The chosen area was Sichuan 2008 earthquake. This magnitude 8 earthquake killed at least 68,000 people, out of which were more than 5,000 school kids. This happened partly because the earthquake happened at noon when school was still ongoing, but the main reason is because of the poor quality of the school buildings. The schools collapsed instantly and thousands of children were the victims.
Having chosen to focus on the prevention phase of an earthquake, I aim to reduce the number of people injured from using my design, especially school children. Initially I thought, in a school, what can be utilized to prevent them from getting injured? I want to use an existing product, enhance it, and make it more useful.
My design is a whiteboard that doubles as a shelter. In normal situation, the whiteboard would be used as usual, but when an earthquake strikes, it can become a protective shelter for the students so they don’t get injured. The whiteboard slides forward with the help of tracks on the wall and floor and locks to form a void between it and the wall, where students (and teachers) would be able to hide underneath. This idea reinforces the concept of “duck and hide”, but with greater guarantee that they will be safe. A lot of people hide under tables but they still don’t survive. The main challenge to this design was to find a strong structure, enough to handle the weight of the ceiling if it falls down. This is partly resolved by using High Strength Low Alloy steel, which is already used in automotives – it is dent resistant, increased strength-to-weight ratios (so it can be used in thinner sections which means it’s lighter), increased load carrying capability and improved crash energy management. The more important aspect is the shape of the structure. As triangle is the strongest shape and is used in most buildings, I try to include it in my design. At the same time, I also have to consider the ease of getting in and out of the shelter with speed, and the number of people able to be accommodated, as the class size in China is quite big (50 students/class).
Another concerned area was the wall and the floor. It has to be strong enough to withstand the pressure exerted by the steel whiteboard. But according to my research, parents, who mostly lost their only child, were grieving and at the same time angry about the poor school qualities. After years of complaints and dispute with the police and government, they finally agreed to inspect, evaluate and improve the standard of school buildings, that it will meet the agreed building codes. They explained that this improved building standards will not guarantee the schools not collapsing, but it will certainly lessen the damage done. With this information, I take it that the walls and floors/ceilings of the building would not collapse that easily.
Another advantage of this design is that it is able to be implemented anywhere, not only in China. Any buildings that use whiteboards will be advantaged by this product.
Experiments
Before reaching my finalized shape/structure, I did some experiments in the process to see how people fit and sit, just to get the right shape (not too big, not too cramped), reasonable use of space, how many people can sit inside, etc.
The starting point was to decide what shape - I went back and forth with squares and triangles. With triangles, there was too much waste of space on top of the head, and at the foot. Making the triangle sits lower would reduce the space on top of the head, but still cannot fit extra people. From one of the pictures, it can be seen that I can fit 2 people in a triangle, but considering the different sizes of students (and teachers) I decided to not use a triangle. So I ended up with a combination of both triangle and square - a trapezium. The trapezium is spacious, which fits 2 people easily in a row. Then I need to work out the angle of the trapezium (I tested 110,120,130 degrees) and found out that 110 was the best one.
After that, I made the model-sized whiteboards. Realized the structure doesn't seem strong enough to withstand falling objects, so after some more thinking and research, I found out that triangles are the strongest shape in construction, and is used in most building frameworks. So in the final design, I try to include triangles to make the structure stronger, but still allows people to crawl in and out easily.
Reflection
This project has given us a real-world situation, which we need to ensure its practicality and suitability in the emergency situation. Emergencies are inevitable, and there will be victims. But the challenge is to reduce those numbers. I think this is a really hard project because there are already many things out there designed to be used under such circumstances. This project really helps us to be creative. However, after doing this project, it made me realize that there are a lot of problems still need to be solved with the help of designers, to improve people’s lives.
During the whole process of researching, there is the reluctant to research because every information would include terrifying pictures of the earthquake and it’s really sad to see it, at the same time scared. I even dreamt of me and my family being involved in an earthquake, and I was using my knowledge from my research so far to respond to the situation, example the ‘triangle of life’ concept.
Having done this project, it made me realize how hard design is, when concepts would just be rejected over and over again and the time constraints. If I were to do this project again, which I do not want to, I would definitely use my time better, to research more on the material and make the model better.
Although designing for emergency situations would allow saving people’s lives, it’s not my preferred area of designing. I would prefer things that people would use in their daily lives, more like emotional design. It is more fun, less stress and people are happy. Designing for emergency situation is very stressful, having to research all the time, and considering the access to complete information is not available.
Appearance Model
Peer Comments
Fiona Lee
Greg Shar
Julia Xiao Ru Yu
Wawen Chan
Eugenius Lai
