28.05.21
The Good, the Bad and the Useless
“Less but better” —Dieter Rams
The Good
– Buy less to use more.
The Bad
– Buy more to use less.
The Useless
– Buying more to use less is useless.
Less but better examples: Horse-free carriages, bag-free cleaners, film-free photography, meat-free meals, and mattress-free beds – to mention just a few. Creating durable, well-engineered products that last a very long time offers maximum value in the long term. Design thinking and inventive visionary businesses offering these sorts of products are needed now more than ever.
Every material (devised and created and yet to be devised and created) is manufactured using resources taken from the planet and every material must be replenished by the planet. Unless we analyse causes not symptoms, we may inadvertently exacerbate problems rather than find solutions to them. Waste of finite resources and how we dispose of that waste are the pressing problems we must tackle.
With any product we must make an assessment across its full life cycle – from birth to end-of-life. The longer it remains functional and the longer it can be used determines its value for people and its environmental sustainability. We should review how much was invested, for how long and with how much return.
Our aim was to design a sleep solution with no inherent padding so that it could be easily cleaned throughout and engineered to provide consistent inch by inch and instant body contouring support for at least a lifetime, and if possible, for hundreds of years. The first thing we realized we had to do was get rid of the mattress. The rest, you could say, is incomparable. Less the mattress is a better, more sustainable sleep solution for people and planet – restorative, regenerative, reusable, and guilt-free – by design.
A good all-round deal for the user and the environment is not only better it is far more useful, sustainable and circular – by design.
“Do less but better” advises Armani Group. Armani did and Ammique did too, and we would add: “Buy less but better.”
