Customer Reviews

Design for the Other 90%

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"Design for the Other 90%" was published for the exhibition of the same name at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum at the Smithsonian. More like a review of an exhibition than a definitive text, the book is a nice brief review of some very interesting designs that are useful all over our planet. The book does not seem to be intended to teach you how to build, but rather to inspire you to think about building differently.

The book contains a collection of inventions - most of them quite simple. Examples are a "pot-in-pot" cooler which uses evaporative cooling to keep food from spoiling, a portable water filter for drinking water, a communal solar-powered kitchen, a gravity-powered drip irrigation system, and small-scale photovoltaic lighting. There are many more interesting ideas within these pages.

You won't learn the details of construction from this book, but you will be stimulated to think more broadly about designs that are useful for the majority of humans on our planet.

Necessity is indeed the mother of invention. While I did not see the original exhibit that inspired the publication of this book by the Copper-Hewitt, the book stands well by itself. The fact that we take so many things for granted makes this book a revelation. I bought 5 copies to give away to architect and engineer friends. I think it will prove revelatory and may inspire them to return their thinking to the most elementary basics of design; elegant and highly practical solutions that work for all of us, not just the needy 90%.

This amazing book is deceptively simple with breakthroughs on 2 levels:
First, it focuses on designs that address the basic cause of world poverty: INADEQUATE INCOME! Most of the designs featured help the users to generate dramatically higher income. For example, a hand operated drip irrigation system can allow a farmer to create a 10 fold increase in income! This is THE key to sustainable international development. Secondly, the designers focus on the developing world as an economic market, NOT a charitable cause. It's all about designing the right product (to meet the real needs of a local market) at the right cost (ideally with a VERY quick payback,allowing the buyers to increase their income) for a huge market. This is another key to a sustainable international development model. Until we see the developing world as a viable economic force, we will continue to pour in aid that has no leverage.
Buy this book to see some innovative product designs, but even more importantly to gain insights into the design THINKING behind successful products that have a truly positive effect on the lives of those in the developing world.

Cynthia Smith put together an excellent exhibition by the same name at the Cooper-Hewitt. This book is an excellent companion and great text book for design students and especially for those in other fields to learn how design is an integral part of development. Inspiration and pragmatism make change.

Excellent book. Besides many, many good ideas, the concept of Designing for the other 90% of the population is inspiring. If you've ever seen how people in developing nations live, you know how important and needed innovative ideas like these are.

In the lines of "Poverty is our greatest common enemy", if people started designing products like these to help improve the lot of the rest of the world, the larger part of the world's problems would be solved.

The only thing I'd like to see in this book is more good ideas..

I was already familiar with the catalog, but needed additional copies. I was pleasantly surprised to find the Amazon selling price was even lower than at the venue. The catalog contains links and resources to follow-up on all the displayed items and their authors.

The shipping time was relatively long, but express shipment outside the US would have been too expensive.

Without reading the book I must admit that the cover image has put me off what otherwise would have been an interesting topic.

Can't the designer of this straw see that:

1. it does not avoid walking distances.
2. it does not avoid contact with potentially dangerous waters (Crocs, hypos but also ameba, worms...)
3. water needs to be stored. Is she supposed to suck all the water into her 20l container??
4. it does nothing to promote the local economy
5. takes investment from proper water source development into a disposable item
...
...

What is going to be the "next revolution", bottled water?