Prof. Martin Kuban

Professorship Material and Environment

»We don't have a material problem,
we have a consumption problem.«

Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 7, room 109
99423 Weimar

phone +49(0)3643 / 58 33 42
e-mail martin.kuban[at]uni-weimar.de

office hour: by appointment

The professorship Material and Environment seems to be an homage to those years of economic growth in which it was hoped that environmental problems could be solved with the right choice of materials (material good = everything good). With the initial avoidance of toxic materials, followed by the idea of the recyclability of materials, up to the ideal of biodegradability according to the biological model. This was later supplemented by energy-saving products and so-called renewable energies which fed visions of technical-material solutions - up until today – that keeps the hope alive of being able to increase our standard of living according to economic growth paradigms.

Paracelsus' famous dictum »the dose makes the poison«, borrowed from the medical context for the assessment of our consumer culture, hits the mark: I suspect that it is less a material problem than a consumer phenomenon which is spreading like a pandemic among the most resource-intensive societies on our planet and it defines the threat of the Anthropocene.

It is currently common to divide the environmental issue into the triptych Efficiency-Consistency-Sufficiency: Efficiency and consistency represent technology-affine solution strategies (energy-saving products, ecological materials, etc.), sufficiency (lat. sufficere = to suffice) focuses on usage behaviour. Theoretically, technology and behaviour complement each other, but in practice this fails due to the rebound effect: optimised consumption easily motivates increased use, although from the perspective of sufficiency an analogous reduction in use should be the case. Because this paradigm shift towards sufficiency is difficult to accept, design plays a key role in shaping an uncompromisingly sustainable mindset by implementing a green lifestyle.

The title »Material and Environment« (MATUM for short) conceals complementary focal points:

Material and manufacturing
This area deals with product design-relevant basic knowledge in manufacturing and material-related design processes. The aim of the curriculum is to enable students to learn, classify and apply subject-specific knowledge and terms. In addition, students are enabled to deepen their knowledge and specialise independently. As a result students are capable of going into depth and specializing independently.  

Consumption and the environment
Sufficiency is at the centre of this area of concern. Both individual and collective behavioural changes are easily understood as inconvenience by means of habit. Design is needed to implement frugal lifestyle in everyday life, to overcome hurdles in this regard and to positively inspire and permanently stimulate ecologically compatible consumption without a rebound effect.

Working titles of MATUM design projects in this context are:
experimental ecology – plastic fantastic? – less is more – minimally invasive – XXS – sufficient – viable