Repair Sustainable Design Futures

Foreword by Arturo Escobar

Introduction by Markus Berger and Kate Irvin

PART 1: Reparative Thinking_Broken Worlds

Five Theses on Repair in Most of the World

Who Decides? Power, Brokenness, and Healing

Repairing the Cracked Concrete

Broken Urban: Repair as Postapocalyptic Design

Why Save This?

Repair and Imperfection through the Lens of the Spectral

For the rain, for the wind

Aesthetics of Visible Repair: The Challenge of Kintsugi

Repair and Design Futures: An Exhibition and Call to Action

Darning Over Renewal

Thinking Rubble: Ruin and Repair at War’s End

Open Dialogues and Material Memory

What Is the Work of Love Today? Repair, Care, and Carrying

Kurhirani no ambakiti (Burning the Devil): Since That’s the Only Way They Listen to Us

Borderlanders: A Political Concept for Repair

Repair on the Move

My Grandmother’s Mended Socks: Layered Design Thinking and Durability

Is Business Beyond Repair?

Repairing Imaginations: Rethinking the Ethics of Growth and Degrowth

Is Repair Repairing Architecture?

Trans-Repair: Emancipatory Techno-Poetics

Community Repair in South Africa: An Interview with Kevin Kimwelle

Fixing as Learning

Make-Do-and-Mend: The Repair and Reuse of Existing Buildings

Hand Me Up

Recovering a Sense of Place

(Hi)Stories of Repair

Notions of Repair as a Pedagogical Dialogue

Toward Repairing the Social Fabric: Music Performance and Pedagogy at Work

Epilogue: Stronger Futures—a Call to Action

Lexicon of repair

Biography

Markus Berger is Professor of Interior Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). He is the founder and director of The Repair Atelier.

Kate Irvin is Curator and Head of the Department of Costume and Textiles at the RISD Museum, an integral part of the Rhode Island School of Design.

"There’s no hope for a sustainable future without ‘Care and Repair’ becoming as sexy and seductive as ‘Use and Lose’. In this very timely book we have some smart creative minds riffing on how to start this re-imagining. There’s a deliveryman at the door. On the cardboard box is written ‘HANDLE WITH CARE AND REPAIR.’"

Peter Gabriel, musician, singer, songwriter, record producer and activist

"Pulling together scholars and activists from around the world, this splendidly curated collection of essays forcefully reminds us how varied repair is, the remarkable skills such work requires, and the crucial role of such work in resistance to the unrelenting powers of decay and destruction."

Elizabeth V. Spelman, Professor of Philosophy, Smith College

"This text makes an essential contribution to debates about repair now exploding across design, the fine arts, architectural studies, critical theory and many other spaces and places. Beautifully illustrated, carefully curated and containing a wide range of vital critical interventions from some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the field, this book will set the agenda for sustainable repair studies for years to come."

Damian White, Dean of Liberal Arts and Professor of Social Theory and Environmental Studies, RISD

"Repair: Sustainable Design Futures is an important contribution to the ongoing discussion about repair, with a special focus on its significance and impact on society and the environment."

Silke Langenberg, Editor of Repair. Encouragement to think and make (2018) and Upgrade. Making things better (2022)

"'Repair' is a word that is simple yet complex. The authors show how different ways of thinking contribute to a broader notion of this simple word, one based in different ways of knowing. Through this exploration they develop more eclectic understandings of the world we live in, the processes and systems that surround us, how these inform what we do and fundamentally help us make sense of who we are. This book is an excellent example of how we can think and act to be better participants on this planet."

Pradeep Sharma, Director of Arts|Culture|Heritage at the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation