Designing for Disasters

Rationale


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

Video reflection no.2

I have to admit I do buy bottled water. The reasons? Like what Annie Leonard said in the video "The Story of Bottled Water", I think it has less contaminants, more hygienic and it tastes better. I am convinced bottled water is more hygienic because that's what the companies claim. But one thing I'm always sure of, bottled water tastes BETTER than tap. Tap water has a typical tap water taste, and I'm confident enough that I can differentiate between the two in a taste test. Another reason I drink bottled water is because we Indonesians do not drink from our taps in Indonesia. Tap water in Indonesia is claimed dirty, so we drink from the gallons. Because of this culture, I am hesitant to drink from taps, unless it's filtered. I use Brita at home, but it's not that effective, I can still taste the tap water taste, but I just drink it anyways - yes, I know this is kind of psychological.

I believe that all bottled water - Mount Franklin, Fiji, Pump, Evian, and others, are the same, although sometimes the taste might differ slightly. I wouldn't pay extra dollars for an Evian, unless I'm in a place where it doesn't offer anything else. The decision lies simply on the packaging and brand loyalty. Some brands are just too overpriced, like Evian and Equil. How can water be so expensive? I know pure water is getting harder to find, but other brands don't cost as much! Therefore, I think the factor that makes bottled water so expensive is the bottle.

One aspect of bottled water that I was made aware of a couple of years ago is the bottle itself. It takes so much energy to make it and recycle it. People were encouraged not to use plastic (bags, bottles, etc.). But after that I heard about bottles made from corn, so plastic is degradable and also last week's video reflection about recycling. With all these knowledge and resources we have, wouldn't it be okay to manufacture bottles? Anyways bottles are made with only one material (two with the label) so it's not as complex as electronics.

Business organizations have always concentrate on making lots of profits, they make something new every couple of months. For example, a couple of years ago, Nokia, they offered new phones every 3 months before iPhone and Blackberry came by. Now probably not - they focused more on having quality products that would compare with iPhone and BB. Even apple who claims their products to be environmentally friendly and technologically in front, commits to have a new or improved product every year; and people will buy it for sure. How is this environmentally friendly? And how does this prove the point that their products are good enough to last for years?

As designers it is really important to think about the product's life cycle especially its manufacturing and end of life, although the 'use' phase is the one that contributes most to carbon footprint. Products like disposable cameras are really bad for the environment. I don't understand why cameras have to be disposed of after one time use. It may be cheaper to buy than a real camera, but the environment is paying more for this. And it's this kind of thing that we need to ban in the design industry.

Eco-redesign

We did a group work on disassembling a toaster, taking a look at all the parts and their materials. Put all the information in Greenfly and the toaster's carbon footprint is generated.

Eco-redesign summary here

Video Reflection 1 : Giving Packaging a New Life

Watch video here.

I know that recycling is carried out here in Australia; in residential areas, recreational areas and some shopping malls, different coloured bins are provided for recycling purposes. But I never knew how they recycle and process it back to a new product. No one ever explained, and the products out there don't convince us that they're recycled. Certainly, if they're recycled, the company would be proud of it and they would inform about it on the packaging. I've only seen '5¢ refund for collection in SA'. This certainly encourages the people in SA to recycle. But what about other parts of the world? Why only SA?

One thing I remembered when watching the video - people say plastics cannot be recycled, and they take hundreds of years to decompose. That's why now, they (example, UNSW bookshop) use paper bags "to save the environment" and supermarkets (like Coles and Woolworths) encourage buyers to use cloth bags instead of plastic bags. But since plastics can be recycled, what's so wrong about using plastic bags? And there's still a lot of plastic bottles and products out there...

We all know that our beloved Mother Earth is running out of resources, and recycling is one way to help prevent that. In Germany, recycled paper accounts for 60% in making new paper, recycled steel provides around 40% of the raw material, and probably more than 80% of glass is re-cycled. I say it is extremely possible to increase these numbers to 100%, so new materials are not needed anymore. All other countries should also learn and invest in recycling factories because it's extremely useful and we do need it.

Also, sometimes people are confused about the bins. The bins are usually divided into paper bins and container bins. However, many products are made with more than one material and when people throw it away, they don't want to deal with it anymore. Other times, it's just impossible to tear it apart. A few days ago, I threw a book with steel binds into the paper bin, I also threw cardboard boxes with sticky tapes. This shows that the recycling system is not well thought/planned/designed yet. I know that in the recycling factories, it will be accurately, at lightning speed, sorted out.

