The Repair Manifesto

The guys at Platform21, a design platform aiming to positively influence the relationship between user and product, have produced the Repair Manifesto in hopes of urging consumers to leave behind the throw-away culture and get back to fixing things.

According to the group, throw-away thinking is “a culture in itself almost, designed to cater to short term needs of both industry, politics and society. But by being very successful at short term effects it has lost track of the innumerable and rich possibilities that lie ahead if durable notions of design in general, and repair especially, are reconsidered and implemented.”

1. Make products live longer! Repairing means giving your product a second life. Don’t ditch it, stitch it! Repairing is not anti-consumption, it is anti-needlessly throwing things away.

2. Things should be designed so they can be repaired. Product designers should make products repairable. Share clear, understandable information about do-it-yourself repairs. Consumers should buy things you know can be repaired.

3. Repair is not replacement. Replacement is throwing away the broken bit. This is NOT the kind of repair we’re talking about.

4. What doesn’t kill it makes it stronger. Every time we repair something, we add to its potential, its history, its soul and its inherent beauty.

5. Repairing is a creative challenge. Making repairs is good for the imagination.

6. Repair survives fashion.

7. To repair is to discover. As you fix objects, you’ll learn amazing things about how they work, or don’t work.

8. Repair – even in good times! This manifesto is not about the recession, it’s about a mentality.

9. Repaired things are unique. Even fakes become originals when you repair them.

10. Repairing is about independence.

Learn more at http://www.platform21.nl