What is Life-Centered Design and how do we apply it in Minimalism?

We all remember those days when we developed societies without paying attention to the environment. We supported them in production models that destroyed natural resources. We based consumption on accumulation and seasonality. Those days are behind us, or not yet?

This crisis has given us the opportunity to change having for being. There will be doubts and uncertainty, but later there will be a period of reconstruction in which we will already know that we are nature. That time is now.

What is Life-Centered Design?

User Centered Design > Human Centered Design > Life-Centered Design

As designers, we have cemented the development of business models in our users, putting ourselves in their shoes, understanding their needs and focusing on their interactions with our products or services. The user was at the center of all our thoughts.

Little by little we have been opening that focus, realizing the need to understand these users beyond the specific relationship with our products; We started talking about humans . We begin to think at higher levels, to think in groups, in societies.

The fact of thinking on a human scale is great, it gives us a broader view of the game board. Factors such as ethnography or sociology begin to gain more weight in the game. A game in which the human figure is still in the center of the mat. And who put it there?

As if it were a heliocentric revolution, Life-Centered Design moves the human from the center of everything and places him cohabiting with the other members of the game. The environment just started game on the server.

Life-Centered Design opens the focus and introduces a more systemic, holistic and respectful vision with the environment. It is based on design to generate a union between people, economy and environment. It still has the human in mind, but as part of a whole, as part of a larger system.

On this planet where there are more and more of us, we must design to produce and consume less. Evolve economic models that go beyond producing as many versions of something as cheaply as possible, as many times as possible. We must start designing with the intention of having as little waste, as little clutter, and as few versions of the same thing as possible. Because, after all, our physical reality is finite.

Ok, and as we usually say "How does this go down to earth?"

We give you our practical case, at Minimalism we do not use any fabric of animal origin, the garments are made from organic cotton from sustainable production , we do not use any type of chemicals in the dyes, we take care of each step of the production chain, totally eradicating the plastic of all of them, we use recycled and biodegradable packaging, we avoid expendable elements such as the typical cardboard labels, we reduce the carbon footprint by having our factories a few kilometers from our logistics center, we reduce emissions in messaging when buying in packs... and we tell you clearly "Don't buy it if you don't need it".

We could say that with Life-Centered Design we go from "I" to "we". We stop thinking only about the current needs that we have as a species, to start thinking at the level of ecosystems and the future impact that our actions will have on a larger system, the planet.

We are nature.

We want to know what you think of this article. Leave us your opinion in the comments, and if you want to continue delving into this topic, you can listen to our latest OPENSTARTUPS podcast with BBVA's Design Manager, Andrés Botero , where we address this and many more topics.