second stage, “what” is about to define “waste” to be recycled and offers 4 key concepts; forgotten, wasted, abandoned and misplaced. The third stage, “how” provides 6 keywords, and their concepts, which are pivotal in the future direction of this design approach; use, craft, technological, design, art and culture.