A Ship Made Of Plastic Bottles And The Changing Nature Of Design

“[In] engaging with a host of environmental technologies and issues,” the Plastiki – a solar-powered sailing ship built from 12,500 plastic bottles – “also mirrors a broad cultural shift in design’s focus. Design now exists less to shape objects than to produce solutions. Instead of creating a desire and designing an object to fulfill it, a designer spotlights a problem or need and solves it.”