toys and what made them special. We grew attached to our new
teammates very quickly. After this encounter, we realized the
implications of an all-girl co-design team which were noticeable
—they had talked about many toys, but none more than their
fashion dolls.

RESEARCH QUESTION// The primary question in front of us
was, “What exactly would make a Barbie™ doll sustainable and
still be of interest to our girls?” Sustainability never seemed to
be of concern to Mattel, short of a few clumsy gestures of doll
reclamation and outfits made of repurposed fabric that had
only provoked accusations of greenwashing (Mitchell, 2008).
The people who continued to buy Barbie™ did not seem to mind
her plastic figure, synthetic clothing and blister-pack shell;
she was fashionable, desirable and aspira-
tional. Any solution we proposed had to at
least match these qualities, if not exceed them.
Sustainable design offered us a number of
design solutions, including material reduction,
recycling, repurposing, and re-presenting (Wa-
Iker, 2007). The challenge was in figuring
which solution would be the most successful.

Another question posed was the nature of
the end of life of the doll, or how this plastic figure became
garbage. We speculated girls who discarded Barbie™ simply
moved on to something more age-appropriate or fashionable, or
whether they had an encounter with the doll that hastened their
displeasure with it. The question was raised as to whether the
sociological issues of body image, Barbie’s”™ falsely plastic adult
world or her mass-production and consumption could provoke
anger, dissociation and rejection. Finally, we posed the question
of where the value in the doll was created — it seemed logical that
the doll would only become garbage once her perceived value had
been lost.

METHODOLOGY// The following processes and methods were
employed in order to deconstruct the design problem and arrange
information. These mainly took the form of activities, games and
other collaborative practices used commonly in co-design, as well
as informational mind mapping and surveys.

Scenarios// To test the theory of constructed value, we decided
to run scenarios with the children to understand how they told
stories with their dolls. We wanted to determine whether these
stories helped preserve value in the doll even when it was dam-
aged. After discussing the childrens’ own experiences with
broken dolls, we combined their stories and solutions into three
scenarios and documented the activity in photos. These photos
were later adapted into three short comic strips, we hoped to take
advantage of the comic form’s ability to “amplify through sim-
plification” (Scott, 1993) and to construct an emotional layer to
the narrative.

Card Sort Activity// While working with the children, the team
began a very broad research process, which was followed by
numerous discussions as we tried to make sense of everything we

“WHAT EXACTLY WOULD
MAKE A BARBIE™ DOLL
SUSTAINABLE AND STILL
BE OF INTEREST 10
OUR GIRLS?”

had read. Barbie™ has fifty years of documented history, much of
which lies largely in the sphere of pop culture and is poorly docu-
mented, yet prevalent. It seemed that introducing the sociological
aspects of Barbie™ into our project presented us with a wicked
problem and an indeterminate outcome. This had the potential
to halt the project as we grappled with an overload of information
(Buchanan, 1992).

To address this problem, we asked ourselves, “What do we
know about Barbie™>” and wrote short answers on index cards.
Each card had space for three answers, allowing each team mem-
ber to react and elaborate on each other’s observations. After we
had exhausted our knowledge, the cards were split so that each
idea was on a single sheet of paper and then fastened to a blank
wall. We sorted the cards, slowly allowing clusters to develop.
Eventually, those clusters were formalized
as overlapping topics in an adapted Venn dia-
gram (ours was in the shape of a heart, which
seemed appropriate given the subject matter).
Though this exercise took hours to complete,
it gave us some clarity as to what we actually
knew about the world of Barbie”, and con-
vinced us to start looking into craft practice,
and its value in constructing meaning.

Craft Practice// Craft seemed to be an essential part of our sustaina-
ble approach and was a response to the design problem that Barbie™
presented us with. Craft has fallen out of use during the modern
era in favour of industrial efficiency and distribution, but it is
again being recognized as an invaluable resource in sustainable
design. Craft is a pragmatic approach to local production, person-
alization, materiality and the skill of the creator (Nay, 2008). We
believed that these elements would be a major source of the value
we were hoping to embed in our doll solution. To test these theo-
ries, we created a number of craft-based prototyping activities,
which we hoped would reveal some interesting behaviour from
the kids as they worked (Poggenpohl, 2002). These involved the
creation of doll outfits and of a “maker-space” while exploring pro-
totypes at doll-scale and at a full human scale.

SURVEY// We were inspired by another team in our class to cre-
ate a visual survey tool that we could present to the children to get
some concrete advice. The survey was composed of twelve ques-
tions, and we asked them which of the four options they preferred.
All of the questions tried to present options that would give them a
choice between a doll experience tied to a large company like Mat-
tel, and to a local brand. To our surprise, the local option was the
clear winner, though our co-designers were clear that whatever we
created had to be just as glamorous as Barbie™. Most significantly,
they placed a high priority on the doll being presented as “new”.

BRAND STRATEGY// We decided to play off of the children’s
interest in local things by creating a name that a six-year old would
immediately connect with: VancouverGirl. With such strong com-
petition from Barbie”, Liv and Moxie Girls™ (the latter being two
new fashion doll brands launched in 2009 by very large toy manu-
facturers), it was vital that we were unambiguous about our local

SUSTAINABILITY 23