Refashioning disability: The case of painted fabrics ltd., 1915 to 1959

This chapter explores the Rhizome Approach and the tools to operationalize it in 2010. The Rhizome Approach is named after bamboo’s complex underground rhizome system. The serendipitous push and pull positioning and demanding that design act as an enabler to sustainability is augmented by the design skill set. Human PCSs impacted sustainability at several levels. Designers working towards sustainability with developing countries’ renewable materials such as bamboo which are not traditionally part of mainstream industrial value chains, tend to focus on the material’s ecological and economic potential. Consequently, designers practicing sustainable design tend to focus on the ecological tenet and not on the holistic picture. Task specialization and division of labor have led designers, like other actors in the industrial PCS, to lose sight of the systemic picture. The workshop process was monitored and documented, and empirical data was collected through questionnaires to check whether the Rhizome Approach helped designers to design more sustainably.