Sustainable Design of Supports for Cultural Services in Open-air Exhibitions

This research is focused on the design of sustainable cultural services. Particularly, on the services associated with outdoor exhibitions, which represent an interesting alternative to traditional cultural services, being accessible to all populations, at any time and without ticketing. Open-air exhibitions are usually organized using different supports but the ones with counterweights are the most popular and versatile types. Sustainability aspects of three different design alternatives are studied. In the first alternative cultural content is exposed using printed and replaceable vinyl; in the second alternative, the exhibition is illuminated and content is printed on stretched canvas. The third alternative offers an additional service because when the display panels are replaced exhibitors are transformed into street furniture. The entire life cycle of the services has been reviewed. Moreover, environmental, economic, and social sustainability dimensions have been quantitatively evaluated using, respectively, the global warming potential, the execution costs, and the working time indicators. Thus, the study contributes to integrating sustainability in the design of service systems. The presented cases illustrate the sustainability assessment methods that could be used in the evaluation of different cultural services proposals and results obtained show that different alternatives can be selected according to the criteria applied to reflect the importance of each sustainability dimension. Keywords: Sustainability, design; Service life cycle; Cultural exhibitions; LCSA.