The first presentation of the day is by Stuart Walker, Professor and Associate Dean at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Environmental Design. While his research looks at sustainable product design, his talk looks more specifically at enduring objects, their characteristics, and what we can learn/use from them. He presents objects that have existed for thousands of years -- objects such as pottery, tools, jewelry, statues – spanning diverse cultures and crossing the boundaries of time, culture, language and religion. His thesis is that such objects are non-trivial (comparatively to many of the trivial objects made today), and therefore enduring (!).

He (interestingly) divided his talk into the following framework:

inspirational / spiritual objects
objects such as: religious items, fine arts, sculpture
ideas such as: Symbolism, allusion, representation, sacred, profound

social / positional objects
objects such as: jewelry, make-up, identity items
related concepts: symbolism, status and social standing, decoration, taste, fashions, identity

functional objects (fulfills a human need.)
objects such as: tools, weapons, pottery,
related concepts: utility, usefulness, comprehension, safety, technology

CONCLUDING...
Sustainable product design is a function of:
- surpassing social/positional transience
- imbuing objects with inspirational /spiritual qualities
to create a meaningful material culture.