Sustainability in Jewellery Design Process: Reusing and Reinventing

Abstract

A jewel can convey different appropriations and feelings, such as a habitat, poetic and intangible space. Within the framework of the research project named “Possible but Improbable Spaces”, we had started with the experimentation around asymmetric architectures inspired by nature and its capacity to metamorphose. The transposition of the space scale to the jewellery field would imply the concretization of spatial concepts avoiding any explicit transposition of this universe or even miniaturization. This article focuses on the methodology underlying the creation of a contemporary jewellery collection inserted in the project referred above and its main principles: versatility and reuse. We had resorted to sketches, cardboard models, 3D software, 3D printing and traditional techniques. Considering the urgency for more sustainable answers, we should question whether jewellery should not definitively follow a new course at the level of its design and materiality. If in the 20th century, some designers began to integrate new material into their creations, for a conceptual or technical reason, at this time the issue of urgency at the environmental level arises. Finally, the non-resource or punctual use of precious materials minimizes the cost of each piece that becomes more dependent on its innovation, its narrative and less on the value of the material.