EDC Book Club: Meaningful Stuff by Jonathan Chapman

Please RSVP to join the EDC Book Club later this month for a discussion of Jonathan Chapman’s new book, Meaningful Stuff: Design That Lasts. Carnegie Mellon University designer Jonathan Chapman will be joining us for the discussion, together with EDC curator Anand Pandian. Please join or check the EDC Book Club group for access to the excerpts we will be discussing.

About the Book:

Never have we wanted, owned, and wasted so much stuff. Our consumptive path through modern life leaves a wake of social and ecological destruction—sneakers worn only once, bicycles barely even ridden, and forgotten smartphones languishing in drawers. By what perverse alchemy do our newest, coolest things so readily transform into meaningless junk? In Meaningful Stuff, Jonathan Chapman investigates why we throw away things that still work, and shows how we can design products, services, and systems that last.

Obsolescence is an economically driven design decision—a plan to hasten a product’s functional or psychological undesirability. Many electronic devices, for example, are intentionally impossible to dismantle for repair or recycling, their brief use-career proceeding inexorably to a landfill. A sustainable design specialist who serves as a consultant to global businesses and governmental organizations, Chapman calls for the decoupling of economic activity from mindless material consumption and shows how to do it.

Chapman shares his vision for an “experience heavy, material light” design sensibility. This vital and timely new design philosophy reveals how meaning emerges from designed encounters between people and things, explores ways to increase the quality and longevity of our relationships with objects and the systems behind them, and ultimately demonstrates why design can—and must—lead the transition to a sustainable future.

About the Author:

Jonathan Chapman is Professor & Director of Doctoral Studies at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Design where he leads the PhD in Transition Design—a research leadership program for designers committed to making positive change in the world. 

He is the author of five books at the intersection of industrial design, human experience, and sustainability. His most recent book, Meaningful Stuff: Design that Lasts (MIT Press, 2021) calls for an “experience heavy, materials light” design sensibility that increases the quality and longevity of our relationships with products, and demonstrates why design can—and must—lead the transition to a sustainable future. 

Chapman is a consultant and strategic advisor to global businesses and governmental organizations from Puma, COS, and Philips, to the House of Lords, the United Nations, and NASA. His Op-Ed for The Guardian outlining his research agenda received 1,000+ comments within hours of going live. 

He is a Visiting Professor in Design at the Politecnico di Milano, and graduate student advisor at MIT, Cambridge University, Royal College of Art, and KAIST. He holds a PhD in Design (2008), MA in Design Futures (2001), and BA (Hons) in Industrial Design (1997). 

At the age of 38, he became the youngest person in the UK to achieve the rank of Full Professor in Design. New Scientist described Chapman as “a mover and shaker” and a “new breed of sustainable design thinker.”