Abstract

As an investigation of repair grounded in fieldwork, this thesis examines repair not just as a service but as an approach and ethos that stretches into behaviors, relationships, and policy. Ethnographic and case study interviews with non-commodified community repair groups in Milano are synthesized against contextual research about global repair cultures, repair behaviors, and the growing community repair movement. Research findings were used to develop a co-design workshop centered on “retelling” disposal stories into repair stories and imagining new repair experiences. The insights and imperatives from the research activities were woven into a concept that was further developed with members of Milano’s repair network. The final proposal is a service that combines small business and community repair into a single market-like space and supports new touchpoints that engage people throughout their repair journey. The proposal advances the mindset-shifting successes of community repair while opening new doorways to participants and creating fluid pathways to repair at scale, skill-building, and local regeneration.

Keywords

Repair; regeneration; regenerative economy; just transition; design for communities; care; healing; hobby; craft; restoration; survival; environmentalism; anticapitalism; social justice; non-commodified services; networks; organization design; co-design; ethnographic field research; circular economy; right to repair;