Former BMW Chief of Design Chris Bangle is championing a revolutionary approach to product design that could address unemployment while tackling environmental concerns. His concept of "Second Existence" design proposes creating products specifically intended for multiple lifecycles, moving beyond traditional recycling to sophisticated upcycling that preserves the embedded energy in manufactured parts.
Bangle, who led BMW's design from 1992 to 2009 and now runs Chris Bangle Associates in Northern Italy, developed this theory after participating in a German government event in Potsdam focused on the coexistence between technology and humanity. His approach directly addresses the displacement of blue-collar workers as automation increasingly replaces traditional manufacturing jobs. "The question is, what do these people do?" Bangle asked, noting that factory work provided meaningful employment and raised incomes globally, yet many countries have lost their industrial base without adequate replacement.
The designer's solution centers on a process matrix that categorizes work by predictability and precision. While highly predictable and precise tasks are quickly automated, Bangle identifies that jobs requiring imprecision and unpredictability - such as disassembly for upcycling - represent the "last thing automation would take from people." However, he emphasizes this approach must be economically viable rather than the current practice of shipping electronic waste to developing countries where workers burn insulation off wires in hazardous conditions.
Central to Bangle's vision is stopping the recycling process at the component level rather than breaking materials down to raw elements. "If I'm going to recycle this coffee maker, I don't grind it into aluminum. Because that wastes all the energy that went into the tooling to make it in the first place," he explained. "What I do is, I take the parts that are usable, like this, and I use it for something else. I upcycle it." This approach requires "turbocharging" the concept of upcycling and accepting that resulting products may not conform to traditional aesthetic standards.
The economic model Bangle proposes draws inspiration from Tesla's early success with zero emission credits. Similar to how gas-guzzling car companies paid Tesla for credits to avoid government fines, Bangle suggests that companies producing items like smartphones could be required to purchase credits from operations that employ people to disassemble and reassemble products. This creates a self-sustaining economic cycle without direct government expenditure, using "carrots and sticks" to incentivize the practice.
Implementing this vision requires significant technological and design shifts. Bangle envisions artificial intelligence identifying compatible parts and designing interstitial components, with rapid manufacturing creating connections between salvaged elements. "This type of design philosophy could never exist 50 years ago, because we didn't have a means to put these things together," he noted. Crucially, designers would need to think beyond immediate products to plan for future applications during the initial design phase.
This approach demands a fundamental shift in aesthetic values and consumer acceptance. Bangle argues that design has historically proven capable of changing preferences, citing the transition from "More is More" to "Less is More" over just two generations. "Once it becomes established that, if you don't buy into this new aesthetic, then you belong to the bad guys, once that's established, people will take this," he said. The goal is reversing the trend where "we have been convinced by Modernism to like what machines like to make."
The role of designers would transform dramatically in this "Second Existence" world. Rather than working toward fixed design goals, designers would collaborate with AI systems and maintain flexible approaches to accommodate unpredictable component availability. Creativity would shift from creating "the slickest, prettiest shape" to building compelling narratives around products, especially as AI tools increasingly demonstrate superior capabilities in generating clean, precise forms.
Bangle sees luxury goods as the ideal starting point for this movement, as luxury brands already maintain connections to art and can create the "pull" necessary for broader adoption. He's currently developing workshops for automotive creatives exploring emotional connections to vehicles, noting that character often emerges from deviations from perfection - much like Harry Potter's distinctive scar that immediately establishes his character.
The concept extends beyond individual products to systemic thinking about energy flow and sustainability. Bangle learned from BMW robotics expert Stefan Bartscher about energy management from systems perspectives, leading him to view recycling and upcycling through broader lenses than material considerations alone. He argues that true sustainability requires understanding "total cycles" from expanded mindsets, questioning why a precisely manufactured aluminum coffee pot component should only become powder when it contains significant embedded energy and craftsmanship.
While Bangle remains cautious about promoting this concept directly to profit-focused companies without proper groundwork, he continues developing the theory through design research and education. His work includes animation projects that help create both fictional narratives for stories and real-world applications for pressing issues. When asked about his strongest childhood material memory, Bangle recalled wood from his father's industrial sales work - the smells, textures, and tactile experiences that shaped his understanding of how materials influence emotional connections.
