Jesse Howard is a designer, researcher, and educator based in Amsterdam. In 2014, he collaboratively undertook the research project Hacking Households alongside Tilen Sepic, Leonardo Amico, Thibault Brevet, Coralie Gourguechon, Jure Martinec and Nataša Muševic. The project questions the relationship between consumers and their objects. Using a community based and open-source approach, the project challenges notions about who gets to change, repair and design the components of the things we use every day. The objects suggest a new vernacular for household goods that are easily disassemblable, hackable, repairable and customisable. It demonstrates that designing for repair does not have to be a compromise and can, in fact, add value and enrich objects. In 2020, Jesse Howard worked with the MA Industrial Design students at KABK to develop their projects on repair and the exhibition Want the Unwanted.

In the following interview, Howard discusses the changes he’s seen in repair throughout his career and the legislative and behavioural changes needed to truly shift the culture of consumption.

Lara Chapman: Why did/do you feel it is important to empower users with the ability to build, modify and repair their products in Hacking households?

Jesse Howard: When we started working on Hacking Households, we attempted to sketch out a larger system. Taking inspiration from the tools and processes by which open-source software is developed, we wanted to propose a system where products were not controlled by a single manufacturer. Instead, plans, parts, and components could be made by different entities and at different scales. In this sense, the user’s ability to repair was a (happy) consequence—by default, they would have the same access to design and production information as would the manufacturer. In the end, this shifting of the power balance between the producer and user was an integral part of the project and what we felt necessary for many types of objects beyond the household appliances we explored.

LC: Why did you decide to focus on household electronics for the project specifically?

JH: Before the initiation of the project, I was specifically interested in low-cost household appliances. These objects could almost be considered semi-disposable—partially due to their extremely low price that makes their replacement more economical than repair, but also due to design elements (safety screws or rigid plastic clips) that make opening the objects difficult or impossible. At the same time, the everyday familiarity of these objects made for good candidates to re-evaluate what we take for granted in all kinds of objects we encounter. So even if the frequency of repair that might be needed for a hand-mixer is far less than that of a mobile phone, there are principles and strategies that could translate from one to another.

Almost any object can be repaired, but with the exception of a few cases, there is little infrastructure to facilitate repair

LC: What challenges do designers face in making an object repairable?

JH: While there are many practical considerations a designer can take into account—using standard components, creating openable devices, etc.—I see this as only a start. The more fundamental challenge is to shift the cycle of consumption that we have largely come to expect from many everyday objects. Almost any object can be repaired, but with the exception of a few cases, there is little infrastructure to facilitate repair. This, to me, is the main challenge to designers: how to look beyond the objects to the other systems the object will encounter throughout its lifecycle.

LC: Have you seen a shift in the culture and attitudes towards repair since you made Hacking Households in 2014?

JH: The biggest change I can point to is reflected in large-scale regulation changes. For example, right-to-repair legislation in the U.S. and Europe or the Repairability Index in France could be seen as a reflection of changing (consumer) attitudes toward repair. At the same time, these initiatives also introduce potential repercussions on the scale of large-scale production. While this could be interpreted as a harbinger for a changing culture of repair, I still feel a strong need for more initiatives on a local scale that can show the true value of repairing as a practice—not only practically or economically but as a position or political statement.