But I believe there will be a better way of doing this whole system of recycling, example, an underground tunnel system which automatically sort out every rubbish that we throw and connects it to the factory or incinerator. This way, rubbish is not a problem anymore. In apartments for example, there are recycling bins on every level. So probably they bring the bins down every few days, but there are 20+ levels. So inconvenient, so troublesome. Therefore I strongly believe that there are opportunities for designers, business people and others in this area.

Ecological Footprint

I went to this website > www.myfootprint.org and did the quiz to find out my ecological footprint. I was quite surprised at the results! I can't believe that my lifestyle needs 5.44 Earths. This is sad.. but I believe there is probably NO ONE in this world whose lifestyle needs only 1 Earth. The way we were raised and the current technological environment makes it impossible for us to live with only one Earth. With the present situation (depleting resources, natural disasters, etc.), I dare to say that we don't have an Earth anymore, it's only a 'half' Earth.

From my results, it can be seen that my carbon and housing footprints are lower than the average Australian. The food footprint is a bit too high if I see it from the graph, while goods and services footprint are just slightly higher. I've always thought that carbon footprint is the only thing that's important, so as long as you minimize the use of cars or anything polluting, you're doing your part. Surprisingly, there are still a lot of other factors that affect one's footprint, including the food that you eat. One way to reduce the food footprint is to buy and eat organic food, but the truth is it is more expensive. May be it's healthier and it reduces your footprint. But in Australia, people are economical, so a large percentage of the people would not buy organic food.

Probably a way for the government to reduce everyone's footprints is to reinforce people to use less private cars and energy, and subsidize people to eat healthier, organic food. This will be a 2-in-1 advantage for Australia as almost half of the population is suffering from obesity. Therefore, Australians can get healthy while reducing their footprints at the same time.

Upcycling Unwanteds

I did a vase with photo frames, which can also be used as a lampshade. I made use of the shape of the coffee lids, and how it has different diameters of circles in one coffee lid, so that it can be stuck on the accurately cut-out polypropylene. The polypropylene and coffee lids are dependent on each other, because they act as fasteners. Without either one of the components, the final design wouldn't be achieved. As the transformation poster showed, no glue was used.

Besides being different from other products and glue-free, it also has the advantage to be customized. Since no glue was used, all the coffee lids can be easily taken out, without destroying anything. (Although they can be easily taken out, doesn't mean that it will fall off if someone touches it). Therefore, the coffee lids can be turned inside out depending on the user, giving the vase to have a capacity of maximum of 24 photos and a minimum of zero. The cut out bits (cut-out circles) of the polypropylene will not be thrown away as they will serve as circle templates for photos which fit into the vase.

Peer comments:

Jill Darbey

Hyo-Ju Cho

Julian Chow

Chelcie Nielsen

Daniel M. Kotzen

Seymour Powell: Designing Dream Machines

CFAAV 745.2/26

It's quite amazing how big companies like Seymour Powell also started their products by surveying the target market and brainstorming, which is the first step we're supposed to do whenever we have a design assignment.

The brainstorming session has no limits to it, so they just think and write down whatever things they want the market to sell. After that they choose the most useful and creative ideas out of all the ideas, and narrowing it down one by one. At this stage, they still don't know if it's plausible or not. Then, they sketch their concept ideas in less than 3 hours. After choosing the one concept that they think is the best, they make the model, ask other people's opinions and improving it over and over again. Up until the point where they're satisfied with it, they then make the real model. After that, they brought it to the market and put it on the shelf, then ask the marketing manager whether he likes it or not, whether it has its "personality" or character that distinguish it from the others. (It's the X-factor that leads us to buying the things we buy. X-factor is "Do I like it?", "Do I want it?")

In short:
Brainstorm > narrow the ideas > draw concept ideas > narrow the concept ideas > make model > make the real thing (after all the improvements until satisfied) > test it on the market (ask consumers what they feel about it) > go on production (if results are good).

For some of the projects, they need to survey their target market. So, for example, to design the Indian scooter, one of them went to India and observe, ask and investigate what the consumers buy and want, what they consider as good (the video shows that India has a different definition of sleek as angular and sharp, which is different from what Seymour Powell think of it). Then, they do all the brainstorming stage and went back to India to ask if they will like it or not, what they think about it. Then it goes on and on until the production stage.

What I learn from this video is that all designers start of by brainstorming and sketching their concept ideas, and the most important part is to ask other people's opinion, especially the target market. As designers, we have to receive whatever opinions are being given, so that we can improve our designs, because in the end, we are designing for the consumer and they're the one who's going to buy our products.

So in conclusion, designers work for consumers?