Project 1: Designing for Disasters

During the project, it was critical that I had to understand what it was like in a disaster situation. Personally, I have been through countless cyclones, but living in a 1^st world country didn’t really give me the correct perspective. Throughout my research, I’ve seen many vivid images that depict the destruction and despair involved with living through these disasters. The research really put into perspective the fact that the neglect in this area has led to greater damages to both society and its economy.

It was very hard in the beginning to come up with a plausible solution for those in Bangladesh. A few ideas seemed good, but weren’t feasible and impractical. What I found was really important is understanding the living conditions and environment of the people before these disaster events, and not just to look at the aftermath. This is where I found the design opportunity in agriculture, by knowing that agriculture is the most important sector of Bangladesh, I could see how cyclones affect that, and it would recover from it.

The project for me was primarily research based, after I had found magnetism to be a possible solution to soil salinity. I had to understand the science behind it, and it was really complicated. Having to decode the chemical compounds and reactions that take place under magnetism was the hardest part of the project, because I would have to explain it in layman’s terms so that everyone could understand. This was still very hard, as in the presentation, I found myself ranting on about chemical compounds and technical terms which I don’t think many people understood. I guess it’s important to know your research, but it’s more important that the panel can understand it.

After the project I realized that it is important to transfer your research to your final boards and rationale, because it really sets the scene for the rest of the project. Research is imperative and without it you can’t really prove the concept. One thing I found is trying to get responses from professionals is almost impossible – unless they’re really nice, but the ones I asked didn’t reply at all. Regardless, I know now that the internet doesn’t have everything, and you have to outsource and ask some professionals in order to get the right information that you need.