If you had access to all of this under one roof...

Design Discussions general design discussion
21

OK, we’re gonna need a bit more equipment, and maybe a few people. To start off with I’d gather the most diverse thinkers, everyone from the TED conferences, Stanford, MIT, NASA, VA-Tech and everyone from Doblin’s group and all alumni from IDEO, and the IDSA if anyone’s making a list. Then, we’ve gotta get them all down to Louisiana, Alabama and Florida, . . . like, right now!

We’d start cranking out prototype oil chutes, catchments, skimmers, filters, elevators, trapping barges, vacuum-siphon boats, oil skiffs, booming cradles, boom deployment craft, pipette wherries, diaper dinghies and swabbing canoes.

I’d have a special department creating mangrove scrubbers, sand filters, grass cleaners, leaf-wipers and blade brushes.

And I’d pay special attention to creating the most gentle bird washers, fish cleaners, crab de-oilers, oyster washers, mullett scrubbers and flounder showers.

In fact, we may need to double or quadruple that 240K square-feet, and we’re gonna need alot more equipment and train loads of sheet-metal, structural shapes, all kinds of fabrics, lots of stainless fasteners, maybe some plywood for jigs and fixtures and lots of orange paint. And truckloads of coffee, 'cause it’s gonna be the mother of all all-nighters to clean up that mess in the Gulf.

22

We’re gonna need a whole lotta bass (Mr.Tibbs). I’ve helped contribute some ideas to a BP exec based on my experience designing with this kind of capability just last week in fact.

23

G-Man,
What was the response? How does the process work? I’ve followed a bit of the discussion, but there is no indication that proposals are being implemented. I feel that standard operating practices involving both NIH and NIMBY thinking prevail in spite of the magnitude of the problem. And those procedures were probably written without consideration for new methods developed with abductive thinking.

Coordinating a response effort sufficient to address the magnitude of the problem is in itself a study in organizational inertia. I find little information available that indicates a flow of new solutions being implemented, . . . just statistics on the miles of booming already laid down and awaiting distribution. And we know that booms are a fair weather solution that only retard and partially restrain the movement of surface oil without actively retrieving any of the oil which reaches the surface.

I feel as though the pro’s involved in emergency response to an event which is orders of magnitude beyond their experience are overwhelmed with the scope of the problem. BP along with Federal, State and local teams are responding with handi-wipes, shovels and baggies, when a response appropriate to the scale of the oil intrusion into hundreds of miles of coastal marshland and dunes is required.

My frustration stems from my inability to contribute on any level to a solution for this clean-up, . . .
What to do next?
-Dale Raymond

24

I helped contribute some illustrations and input on a solution a designer friend of mine was working on. With his connections he was able to get someone to accept a proposal, implementing any fix for this is going to have to be epic in scale at this point. Pretty soon it really will be British petroleum if enough oil gets in the Atlantic loop.

Right, this was exactly my friend’s point in submitting a proposal. As far as what’s next I don’t know, but I can say two things; One, the problem is probably far worse than BP/Gov’t is letting on and two, the cost of cleaning this mess up will equal or exceed that of developing alternative energy/efficiency.

This is going off topic, but if you want to discuss the issue throw down a new topic and we can keep it going.

25

There’s an ID guy here in Bristol who’s churning out concepts for the BP disaster… link

some aren’t bad, and it’s awesome he’s thinking about it

26

Everyone seems to forget that this is 5000 feet below the surface. That’s 2234 psi… That’s a seriously limiting factor to any fix, but not impossible.

27

The Russians have reportedly had success fixing this same problem with nukes and where they failed they nuked again.

Honestly, I say if nukes work then go for it, we may already be past the point where the amount of leaked oil is more environmentally damaging than the potential radiation from a nuke. Then again, I still think BP is trying to find a way to stop the leak and still be able to capitalize on the oil whereas the nuclear option will just stop the leak. Plus they don’t have access (i hope) to that kind of tech.

28

Maybe sharks with fricking lasers? :smiley:

29

That’s not too much to ask, is it?

30

Alright, so to get the discussion back around, I posed this same set of capabilities to some of my designer friends and they also concluded that furniture or providing fixtures for national accounts were good use.

So, now going forward, if you were going to use these capabilities for this what would your business model be like? Online sales? Nationwide network? Local storefront? Outsource to vendors?

Can be anything, remember, there is a video studio available as well.

31

Bump.

32

Well, every designer tends to want to make his own line of furniture, but
keeping a facility as large as that above water asks for some serious business.
Thus I’d have a look at the regional market, first. What segments are not already
overstocked? (Hard question in western societies…) Assuming u are in the US.
I’d suggest to produce some high end fixtures for housing (architectural) that
should include patentable features, which make use of that precision machinery.

mo-i

33

I’d build my own mission to pluto, like Tom Sachs mission to mars but better because mars is overrated.