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Conny Bakker: How do we design products for more than one life?
In this episode of Design Perspectives, host Martin Pauli speaks with Conny Bakker, Professor of Circular Product Design at TU Delft. For more than three decades, she has been working on how products can be designed so that materials, components and entire products stay in circulation for as long as possible.
The conversation explores the practical challenges of circular design — from repair and reuse to ownership models, and the question of why circularity always requires a rethink of business models and supply chains. Conny Bakker also reflects on how design education is changing and why sufficiency may become a more important part of the sustainability debate in the future.
Three Key Takeaways:
Conny Bakker describes how, during her design education, products effectively “disappeared from designers’ consciousness” once they had been used. Circular design starts precisely at this point: designing products so that they can be repaired, reused and kept in circulation over the long term.
Recycled materials alone do not make a product circular. The conversation highlights why circularity also involves business models, supply chains, take-back systems and user behaviour — and why many companies struggle when they try to change everything at once.
Towards the end of the episode, Conny Bakker raises a more difficult question: is circularity alone enough? Alongside recycling and efficiency, sufficiency may increasingly come into focus — in other words, the question of how much consumption and innovation are actually necessary.
Guest:
Conny Bakker – Professor of Circular Product Design, TU Delft
Host:
Martin Pauli – Director of Global Circular Economy Services at Arup
Further links:
TU Delft: https://www.tudelft.nl/
Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, TU Delft: https://www.tudelft.nl/io
Design Perspectives – the podcast by the German Design Council.
How can we use design as a lever for transformation and economic success? We explore this question with leading voices from design, brand management and architecture. They share insights into how transformation, sustainability and commercial success can work together. Insightful, informative and inspiring.
Chapters:
01:25 – Conny Bakker’s introduction to circular design
02:31 – Why system change takes time
08:27 – What circular design means in practice
13:16 – The gap between ambition and implementation
15:49 – Common mistakes companies make
18:37 – Designing for multiple life cycles
20:33 – Ownership, repair and product-as-a-service
23:33 – The role of designers in complex systems
30:24 – Circular design in education
33:06 – What success for circular design could look like
35:24 – Why sufficiency is becoming more important
View all episodes
By German Design CouncilIn this episode of Design Perspectives, host Martin Pauli speaks with Conny Bakker, Professor of Circular Product Design at TU Delft. For more than three decades, she has been working on how products can be designed so that materials, components and entire products stay in circulation for as long as possible.
The conversation explores the practical challenges of circular design — from repair and reuse to ownership models, and the question of why circularity always requires a rethink of business models and supply chains. Conny Bakker also reflects on how design education is changing and why sufficiency may become a more important part of the sustainability debate in the future.
Three Key Takeaways:
Conny Bakker describes how, during her design education, products effectively “disappeared from designers’ consciousness” once they had been used. Circular design starts precisely at this point: designing products so that they can be repaired, reused and kept in circulation over the long term.
Recycled materials alone do not make a product circular. The conversation highlights why circularity also involves business models, supply chains, take-back systems and user behaviour — and why many companies struggle when they try to change everything at once.
Towards the end of the episode, Conny Bakker raises a more difficult question: is circularity alone enough? Alongside recycling and efficiency, sufficiency may increasingly come into focus — in other words, the question of how much consumption and innovation are actually necessary.
Guest:
Conny Bakker – Professor of Circular Product Design, TU Delft
Host:
Martin Pauli – Director of Global Circular Economy Services at Arup
Further links:
TU Delft: https://www.tudelft.nl/
Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, TU Delft: https://www.tudelft.nl/io
Design Perspectives – the podcast by the German Design Council.
How can we use design as a lever for transformation and economic success? We explore this question with leading voices from design, brand management and architecture. They share insights into how transformation, sustainability and commercial success can work together. Insightful, informative and inspiring.
Chapters:
01:25 – Conny Bakker’s introduction to circular design
02:31 – Why system change takes time
08:27 – What circular design means in practice
13:16 – The gap between ambition and implementation
15:49 – Common mistakes companies make
18:37 – Designing for multiple life cycles
20:33 – Ownership, repair and product-as-a-service
23:33 – The role of designers in complex systems
30:24 – Circular design in education
33:06 – What success for circular design could look like
35:24 – Why sufficiency is becoming more important
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