Course: Project 3 – Transforming Practices
Year: 2024
Group project
FixGrid aims to bridge the gap between informal repair knowledge and formal design education through an interactive installation. Repair Cafés, founded by Martine Postma, offer a solution to e-waste by promoting the repair of broken items instead of throwing them away. This design research project tries to transfer repair knowledge from Repair Café volunteers to keep knowledge alive.
The installation consists of a blown-out vacuum cleaner’s PCB and a custom-built multimeter. Participants can engage
through finding and repairing an error to gain experience with a multimeter. A pile of vacuum cleaners is placed next to the installation to show the environmental impact of repair.
The installation was created through literature research, observations, ethnographies, and an iterative making process. Our findings indicate that creating such interactive experiences can show electronic repairs, promote sustainability, and reduce e-waste.