Author Description

Among several related meanings, the Gambiarra term has been frequently used in Brazil to identify the improvisation of utilitarian solutions and its results: object hacks, adaptations, fittings, adjustments, fixes, repairs, and even entire inventions. Despite some derogatory opinions about these types of procedures – in some cases with understandable reason, as “precarious”, “ugly”, “sloppy”, and “malandro” (brazilian expression for “slippery”), the Gambiarra term also receives positive connotations. Accompanying a moment of change in values and the way some thinkers and the brazilian population see their culture and identity, the term Gambiarra has been referred, in connection to the so pronounced “Jeitinho Brasileiro” (The Brazilian Way), to emphasize a propensity to the creative spirit, the inventive and innovative capacities, and the intelligence from the dynamics of the popular culture, taking into account the adversities and vicissitudes to which all of us (many much more) are exposed - understanding it as a practice that approaches some academic concepts such as reuse/recycling or bricolage. In this sense, because it is a Material Culture phenomenon, the Gambiarra can be understood as an alternative kind of Industrial Design. If we consider that the concept of Design is not defined by the simple aesthetic issue, nor by the so-called “Stylism”, but by the act of idealizing or constituting objects and solutions, by configuring form, function and meaning (whether industrial or not), so in essence, Gambiarra and Product Design are similar procedures. What tends to be different are some factors related to each context that may vary, such as the technology used, the methods, the infrastructure involved (factory, people, equipment, raw materials, etc.), the industrial process, its political purposes and some corporate objectives, such as, for example, for whom, why and for what purpose it is produced. The idea of relating Industrial Design with the Gambiarra