Modularity

Modularity Theory: The Compass for Circular Innovation Strategy

Bundling and unbundling—business history's endless cycle. Modularity theory explains why circular products fail when they're caught halfway between.

The circular atelier: co-locating production, repair, and refurbishment in customer-facing brand temples. Accessible luxury through transparent craftsmanship. Image by GPT-5

Mid-century illustration of a warm neighborhood street: a figure walks toward an open workshop, a small food counter sits across the way, and a citrine yellow delivery vehicle rolls past.

The Neighbors

What happens when a block generates its own power, grows its own lunch, and tends its own things? The neighborhood becomes the operating layer of plenty.

Mid-century illustration of a craftsperson at a well-lit workbench in a neighborhood atelier, tending a textile with care. Warm citrine light, gouache texture, 1960s World's Fair poster style

The Atelier

The neighborhood workshop where skilled artisans tend your things before they break — making them more yours over time.

Autonomous delivery vehicle in citrine yellow at a suburban doorstep at dawn, a homeowner handing back a return container. Mid-century illustration style.

The Robot Milkman

The Circular Century's symbol: an autonomous vehicle that delivers what you need and retrieves what you're done with. One stop. Both ways.

Jean Siméon Chardin, Soap Bubbles, ca. 1733–34. Oil on canvas. A young man in quiet concentration blows a single iridescent bubble. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain.

On the Bubble

Closing out a season that asked why circularity stalled — and discovered that the environmental case, while critical, is not enough to close the deal. The benefits hiding behind it are the ones that will.

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The Neighbors

The Atelier

The Robot Milkman

On the Bubble