Kin (Rex) Ting Fok - MADA NOW 2021 - Art, Design and Architecture

Hi, my name is Rex, an industrial designer. I have always been fascinated by the natural world with all its beauty and mysteries. And I'm keen on exploring how industrial design can influence, impact and protect the environments in which we live. So in this project, I have set out to design a device/shelter which aims to educate the general public to better protect our natural world by letting them know more about the animals with which we share the environment. While educating the general public is a big part of the design, the shelter also aims to help create a better urban environment for humans to better coexist with other animals.

Shelter for all

The bus shelter's structure not only provides overhead cover for people. It also provides shelters situated within the roof structure for a group of animals often seen within our urban environments. And that group of animals being birds hens the strong influence of bird-friendly design elements from architecture. Examples of these can be seen with the use of all non-reflective and transparent materials in design with the aid of patterned and texture surfaces to allow birds to better see the structure while travelling at high speeds.

Bird-Friendly Bus Shelter (Overall Design)

The Bus-Friendly Bus Shelter is a 10m long by 4.5m wide bus shelter made with recycled aluminium, concrete and wood. The roof assembly is primarily made with recycled aluminium with wooden inserts on the outer edges on the side of the roof. While the supporting structure for the roof is made of two 2.5m tall, 1.3m wide, 0.8m thick concrete walls with a large digital display built within. These two walls/supporting structures are tilted 45 degrees to face the interior of the shelter to allow better visibility for pedestrians while eliminating distractions for incoming drivers.

Sensors and DNA sampling system

One of the main concepts behind this device/shelter is to detect any animal nearby the shelter with Lidar, Camera sensors together with DNA air sampling system, which recently becoming more widely used within the scientific community to detect population in species. After detecting nearby animals with the aid of all these technologies. The shelter will then prompt a specie specific interactive poster to its two large digital monitors to educate people about them to eliminate misconceptions and misunderstanding of an animal to better allow people to appreciate and respect them.

Roof shape

The shape of the roof is not only for pure esthetics, it is form and function the two air intake channel on the left and right side of the cylinder which house the DNA air sampling system allows the system to detect more air particles for better data collection of what animal is nearby when a vehicle passes by. While the concaved S like shape of the roof are intended so the space on the ground not covered by the roof can be used to plant a tree and other tall vegetation to add even more greenery to the surrounding environment.

Displays

The two large digital displays are primarily used to aid the system to help people understand more about our animal neighbours. However, when there isn't any animal detected nearby at a point in time, the displays are used as advertising and bus timetables. To avoid distraction for oncoming drivers the displays are designed so that its tilted 45 degrees inward which also provides better visibility of the screen within the shelter.

Bird Friendly Bus Shelter (Shelter for the future)

This video shows how together with the aid of new technologies together with the concept of bird-friendly design structures and with the aim to educate the general public to know more about our natural world through educating them about animals that share our environments with, We can create a bus shelter that can improve the urban environment for us to better coexist with other animals that share our environment with.