Designing for the super-rich

There's an article
in February's Engineering (a publication noted normally only for its extreme
glossiness and abysmal grammar) on a design team refitting a standard jet plane
(an Airbus A319, apparently) into a pop star's luxury flying machine, complete
with games room and bar. My first reaction to this, I must admit, was disgust.
The amount of pollution which this thing will pump into the upper atmosphere in
order to transport one over-preened youth and twenty of his closest sycophants
around the world should make any environmentally-aware person cringe. It's like
a stretch Humvee - there's really no excuse. Surely, it would be more
responsible to guide the young super-rich into blowing their money on some sleek
dart of an "uber-Lear Jet", which will be cleaner and quicker, as well as
smaller and more elegant?

But then I had
second thoughts. For one thing, celebrities have a rather short shelf-life, and
rather a lot of money. Commercial jets cost a lot of money, but have a much
longer shelf-life. Presumably these planes could be refitted as standard
airliners, once Zoom Bo'Dansa and his buddies have stopped selling records? Or
maybe they could be refitted for each pop brat in turn with only minor tweaks.
So the idea of using a durable, workhorse shell with a frothy interior has some
merits - afer all, something sleeker might not have quite the same commercial
afterlife. Or at least, its afterlife will remain as carting small numbers of
rich people round the globe. Per person-mile, might the Lear Jet not end up the
more environmentally expensive?

In general, one has
to own up to the fact that these people have money and they want to spend it. On
the face of it, the most ecofriendly advice would be to spend it on services,
rather than products - designers, masseurs, butlers, bodyguards, etc. Spend your
money on people rather than things. (Of course, then these people go out and
spend their money on things, but they're more likely to spend it on
mass-produced, low-ecofootprint products, rather than bloody great planes. Or
stretch Humvees). But isn't this sort of personal-service culture one which died
at the end of the First World War? In social terms, wouldn't it be a massive
retrograde step, a return to the days of 'below-stairs' servitude? Well,
probably not - for one thing, personal service has always been around, and as a
way of making a living, aromatherapy is a lot more fun than, say, assembling
electonics. Supply and demand will dictate the levels of personal service
provision - and todays service providers aren't the downtrodden daughters of
housekeepers, but qualified professionals backed up by chartered institutions
and knowledge transfer networks.