Rationale
In 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake struck underneath the Indian Ocean, which triggered a resulting tsunami. One, which impacted the Sri Lankan coastline less than 90 minutes are the initial earthquake. The country’s lack of tsunami warning system and the short amount of time it took the tsunami to reach land resulted in mass devastation and disaster. This meant that while thousands were killed, many thousands more were displaced from their homes and situated in aid relief camps for an unknown amount of time as no one knew how long it would take the country to rebuild itself.
In 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake struck underneath the Indian Ocean, which triggered a resulting tsunami. One, which impacted the Sri Lankan coastline less than 90 minutes are the initial earthquake. The country’s lack of tsunami warning system and the short amount of time it took the tsunami to reach land resulted in mass devastation and disaster. This meant that while thousands were killed, many thousands more were displaced from their homes and situated in aid relief camps for an unknown amount of time as no one knew how long it would take the country to rebuild itself.
As with all disasters, distributing a clean water supply to all the affected is a common need and one which must be addressed early on to avoid any more casualties.
My early research into the disaster not only brought up the need for water, but also the current situation in Sri Lanka before and after the 2004 tsunami surrounding the country’s water supply. Many thousands of Sri Lankans rely on well water to sustain their every day life.
While aid agencies already distribute collapsible water containers to the affected, I felt there was some room for improvement when it came to the overall design. It became apparent that even after the disaster, families were still using these containers for their usual water collection although the containers weren’t in a state anywhere comparable to when they were new.
It was for this reason that I felt the need to work out longer lasting solutions, which could be carried more easily by any member of the family when using any mode of transport to collect the water.
The final product is a water container, which can be worn like a backpack to collect water both in an aid camp situation and in everyday life after rebuilding is complete.
Immediately after the tsunami strikes, the bags can be shipped to the affected country in a rolled up form to save space and allow for the shipment of other vital necessities. Once handed out the bag can be quickly unrolled and is immediately ready for use collecting and distributing water.
The bag itself can hold approximately 20 Litres of water while still allowing for easy carrying by anyone in comparison to the existing collapsible containers, which can be awkward to handle for long periods of time. Being constructed from a flexible, yet durable 600D Polyester fabric allows the product to stand up to more rough treatment and the welded seams of the bag ensure that it wont come apart after a short period of use. The product is made to last through the time Sri Lankan families would spend in an aid relief camp and continue its life even when theirs have been restored to normal.
Below is the final result of the project including a product poster, scenario storyboard and multiple drawings detailing the technical features of the product.
The Design for Disaster project was one, which due to the circumstances of the brief put a lot of limitations on any concept development. While it allowed for technical and technological solutions to the problem those would have had to be economically viable and given that we were working with developing countries, a lot of that area of design was shut down immediately. The same issue of cost could be applied to making more durable or more environmentally friendly solutions as those would often turn out to cost more that the currently utilized solutions.
Right from the outset I found this project to be an extremely challenging. While each week I kept working through concepts and trying to reach some sort of moment where I realised I was heading in the right direction it never really came. For this reason I spent a lot of the project working on preliminary ideas but never really got past that point until a few days before the due date.
This project really taught me persistence however, because each week I’d try to bounce back with new more effective concepts until finally I was able to settle on one, which I actually felt was necessary. And while I would love to spend some more time focusing on and further developing the final concept, I’m reasonably happy with what I managed to get together in the limited amount of time I left myself to work on the final presentation.
While I struggled quite a bit with this project, I’ve learned a few valid lessons. Ones involving time management and deciding upon a final idea earlier on in the project and developing it rather than swapping to new ideas every time I received one piece of criticism. I would have loved to see where my final concept would have ended up if I’d decided upon going with it earlier than week 5 of the 6 week project but that’s just a lesson I’ll need to take into account in future projects.
Peer Comments:
Danielle Taouk
Pip Connolly
Nick Baroni
Brett Rushbrook
Patrick Gates
Peer Comments:
Danielle Taouk
Pip Connolly
Nick Baroni
Brett Rushbrook
Patrick Gates
