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Living Labs pp 63–74Cite as

Splashing: The Iterative Development of a Novel Type of Personal Washing

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Abstract

This chapter describes a case study on personal washing that was developed in association with two subsequent Living Lab projects. Drawing on theories of practice, the case study explored the application of a practices-oriented approach to reducing household resource consumption. Personal washing was taken as a target practice because of its high and growing water and energy consumption. The case study used an iterative process to develop a feasible, but highly less resource intensive alternative to the dominant practice of showering in the Netherlands. Splashing emerged as a promising proto-practice from subsequent performances, both in the lab and the field.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The FP7 LivingLab project and the SusLabNWE project related to a PhD research conducted at the Department of Industral Design at Delft University of Technology.

  2. 2.

    http://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/energy-efficiency.

  3. 3.

    It has to be noted that the environmental impact of a shower derives primarily from the energy required to heat the water, but in this study the amount of water is used as a proxy for the combined resource use of water and energy to heat the water.

  4. 4.

    This is an estimation assuming a daily flannel wash using the 5 l ‘lampet’ (jug and basin) and a weekly bath of 50 l.

  5. 5.

    Notably the work of Schatzki (1996), Schatzki et al. (2001), Reckwitz (2002a, b) and Shove et al. (Ingram et al. 2007; Shove et al. 2007, 2012; Shove and Watson 2006).

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all those innumerable advisors, students and participants that have been involved in the splash projects, Delft University of Technology for hosting it and the FP7 and NWE frameworks for funding it.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Lenneke Kuijer

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  1. Lenneke Kuijer
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Correspondence to Lenneke Kuijer .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Industrial Design, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands

    David V. Keyson

  2. Faculty of Industrial Design, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Olivia Guerra-Santin

  3. School of Design, Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom

    Dan Lockton

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Kuijer, L. (2017). Splashing: The Iterative Development of a Novel Type of Personal Washing. In: Keyson, D., Guerra-Santin, O., Lockton, D. (eds) Living Labs. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33527-8_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33527-8_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-33526-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-33527-8

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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