Re:Fibre
Creating Sustainable Solutions for Fibreglass Boats in UK's coastal town
Context
This is a multidisciplinary project from RCA's Grand Challenge, in which we are encouraged to collaborate with interdisciplinarity to come up with innovative and tangible responses to ocean sustainability.
Goal
Our allocated location is Burnham on Crouch, a coastal town in UK that's well known for oysters and sailing clubs. The goal is to visit the town in person to hear problems from locals, gather insights, and design a solution.
Outcome
A community centric product and service design concept that upcycles derelict fibreglass boats.
Role
Role
User Research Lead, 3D Design
Methods
Field Research, User Interviews, Ideation
Partner
Royal National Lifeboat Institution
Tutors
Carla Amaral,
Tristan Webber
Time
3 Months
Jan 2023 - Mar 2023
Empathise
For our research, we wanted to understand local problems by visiting Burnham on Crouch and conduct interviews. Prior to our visit, we desk researched key problems in the coastal town, recruited interviewees and structured our interviews questions.
Desk Research
Key problems identified through Desk Research:
-
Yacht noise and fuel pollution
-
Tourism and waste management (Microplastics)
-
Oyster dependant economy diminished due to the problems above
-
Flooding
Primary Research - Interviews
Yacht Club
-
4 Yacht Clubs in town
-
Seasonal tourism
-
Young generations aren't interested
-
All yachts are made from fibreglass, which can't be recycled.
Local Museum
-
Oysters died due to disease
-
Fluctuating Economies
-
Was known for Boat Building and woodworking, but workers left
RNLI Volunteer
-
Operation conditions are harsh
-
Closed community
-
New Infrastructure projects in action
-
Mostly peaceful
Insights
Aside from in depth interviews with local businesses and organisations, we also talked to 10 locals whilst we visited for 2 days. In sum, there aren't many jobs in Burnham on Crouch, and majority of locals travels outside of town for work as housing is affordable there with more currently in construction.
​
For ideation, we kept in mind that there several possible directions:
​
-
Preserve historic local cultures in woodwork and boat building
-
Inspire future generations in yachting or oyster farming.
-
Repurpose abandoned fibreglass boats on shore.
Define
We took our insights where we identified core problems in Burnham on Crouch, and we each chose a few of those observations and turned it into early ideas that will benefit locals and accommodate to their needs.
Insights from our interviews are organised on fig jam board and voted by team members to see which has the most impact and are feasible.
We categorised and analysed our early ideas and came to a mutual agreement that recycling fibre glass boats will benefit locals, below are the reasons:
​
Kitchen/Restaurants:
-
Lack of demand with seasonal tourism and lack of transport, hotels for visitors.
​
Wind:
-
Renewable wind energy requires funds and may pollute environment with construction.
​
Salt Marsh:
-
Environmental hazard therefore most ideas were unfeasible.
​
Recycling Fibreglass Boats:
-
locals have boat building background, and with abandoned boats left unused and disturbing natural environment, it's a feasible option and will benefit locals if disposed.
Ideation
With problem definition in place, we came up with HMW questions to guide us through the ideation phase. Individually, we drew up detailed sketches of our ideas whilst doing desk research to validate manufacturing feasibilities, technologies, and to draw inspirations from other products & services.
To choose one idea to develop into a concept, we set out 5 criteria to vote:
Skatepark in Maldon showing signs of ware.
The two ideas that stood out with the best scores was No.13 Skatepark and No.16 Furniture Workshop.
We couldn't decide on two and so we used SCAMPER to combine the two ideas together into one.
​
No.13 Skatepark:
-
Pros: Repurpose large parts of fibreglass boat into skate ramps. Boost youth activities. There is an existing skatepark in town that could be refurbished as well as neighbour coastal towns' skateparks.
-
Cons: Offcuts and powdered fibreglass from cutting can cause environmental impact.
​
No.16 Furniture Workshop:
-
Pros: Reduce waste by using offcuts from ramps. New community and tourism activity.
-
Cons: handling fibreglass with barehand is a hazard.
Prototype - Re:Fibre
1. Skatepark Design:​
​
Ramps are usually made from plywood panels either left untreated or with laminated finishing. However, there are existing skateparks made from fibreglass for better durability.
​
Structure:
We'll use wood for support as it's low cost and use fibreglass boat's hull for the curved ramps surface.
​
Process:
Derelict boats are first stripped down into malleable materials in the boat factory where ramps are shaped. Offcuts are then transported to the local shop for workshop activities.
2. Workshop: "Less intervention, more co-design"
​
By deconstructing the materials of these vessels, participants are provided with technical support and craft tools such as adhesives, hole punches and hammers.
​
We aim to encourage co-creation and inspire participants to explore their creativity, as well as to raise people's awareness of their own environmental responsibility through their participation in marine waste disposal.
Key Learnings
Prototype
Re:Fibre was not implemented in Burnham on Crouch due to the scale of the skatepark. The next step would be to talk to skatepark designers to validate and reiterate the ramp structure, and conduct fibreglass workshops with locals and tourists to gain feedback.​
​
Test
This project was submitted to the Grand Challenge Design competition in hopes for funding in order to bring this idea to life, however we weren't shortlisted. This could be due to the lack of video making expertise on the team as well as inadequate innovation in marine sustainability in our project.
