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Since the emerging of its idea circa four decades ago, Appropriate Technology (AT) had been proven as a comprehensive solution in a limited condition. However, practitioners & academia have different opinions with engineers on how an AT must be designed. Researchers had noted the crucial factors in the issue as such, and they gave a notion of the urgency for a dedicated design methodology for AT. This study, therefore, aims to provide it. Such methodology is developed by incorporating AT characteristics, fundamental issues in community empowerment, and the principles of existing design methodologies. The methodology emphasizes combination between bottom-up and top-down design approaches. It means that an AT must be started purely from local conditions rather than given technical specifications, and be given back to local people to be seamlessly integrated into their routines. It also underlines the crucial importance of community involvement throughout design stages. By looking at previous design methodologies that were developed based on pure Engineering Problem Solving (EPS), this study delivers a fresh and comprehensive one that covers surrounding issues and concepts to produce an AT based on the real meaning of technological appropriateness.

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There were evidence for the inappropriateness of just three pillars of sustainability whenengineers have attempted to construct appropriate technology for underdevelopedcommunities. Engineers from developed countries have tended to conduct technologicaladaptations by treating communities as objects, rather than engaging them as subjects ofdevelopment. As objects, communities could not decide what they wanted to be and wereeven forced into systematic development that was more likely to benefit the developedcountries. However, as subjects, communities can determine their own sustainability andachieve survivability. In this study, seven pillars of survivability are outlined: technical,economic, environmental, social, cultural, judicial, and political. The first three aretangible aspects, and the last three are intangible. The social aspect is the intermediary, thebridge to emerging technological appropriateness. Tangible aspects can be measurednumerically, whereas the intangible ones cannot. The tangible and intermediate aspectsare what engineers must address, and both the intermediate and the intangible ones arewhat they must address specifically to diffuse appropriate technology into local dailyroutines. Tiers of technological appropriateness are also provided to understand theposition of a designed appropriate technology in terms of survivability levels. A holisticapproach that takes these pillars into account will empower communities to reach self-survivability beyond sustainability.

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