Challenges of open design in low-income communities: a case study of residential rainwater harvesting systems

ABSTRACT

Open design (OD) is a promising approach to address global sustainability challenges. At the same time, however, the increased use of OD brings new challenges. To understand the potential of OD in a specific context, we adopted the concept of a residential rainwater harvesting system (RWHS) as a case study. We first identified the critical design features of the RWHS. After that, we analysed the potential for local reproduction of these features at the grassroots level of low-income communities in developing countries. This analysis revealed that varying limitations related to materials, skills, and manufacturing tools may hamper the adoption of OD by local communities when trying to improve their water management. In the light of our findings, we argue that OD processes are likely to face challenges if replicability, substitutability and adaptability are not successfully integrated into the design. We suggest a design-for-frugality mindset and adoption of parametric design processes and design parameters as key strategies to boost OD processes in low-income communities. We also stress the importance of safety and liability aspects in the studied context.

KEYWORDS:

• Do-it-yourself
• open design
• replicability
• residential rainwater harvesting systems
• sustainability

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior — Brasil — 01–P–04375–2015, Erasmus EM-SMART2 Programme and the Academy of Finland under project AKA/4/02.04.10/2016 (University profiling).

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland [AKA/4/02.04.10/2016]; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior [01-P-04375-2015].