Final Project — the Counter-Fridge
A reconstruction proposal — spatial design, art installation, or behavioural experiment — that refuses the argument of this course, and defends the refusal
Due
28 May
17:00 Fri, wk 12
Weight
40%
of the course
The brief#
Design the thing that breaks the fortress. An appliance, a space, an installation, a protocol, a behavioural experiment, or a refusal. Then defend it.
Draws on Module 4 — Resistance and reconstruction (weeks 10–12). The question is the last line of the week 10 lecture outline: could any version of this technology serve the household instead?
The medium is open. Three shapes work well:
- Spatial design — a redesigned interior, a community pantry blueprint, a kitchen that assumes less cold
- Art installation — speculative or critical design, including designs meant to be uncomfortable
- Behavioural experiment report — run something on yourself or your household for several weeks and report it honestly, including if it failed
Week 10 built the maximally exploitative smart fridge, so you already know precisely what a counter-design has to refuse. Week 11’s ferments and pantry rules are where many proposals actually start.
A reasoned refusal is a valid submission. If you conclude that households should not be asked to solve a structural problem, and that the intervention belongs at the level of retail or regulation, argue that. It is marked on the same criteria.
What makes it work#
The weighting says most of it: the argument is worth more than the artefact. A beautiful proposal with no case for it fails the same way a competent ethnography with no argument fails — the failure this course warns about in weeks 6, 10 and here.
Two questions your submission must answer explicitly, because the room will ask them in week 12 if you do not:
- Who is this for? A counter-fridge that only works for someone who can shop three times a week and cook every night has answered a much easier question than the one asked. Week 11 was clear that de-refrigeration is a position most easily held by people with time and money.
- What does it ask them to give up? Every proposal trades something — convenience, reassurance, money, time, or the freedom not to think about it. Name the trade. A proposal that claims to cost nothing has not been thought through.
What you submit#
The thing. Any medium: drawings, a prototype, a document, a video, a protocol, a rule set, a report. Photographs are fine if it is physical.
The rationale, 1000–1500 words: what it is, who it is for, what it costs them, what in the course it refuses, and the strongest objection you have not answered. Include that last one honestly — naming an unanswered objection reliably marks higher than pretending there is none.
The pitch: five minutes at the week 12 session — the proposal, the argument, and that unanswered objection. Not slides.
Casper Nowak supervises this project and will tell you whether something is buildable. Ask before you spend three weeks finding out.
The spec
The brief poses the problem and leaves room for a response. The spec is the fixed part: what a marker checks. Some lines can be checked mechanically; the rest call for judgement.
- submitted by 17:00 Friday 28 May, in any medium, with a written rationale
- the rationale is 1000–1500 words
- pitched in five minutes at the week 12 session
- it names who it is for and what it asks them to give up
How it is marked
| Criterion | Weight | High Distinction | Distinction | Credit | Pass |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The proposal | 35% | A proposal specific enough to be built or run as described, that could not be swapped for a different medium without losing part of what it argues. | A proposal whose form itself embodies the refusal — the medium is doing some of the argument's work, not just illustrating a decision made in the rationale. | A proposal that clearly refuses at least one assumption behind refrigeration-as-usual, realised in enough detail to judge how it would actually work. | A proposal is presented but stays close to a straightforward improvement on the existing fridge rather than a genuine alternative to it. |
| The argument for it | 40% | The rationale survives its own strongest objection, naming a trade nobody asked about and showing why the proposal is worth it anyway — not just that it exists. | The rationale identifies a real, unanswered objection to its own proposal and takes it seriously rather than dismissing it. | The rationale names who the proposal is for and what they are asked to give up, and connects the proposal to a specific claim from the course it means to refuse. | The rationale explains what the proposal is, but does not say who it is for or what it costs them, or answers those questions only in general terms. |
| Communication | 25% | The pitch changes how the room understands the proposal in five minutes, and the rationale rewards a second, closer reading with detail the pitch had no time for. | The pitch anticipates the room's likely questions, and the write-up answers them in more depth than the five minutes allowed. | The five-minute pitch stands on its own — proposal, argument, and the unanswered objection — without notes doing the work slides would otherwise do. | The pitch and the write-up separately make sense, but do not reinforce each other, or the pitch leans on slides rather than the artefact and argument. |
Markers see the pitch before they read the rationale, so the five minutes in week 12 set the frame the document then has to earn. A striking artefact that cannot answer 'who is this for?' out loud loses marks on 'the argument for it' before the write-up is even opened.
'The proposal' and 'the argument for it' are not interchangeable: a beautiful artefact with a thin rationale still caps low, and a well-argued refusal with no artefact is marked on the same scale, not a lesser one. What lifts a submission is naming the trade nobody asked about and the objection it cannot answer — the two things this course's own artefacts, in weeks 6 and 10, were criticised for skipping.