Bricolage : Doing What You Can With What You Have

10 min readFeb 26, 2016

Recently, I’ve been hearing about the revival of bricolage — a design strategy that involves transforming materials, objects, or tools (that were previously used for other purposes) into new innovative solutions.

Knowing bricolage as an artistic process, I was surprised to find it surfacing in conversations with designers, particularly those in service design.

What I’ve come to learn is that bricolage isn’t just limited to design either. It’s found in architecture, products, computer software, city planning, food, business strategy, and the fine arts. In fact, bricolage isn’t an industry at all. It is way of learning and being; it’s a mindset.

Bric o What?

The term, bricolage, was defined by Claude Lévi-Strauss, a French anthropologist and sociologist who was interested in how societies create novel solutions by using resources that already exist in the collective social consciousness. The second “creative cognition” requires people to retrieve and recombine knowledge in new ways.

He calls it a primary rather than primitive skill, since we’ve relied on this method since the dawn of civilization. We’ve repurposed natural materials to build houses, castles, cities. We’ve reiterated on tools to make better tools. We’ve built upon the knowledge gained in preceding generations.

“It can be argued that the Internet, a substantial part of software, some parts of biotechnologies, and other important technological sectors develop more by virtue of bricolage than of rational and organic planning and design,” says Giuseppe O. Longo. Gradually, technology has revealed its potential to us, exposing one more piece of a puzzle that individuals recognize and fit into the evolving picture. Each of us are part of this process, a collective intelligence. We imagine and create, collaborate and share, inherit and leave behind.

As Sir Isaac Newton once said:

“If I have seen a little further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

Lévi-Strauss explains bricolage as “a mindset where the first step is retrospective. In a sense, there is a need to take a step back in order to see the bigger picture.” A step back where the bricoleur analyzes his available resources, digs into his past experiences and reflects to find the best possible solution. Thus, the approach of a bricoleur is different from the approach of an engineer, as the material used is not dedicated to a specific project. The process of bricolage is more flexible, fluid, and open-ended. According to Lévi-Strauss, it can lead to unexpected but brilliant results. (AoA)

Bricolage innovations have a reputation for being experiential — people using everyday objects and materials to devise new immediate solutions. Usually they occur spontaneously, outside of institutions and linear methodologies.

Perhaps this explains why the concept hasn’t gone mainstream yet. With our innumerable devices and digital tools, we like to think of ourselves as innovators who are creating truly “novel” and “progressive” things. But is it true? Are we?

According to neurobiologist Gerald Whether, the answer is no.

“Proper creativity takes place when something really new comes into the world. Creative breakthrough innovations such as the invention of the steam engine were never based on linear, progressive thinking.
This way of thinking will also work under pressure, if absolutely required. But these creative breakthrough inventions really only occur when there is no pressure, and this is because this type of innovation requires us to simultaneously activate multiple sources of knowledge and experience stored in our brains. This means that as much brainpower as possible needs to be ‘switched on’.
However, one has to admit that this is not really a novelty, but rather a new combination of things that existed before. It is a new combination of things that have previously been separate.”

Therefore, breakthrough innovations are a re-organization of things from all directions, both old and new. It is not being a lone ranger, but a participant in the collective intelligence. It is a re-purposing. A re-imagination of how existing things can be fused to form different experiences. It is bricolage… a practice that involves collecting and collating exiting methods and materials to construct something new, usually as a response to immediate needs.

Modern Treehouses

As a kid, I loved building treehouses. My friends and I would wander into the woods, collecting this and that, and before we knew it, we’d have built a fort — sometimes on the ground, sometimes in the trees. We even built a cathedral once. That’s what we called it anyway. It was a gorgeous structure, if I may say so, with spirals (made of pine leaves) that spun high up into a tree and contained round rooms (made of old tires).

No one taught us how to create like that. No one told us what to use either. We simply utilized what was in our environment, made something new.

Nowadays, children get kits that come with pre-cut materials and detailed instructions. There is little imagination involved. It’s a matter of fitting pieces together “rightly” or “wrongly”. Everyone who buys this kit knows exactly what they’re going to build, and the kit will tell them exactly how to do it. Where’s the creativity in this? How does this allow problem-solving skills to develop?

And yet, is this not how the majority of development occurs today? Cookie cutter structures with pre-made floor plans, using cheap materials ordered from somewhere in Asia? I’ve seen entire neighborhoods go up in mere weeks. Granted, I also saw them falling apart about one year later, but that’s a whole different discussion.

Berne House by Mary Clare DeRuil & Carlos Tardio

A couple of years ago, I stayed in a modern treehouse of architects Mary Clare DeReuil and Carlos Tardio. They build hyper-contemporary structures that are responsive to the surroundings and make use of local materials. Though they probably don’t consider themselves bricoleurs, in my eyes they are. All of their work is hand-modeled and manually drafted — a process that not only connects them to generations of architects who came before them, but also forges a stronger relationship between them and the environment.

The result? A playful structure filled with innovative solutions and unique personality. Doors and walls swing in various directions, allowing rooms to be customized in mere moments. Light falls in just the right places, at every point in the day. In the mornings, I got up to watch the sunrise, because while the sun rose in the east, a little window facing west allowed me to watch the moon fall simultaneously.

