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The Toaster Project: Or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch by Thomas Thwaites (Paperback, 2011)

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Where do our things really come from? China is the most common answer, but Thomas Thwaites decided he wanted to know more. In The Toaster Project, Thwaites asks what lies behind the smooth buttons on a mobile phone or the cushioned soles of running sneakers. What is involved in extracting and processing materials? To answer these questions, Thwaites set out to construct, from scratch, one of the most commonplace appliances in our kitchens today: a toaster. The Toaster Project takes thereader on Thwaites's journey from dismantling the cheapest toaster he can find in London to researching how to smelt metal in a fifteenth-century treatise. His incisive restrictions all parts of the toaster must be made from scratch and Thwaites had to make the toaster himself made his task difficult, but not impossible. It took nine months and cost 250 times more than the toaster he bought at the store. In the end, Thwaites reveals the true ingredients in the products we use every day. Most interesting is not the final creation but the lesson learned. The Toaster Project helps us reflect on the costs and perils of our cheap consumer culture and the ridiculousness of churning out millions of toasters and other products at the expense of the environment. If products were designed more efficiently, with fewer parts that are easier to recycle, we would end up with objects that last longer and we would generate less waste altogether. Foreword by David Crowley, head of critical writing at the Royal College of Art and curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Easily my favorite book this year, The Toaster Project should be required reading for artists, designers, consumers and anyone who has ever bought or thrown away a toaster. Thomas Thwaites, a graduate student at London's Royal College of Art, sets out to build a toaster from scratch -- not just an object that toasts bread, but one that aesthetically and mechanically replicates the ubiquitous $6 drugstore toaster.... Thwaites is a laugh-out-loud-funny but thoughtful guide through his own adventures, touching provocatively on ideas as far-ranging as medieval metallurgy, sustainability, mass production, and our 'throwaway' consumer culture. You'll buy it as a gift for the title and the concept, but you'll end up keeping it for yourself once you crack the cover -- so take my advice and buy two. -- NPR.org.

Product Identifiers

Publisher
Princeton Architectural Press
ISBN-13
9781568989976
eBay Product ID (ePID)
111592603

Product Key Features

Book Title
The Toaster Project: or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch
Author
Thomas Thwaites
Format
Paperback
Language
English
Publication Year
2011
Number of Pages
192 Pages

Dimensions

Item Height
190mm
Item Width
128mm
Item Weight
210g

Additional Product Features

Title_Author
Thomas Thwaites
Country/Region of Manufacture
United States

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The Toaster Project: Or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch by Thomas Thwaites (Paperback, 2011)

About this product

Product Information

Product Identifiers

Product Key Features

Dimensions

Additional Product Features

Best Selling in Books

The Concise 48 Laws Of Power by Robert Greene (Paperback, 2002)

Atomic Habits: the life-changing million-copy #1 bestseller by James Clear (Paperback, 2018)

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Scott The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape

Camps 12 Australia by Heatley Gilmore, Michelle Gilmore (2022,Wide Book Spiral)

Air Fryer Cookbook by Robert Jones (Paperback, 2019, Independently Published)

Ikigai: The Japanese secret to a long and happy life by Francesc Miralles, Hector Garcia (Hardcover, 2017)

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