Jury Citation
R for Repair celebrates the idea of repairing in a transformative way. Repair is usually
seen as the forgotten sibling of sustainable consumption (alongside reduce, reuse, and recycle),
with broken objects judged as having lost their value in consumer culture. The project is a
delightful reinterpretation of objects and memories that would have been discarded, but for the
significance and meaning they hold for their owners.
The Jury recognises the educative and innovative effect of the project, galvanising the design
spirit for repair to inspire a new attitude of care toward our possessions. The project
highlights the impact of repair in physical, mental, and emotional terms, as it re-tells the
stories of the repaired objects and the renewed connections to their owners. The project also
developed repair kits, empowering individuals to extend the narratives behind damaged objects
and memories themselves.
Beautifully executed with agility from concept to exhibition during the pandemic, R for
Repair was reprised in a collaborative overseas presentation at the Victoria and Albert
Museum in London. R for Repair uses design to empower people to extend and enhance the
life of ‘broken’ objects and memories, and has the potential to power a movement toward care and
repair.
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JURORS
Nominator Citation
Justin Zhuang
Founder and Partner
In Plain Words
Old. Broken. Unusable. These are words not typically associated with design. Instead, the
profession is better known for setting trends, providing function to objects, and even
surpassing it through innovation. This is why I sent in my faulty clock radio when I learnt that
designers were going to fix objects as part of the R for Repair project. To my
surprise, this clock radio, which had accompanied me through my graduate studies overseas, was
returned to me unable to function as before. The clock could tell the time again, but instead of
broadcasting tunes the “radio” was projecting personal memories from my time abroad!
Mine was just one example of how the project’s designers redefined “repair” from being simply a
straightforward restoration of utility. Together, they showed me how repair is not an activity
of last resort but an opportunity to think of our objects anew. The project also challenged the
participating designers by bringing them face to face with the throwaway consumerist culture
that the profession has enabled over the decades.
Instead of the typical design brief to create something new, they were tasked to fix and even
redesign an object made by someone else. This is becoming more common in our world of
increasingly scarce resources, and the ability to restore, adapt, and even reimagine what exists
will become part of a future designer’s toolkit.
R for Repair is undoubtedly part of a global trend towards sustainability, but the
project does not inflate the role of the design as the solution. The revival of failed designs
is humbling for the designers. It even redesigns the age-old activity of repair into one that is
inspiring and even desirable. More importantly, it asks us to reflect on our relationships with
objects, and ask what or who it is that truly needs to be repaired.