On the south side, doors were installed as ventilation, so that the building maintained the same temperature as the trees around it, eliminating the formation of greenhouse gases. Because of Mary Clare and Carlos’ relationship to the surroundings, we experienced no issues with mold, bugs or other potential invaders. It had all been handled throughout the development process.

After several weeks in this house, I was still discovering new possibilities. I had friends over. We played with reflections, especially at night when the lights came through walls. Not only was it cozy and sustainable, it was experiential, and in the process of playing, I also formed a bond with the house and its surroundings. Years later, I can vividly remember it all.

Bricolage contains an enormous potential for tackling problems and enhancing creativity through improvisation and playfulness. Not just in architecture either.

Any Industry, Endless Combinations

For businesses, bricolage offers a way to build on past achievements by using acquired experience, skills, and previous assets to develop future projects. For example, adidas created a digital archive to preserve their brand heritage and ensure that founding values are carried on in the future. Likewise, Chanel’s creative director, Karl Lagerfeld, “takes as his mantra…the words of the German writer and poet Goethe: ‘Make a better future by developing elements from the past.’” (NYTimes)

We tend to think of the past as expired, or stale. But perhaps we’re limiting ourselves. Why can’t things have second lives, third lives, fifty lives? For many design professionals, previous experiences become more tools in their toolbox. UXMag says, “As bricoleurs, experience designers and developers can mashup the strengths of multiple approaches… at certain times ignoring their original intended use or context, but at others fully respecting their origins.”

Smart advertisers are discovering the possibilities of bricolage too, creating new combinations of old and new media that result in smashing hits. They’re involving consumers more, bringing them into the iteration process whether through simple interactions or full-blown innovation creation. Like the customizable treehouse I once stayed in, “customizable messages link to the idea of customizable products, such as M&Ms with personalized sayings and personalized car detailing for VW and Mini Cooper.” (Beyond Convergence). Top-down strategies are simply far less effective than bricolage production of ideas and organizational growth.

For analysts, “the bricolage process can provide fascinating consumer research that unlocks valuable insights about consumers,” because reflective user feedback is unlikely to be uncovered by traditional research.

Bricolage can also serve as a catalyst for creative thinking within companies, at almost no cost. Once it becomes a state of mind, it can be applied in manifold ways, and while bricolage may not be capable of solving every problem out there, restraining ourselves to the resources at hand can also address escalating environmental concerns, encouraging us to conserve rather than just consume.

Bricolage and Sustainability

Innovation often comes with a very high cost, not just financially, but also ecologically. Our solutions can ultimately be more harmful than the original problems we’re trying to tackle. There are so many examples of this, but let’s just pick one for now… How about plastic?

When synthetic plastic was invented in the early 20th century, it was revolutionary. People no longer had to rely on scare natural resources like ivory from elephant trunks or cellulose from plants. For the first time, human manufacturing went beyond the limits of nature. Plastic, called “the material of a thousand uses,” elicited an almost utopian vision of the future.

The elysian vision was short-lived. Just 50 years later, our oceans were full of plastic trash, a sickening number of marine life and birds were dying, and we learned that plastic is made with dangerous chemicals that leach into our food and water and compromise our health. While I’m glad that we stopped slaughtering wild elephants, it seems that plastic is wreaking just as much havoc, if not more.

Bernard Pas says in his Age of Artist interview:

“We create new products as we need them, and it is often fantastic, but there is always a negative side that one could – or could not – anticipate, and sometimes the malicious side takes on the initial magic of the invention.”

For instance, what about all the waste? Why do we keep manufacturing more things when so many things exist already? How should we define human “need”? Can we do something new with what we already have?

Many are saying yes.

Upcycle said yes when they created a mushroom farm out of coffee grounds. Adidas said yes when they made sneakers out of plastic ocean trash. Denmark and a few other nations said yes by transforming wind into energy. English chef, Arthur Potts Dawson, said yes in when he opened a restaurant that operates by the mantra, “Waste is the end of the beginning.”

If you saw the film, Waste Land, you know how transformative the process of using available materials can be. We know that energy, water, and raw ingredients can be used and reused, put into cycles that run in infinite loops. Bags can be made out of recycled tires. Gourmet meals can be made with garbage, literally (and according to this critic, it’s awesome).

wastED uses pasta scraps that are discarded by most restaurants

Of course we will continue to desire novelties, but perhaps we should consider bricolage more often. It is less taxing to our wallets and to our planet. It gives us new eyes, allows us see bigger pictures. What if we already have all we need? Would creative breakthrough come more readily if we stopped consuming and producing, tapped into the multiple sources of knowledge and experience stored in our brains? Maybe Per Olsson was right when he said,

“To solve complex environmental challenges, we don’t need more tech or economic solutions. We need a change of mindset.”

As a final note, I’d like to address our notion of freedom. We like to think that a broad range of options gives us greater freedom, but studies reveal otherwise. David Kayrouz gives the example of yogurt flavors in the supermarket. The incredible number of options “send many people into a state of overload” and ultimately leads them to purchase the same flavor just to avoid the decision fatigue. “Freedom is a myth,” he says.

If this is true, I wonder how this applies to every product or service and business out there. I wonder how many of them are trying to solve imaginary needs.

We may not know until we stop the constant production and take time to reflect… Until we let go of our linear and rational approaches, make room for the unexpected to break through.