DUBLIN STREET DRAINS
Project by Qingmiao Zhu, Marcus Notley, Lucy Woods
TITLE
Dublin Street Drains
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TYPE OF WORK
Service Design & Interaction Design
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PROJECT DURATION
Mar 2020 (1 week)
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DESIGN BACKGROUND
There are 55,000 street drains (gullies) in Dublin city. Dublin city council cleans them regularly but how many times do you see a drain (gully) blocked by leaves, cigarette butts or rubbish which cause the streets to flood.
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DESIGN CHALLENGE
How might we encourage citizens to have more ownership to help improve the blockage of Dublin street drains(gullies).
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About the Project
SERVICE OVERVIEW
Dublin Street Drains is a service that invites the public to take more ownership and responsibility for street drains (gullies) in Dublin area.
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SOLUTIONS IN BREIF
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WEBSITE
The service is supported by a dedicated website dublinstreetdrains.ie which allows the public to access with all information regarding Dublin drains (gullies). The website provides basic tutorials for the public of how to clean a blocked drain. Citizens could join their local drain communities for more activities and they could report a blocked drain with this platform. This website is connected with Dublin City Council drain (gully) management software system.
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BUILDING ON EXISTING SOFTWARE
Current street sweeping DDC workers and the general public could all link into the current drain(gully) management software system via dublinstreetdrains.ie (application program interface /API).
Camera detection system fitted to street sweeping vehicles could collect drain condition data autonomously as an API.
GROWING 'TRUSTED' COMMUNITY HELPER
DCC actively growing linked with Dublin Residents Associations or Business Associations as ‘trusted’ bodies on the ground. Providing ‘drain cleaning’ kits to these associations. Providing one day training information workshops for these associations or individuals to become ‘trusted’ community helpers.
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DRAIN INDIVIDUAL ID NUMBER
Permanent enamelled plate glued or fixed to adjacent pedestrian kerbstone pavement. OR Permanent stainless steel band clipped to cast iron drain itself, or tagged via geo-location photo on dublinstreetdrains.ie ‘Report a Problem’ page.
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GENERAL PUBLIC MESSAGING
Stencils can passively message the public at street level about this vital infrastructure, who cleans it, and how they might help
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DESIGN PROCESS
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RESEARCH & INSIGHTS
We conducted street interviews with 32 people. We interviewed 6 experts from Dublin City Council Drainage Department. We inspected 70 street gullies, conducted secondary research and took insights from the previous work of Claire Owens.
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CONCEPT GENERATING & PROTOTYPE
After making sense of the key insights we've learned, we generated a few concepts accordingly. We went on streets with the stencils and drain ID plates we made for prototypes. We conducted interviews with people to help valid our prototypes.
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FEEDBACK & ITERATION
Through a few rounds of prototypes, we found out that personal messages worked better than informational messages. People liked the stencils as it gave a an installation feeling. People feel more ownership if seen DCC is cleaning the drain(gully).
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