The challenge of the Bucket Wash: Creating desirable sustainable practices

The workshop 'Creating Desirable Sustainable Practices; the Challenge of the Bucket Wash' offers the opportunity to engage in the emerging realm of 'practice-oriented design', and to explore the tension between sustainability and desirability. Practice-oriented design builds design and research approaches on practice theory (from sociology) which takes practices - such as bathing or cooking - as its main unit of analysis. It offers a framework for understanding what goes on in people's daily activities-routines, habits, et cetera. This is not only interesting for taking a different look at user experiences, but also for tackling issues of sustainability. To make this abstract topic tangible, a case is introduced using existing research on bathing. The 'bucket wash' concept boldly represents a way of bathing that is clearly less resource intensive than the currently dominant practice of showering and poses challenges for desirability.