Moksha--design of disposable objects for second uses as construction components

Abstract

Moksha is the Sanskrit word for freedom from the cycle of rebirth. It is the goal of every living being. This thesis seeks a Moksha of the Machine Age. It attempts to explore the possibility of building value into "waste". The thesis looks at one of the most common items that makes up "waste" - the "disposable" container, and the design changes which if incorporated, can ensure a second life as a building brick. What are the costs and what the benefits? Can generic principles can be derived; principles that would make such a design intervention desirable or even possible? With the ultimate aim of gaining much needed help, in the housing sector, for the poorest of society. My inspiration comes from poor people, all over the Third World, who fashion almost all of their building material from the discarded objects. The first part of the thesis, records such building activity in present day New Delhi, India. The study of the squatter building techniques is accompanied by the study of an experiment carried out at the Heineken Breweries, c. 1961, to design their beer bottle such that it could serve as a brick after the bottle had been used. That attempt, had the blessings of the chief executive of Heineken Breweries, one of the biggest names in the business and the technical expertise of the eminent architect N. John Habraken. It proauced a completely feasible and very credible product. Yet it never found large scale implementation.Why? Will its contemporary reincarnation in plastic (HDPE) have any greater chances of success than the glass forerunner? These are some of the questions that the thesis looks at in the last chapter. As architects we are conditioned to seek ultimate proof of our ideas' validity in the world of physical reality. Thus in the course of this thesis I have followed the process of designing a disposable container from the geometric logic of a particular form through the iterations that are needed to rationalize it with respect to the requirements of the manufacturing process, to the final stage of manufacture. This thesis looks at general questions that surround the issue of designing "waste" for a second life as well at very specific steps needed to design an everyday container such that it could become a brick in its second life.