DIYR - DIY-Redefined, exploring the innovative potential of designing DIY electronics

In times of multiple crisis, embracing alternative materials, products, and manufacturing systems is indispensable together with a change in our relation to them. Constant technological development alongside surging consumer demand for the new leads to the multi-faceted problem of ever-increasing production and waste of electronic goods. Starting from the principles of openness, democratization of technology, and distributed manufacturing, the design-driven research project DIYR (Do-It-Yourself Redefined) focuses on common electronic appliance typologies designed to be self-produced. It aims at enabling proDusers (producer/ user) to actively explore, gradually understand, produce, and adapt a growing range of unique electronic appliances. Thus, giving rise to a more sustainable, responsible, and holistic ecosystem of electronic products, facilitating knowledge and technology transfer together with essential circular values. Likewise, the project collaborates with Fab Labs, serving as a new communication tool and an instrument to highlight its capacities, amplify and gain the engagement of existing and new users. This paper addresses DIYR as an example of a design-led project merging the essence of the Maker culture and the principles of DIY by enriching them with the main characteristics of the design expertise: the capability of decreasing complexity and optimizing functionality ranging from formal aesthetics to aesthetics in interaction.