Bad Design (The Real One)

The Encounter

(Writer's note: Due to the non-cooperative nature of Singapore's weather, the writer was unable to get the exact photographs of the encounter. So, please do use your imagination. Thanks!)

Some time ago, not too long ago...

Three ladies were walking home after alighting the bus. It was raining heavily, but thankfully there were shelters all around, so there were no need for umbrellas.

The Shelter

Well they were chatting happily about their shopping experience and all was well. Suddenly, they came upon some mini waterfalls at this particular part of the shelter. Waterfalls?! At a shelter?! A shelter which function is suppose to not let any rain come in?!

Mini Waterfalls

The Reactions:

Sis: Don't know what architectures are doing nowadays, they all know how to design state-of-the-art buildings but missed out on the practical stuff.

Mum: Yeah lor, what is the use of a nice looking shelter that will leak water?

Me: Use this shelter will still have to use umbrella, don't know why they build the shelter?

Sis: Quite dumb hor.

Mum: Waste our taxpayers money only!

All of us nodded in agreement. And we left wondering whether the money should be put into hiring better architects.

Or perhaps the money should really be put into educating would-be architects to think practically, on top of aesthetically.

The Bad Design

Bad design of the shelter

Apparently, the waterfalls were due to the bad design of the shelter itself.

"Part no.1" lies directly on top of "Part no.2". Due to a gap in the shelter, "Part no.1" is exposed to the rain. The rain then dripped down to "Part no.2", which then formed a mini waterfall.

The connecting part of the shelter has obviously not been designed with careful considerations.

The ugly waterstains that the rain had created

Due to the rain that day, I did not noticed the waterstains. However, when I went to take these photos, I saw the ugly waterstain marks that the rain left.

The shelter had left the ugly waterstains as a proof of the bad design!

The Writer's Reflection

The town council built shelters with the purpose of them being able to shelter residents from rain or sun. However, taxpayers' money (aka my parents' money) is wasted when designs of shelters are made without careful considerations.

The shelter in question looked pleasing and nice. Yet when it was most wanted, it could not fulfil its job as a shelter, which then defeats the whole purpose of having a shelter in the first place.

Furthermore, once a shelter is built, it is hard to make any more changes because it will involve too much work and money. Thus residents, even if they complained, will still have to live with the poorly designed shelter until the next upgrade, which could be ten or twenty years later.

I feel that there is an even greater need for design considerations when it comes to buildings and other large structures, because once built, they are very hard to change. So I think that architects should be educated to think practically on top of aesthetically.

In fact, not only architects, but designers generally, should think more practically. (As seen from fellow NM4210 classmates whose complains of bad designs ranges from doorknobs to chairs to handphones to sinks.) Perhaps more user testings and feedbacks could be done. It is often easy for designers to neglect some very obvious flaws since they are the one designing it. Architects could probably do some model testing before they send their designs for building.

I guess for now, especially during this raining season, I will have to bring my umbrella out, because afterall, shelters are not much of a use.