MODULARITY - Open Collection (pls. contribute)

[Lars2i]

I had an exchange with @RicardoRug in the OPEN COLLECTION - On The Circular City topic.

Ricardo started to post an interesting idea for circular product design. Modularity is a part of it and I asked for examples. This is what he sent:

@RicardoRug

(…)

Some examples of similar product systems

In this case, MOD is the base containing the motor element on which the different Mod parts (drilling base, caliper base, polishing base) are added. It could be assumed that the RE parts are the spare parts (blades, drills or cutting discs) but there are no CO parts.

Another interesting project that could come to be understood in this way can be this (ARA project) in which on a Standar base (MOD) can be located all the components (Mod) that conform and personalize the product, but neither has CO components nor RE.

I responded to this:

I am looking at modularity for a while now and discovered that in a lot of areas it comes with problems. The Spreading Errors Effect is an important one. It effects your first example.

And Project ARA got cancelled recently because it turned out to be a „terrible idea.“ It would have cost even more …

Don’t get me wrong, I still love the idea of modularity - that is the reason I create this ACTION about it. But it seems it does not work everywhere. We have to look for the areas, where it works.

I share this here also for the link to the article about the cancellation of project ARA and to announce, that we are in the process of creating an ACTION on a Hackathon With A Open Modular Grid