Description
Book SynopsisRaising fascinating questions of consumption, environment, and desire, Upcycling Aluminum is for anyone interested in industrial and environmental history, discard studies, engineering, product design, music history, or antiques.
Trade ReviewThe work presents a robust survey of the developmental history of aluminum as an engineering material, the need for huge sources of electrical power to refine it, its applications in the aircraft industry, and its use in household items . . . Recommended.
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ChoiceAluminum Upcycled provides an excellent overview to the enormous growth of aluminum and to the history and design of the diverse applications of the metal. Indeed, it is a worthy addition to the literature of the aluminum industry.
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Light Metal AgeZimring’s Aluminum Upcycled makes a valuable contribution to the fields of design and industrial ecology, as well as to business and environmental history.
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Business History ReviewA wonderful, eye-opening read, available from Johns Hopkins University Press.
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Tree HuggerAluminum Upcycled shows that sustainable design practices have a long, fascinating history that can inform contemporary debates and challenge common assumptions... The well-balanced book speaks to historians of technology as much as to historians of environment, waste, design, and music.
—Martin Meiske,
ICONAn impressive study of America's fascination with the metal in the postwar period and how the metal's history connects with broader themes of waste and recycling . . . The book excels as a history of industrial design, but, in chronicling the nation's love affair with aluminum, makes seeing how we can escape our ties to the twentieth-century metal difficult.
—John Wills, University of Kent,
Journal of American HistoryThis lively history of sustainable design and the limits of responsible industrial production not only contributes to industrial and environmental history, discard studies, product design, and the history of technology but also deftly challenges all of us to rethink the moral high ground on the potentials of recycling and upcycling as green strategies. The book is well written, accessible to a wide audience, and has a good sprinkling of well-chosen black-and-white photographs that enliven the text.
—Mimi Sheller, Drexel University,
Environmental HistoryAluminum Upcycled speaks to both scholars and practitioners, and is particularly valuable to students of design.
Zimring explores upcycling as a concept in design, building on work in industrial ecology and circular economy.
—Finn Arne Jorgensen, University of Stavanger, Norway author of
Recycling,
Technology and CultureTable of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction. Toward a History of Upcycling
Part I
1. From Scarcity to Abundance
2. Designing Waste
3. A Recyclable Resource
Part II
4. Metal in Motion
5. Covetable Aluminum Furniture
6. Guitar Sustain
Conclusion. Designing for Sustainability
Notes
Index
