Figure 2. Book of Seeds, by Bryce Duyvewaardt, Sauha Lee, Eilish McVey, and Leah Pirani, is designed to fit in the Public Library context.

Town. Along with other transition communities around the
world, itis devoted to supporting the transition to a low-resource
economy. Seed sharing has many benefits. It lowers the costs of
gardening, fosters the selection of locally adapted plant species,
and allows independence from big seed corporations. Village
Vancouver supports this practice by providing seed libraries
throughout Greater Vancouver that are points of exchange and
learning at Street Fairs, Farmer’s Markets, Community Gardens,
and Public Libraries.

Emily Carr DESIS students spent time immersed in the grass-
roots culture of seed sharing. Then, taking the redundancy
approach rather than the traditional design approach, developed
a diversity of seed libraries to be manufactured and shared locally.
With the wearable Seed Apron, a roving volunteer carries seeds
throughout a Farmer’s Market to have conversations about the
importance of exchanging seeds. The product supports a perfor-
mative and social function. The Market Box is suitable for street
fairs. The Book of Seeds is designed to fit into the Public Library
context, and the Dry Seed Storage is a low-cost instruction kit for
Community Gardeners to build their own storage. This multiple
solution approach allowed Village Vancouver to find a variety of
locations within the local urban fabric willing to host seed libraries.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Scale, Recombining Existing Assets, and Redundancy are key
principles that have emerged from years of DESIS research. The
principles that underlie design for social innovation for sustain-
ability shift our understanding of traditional design: small-scale
solutions challenge standardization and mass production, recom-
bination of existing assets challenges the tendency to produce

rampant artifacts, and designing for redundancy decreases depen-
dence on singular solutions. The degree of change represented by
these shifts is significant. They help to shepherd the marked and
systemic social change that we need.

Deeply embedded in the DEsIs philosophy is the understanding
that joy and satisfaction gained from social engagement surpasses
any gratification one might find in consumerism, and offsets the
notion that reduction of consumption brings any deprivation.
Much of the value laden and ethical work of DEsIs has been made
possible by engaging research within design schools, where the
pressures to provide for consumer culture can be tempered. As a
result the methodologies and approaches of DESIS are changing
how we design, live, imagine, feel and be.

Louise St. Pierre is the Lab Coordinator and Héléne Day Fraser is
the Lab Manager. Both have attended and presented at Interna-
tional DEsIs Lab Assemblies.

REFERENCES

[i] Jégou, Franéois, and Ezio Manzini. 2008. Collaborative Services: Social Innovation
and Design for Sustainability. Milan: Polidesign. [2] Manzini, Ezio. 2015. Design, When

Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation. Rachel Coad, trans.

Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 62. [3] Meroni, Anna, Dr. 2007. Creative
Communities. Milan: Polidesign. [4] St. Pierre, Louise. 2015. Nature’s Systems. The
Routledge Handbook of Sustainability and Fashion. Kate Fletcher and Mathilda Tham,
eds. Oxon, New York: Routledge, 33-42.

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