Design and the Global Structures of Common Difference

The process of globalization organizes diversity through homogeneous systems. The influence of this phenomenon in material culture and the role of design in this context are analyzed through the study of the SUN, a Uruguayan traditional product that disappeared under the effect of various parallel global processes. Since this category of objects consisted in a unique model with no redesign or opportunity for consumer choice being actively commercialized in the course of fifty years, it is claimed that design actions could have avoided its extinction, allowing the product to endure its matter of course in Uruguayan culture. Once design can act as a moderator between local and global requirements (influencing which aspects of local materiality transcend in globality), this study concludes that in the context of material culture design acts as a global structure of common difference.