Upgrade: Making Things Better

Langenberg, Silke, ed. 2022. Upgrade: Making Things Better. Berlin. https://www.hatjecantz.de/products/60295-upgrade-making-things-better.

Texts by: Silke Langenberg, Markus Berger, Tom Emerson, Felix Lehner, Hans-Rudolf Meier, Freek Persyn, Eva Prats & Ricardo Flores, Dorothea Scheidl-Nennemann & Davide Mastrodomenico, Adam Caruso & Helen Thomas, Inge Vinck & Jan De Vylder, Thomas Will

Contributions: Wilfried Lipp, Sara Zeller & Yves Ebnöther, Wolfgang Huber, Nadine Schmid, & Rony Schneider, Renaud Haerlingen & Tristan Boniver, Arno Brandlhuber

The incessant trend to throw away rather than to repair, demolish rather than refurbish has been a topic of discussion and criticism for years—at the same time, resource consumption and the waste continue to increase. To counteract this trend, students at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich and ETH Zurich have been developing sustainable and imaginative concepts for repairing a wide variety of objects, applying them both manually and by using digital techniques such as 3D printing. Beyond restoration, many projects aim to further develop and improve the repaired objects constructively, materially, or even in terms of design, lending them new value. This publication presents a wide variety of approaches and projects, complemented by essays by notable personalities from the fields of architecture, preservation, materials science, design, manufacturing, and craftsmanship.

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