Rent & Repair-1

Servizio di Paola Carimati

Experimenting with rental and promoting return as a form of consumption with a low environmental footprint: circular design between theory, research and young designers’ visions of the home

As we are only too well aware, human beings pollute. According to a study cited by the German practice Wint Design Lab – which utilizes fibres made biologically from collagen, a biopolymer found in nature – between 2009 and 2021 the production of synthetic yarn almost doubled, with grave repercussions on the oceans, where it is estimated that around 22 million tonnes of microplastics will end up between 2025 and 2050. Progressively rethinking materials, manufacturing processes and modes of consumption is now an evident necessity for which the practice of ‘rent & repair’ may offer the best solution. It can be done: we’ve been shown it by the French designer Emma Cogné, who gives building material a new function, the Greek artist Kostas Lambridis, who turns waste material into sculptures, and the Ugandans of Buzigahill who are redistributing used clothes to the places they came from. After reinterpreting them.

“The fashion world is very sensitive to the theme,” says Domenico Sturabotti, director of the Fondazione Symbola. “The American brand Patagonia is doing everything it can to simplify as far as possible the repair of its clothing, while the Italian company Brunello Cucinelli declares that it is taking care of its customers with its ‘free repair service’ and the French designer Olivier Saillard is making discarded outfits the added value of his shows. Thus the fashion house recognizes ‘repair’ as a valid means of customer retention”: it mends and returns clothing that has been improved in its quality or even personalized. A bit like Apple does with its regenerated smartphones.

“The numbers of those buying second-hand things will grow at double the rate of those buying new ones,” says Francesco Zurlo, dean of the School of Design at Milan Polytechnic. Together with Turin Polytechnic, the University of Florence and the Sapienza University of Rome, under the hat of MICS (Made in Italy Circolare e Sostenibile, a project supported by NRRP funds), the School of Design has launched the Actas research programme: “With a view to servitization of the product – the model that connects ‘take back’ and ‘renting’ services – we set ourselves the goal of unpacking the theme of second-hand. We imagined, in the hospitality sphere, and thus B2B, what would happen to the structure of the industry if the supplier retained ownership of the furniture in a hotel room and responsibility for its life cycle for an agreed period of use.” The next step is the reconfiguration of the supply chain itself, in order to evaluate its knock-on effect for B2C. “Abroad, IKEA and Vitra – this one with the Circle Stores in Weil am Rhein, Brussels and Amsterdam — have already made a move,” warns Zurlo. In Italy the scene is more timid: “The GreenItaly 2023 report,” he concludes, “has mapped the repair centres of Artemide, Flexform and Poltrona Frau. Of Porro, the availability of spare parts in stock for products in the catalogue since 2000, and of Magis the trend towards disassemblability.” So for Italian high-end furniture, planned obsolescence is an investment asset in progress. Renting is a long way behind the steps taken so far in the Netherlands, where the law already obliges the public administration to buy and rent used furniture. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.