Castelluccio di Norcia, before and after the 2016 earthquake
As a first step of the design research, I wanted to visually understand the frequency and entity of earthquakes hitting the world and Italy in particular. Here an open source visualization of them, based on data from ngdc.nosa.gov, I hope it will serve as a base for other researches.
Armed with the sole weapon of my research rationale, I’ve just started hunting for data on the web regarding different aspects of the arthquake relief process.
On the one hand, the italian events, in constant comparison with foreign perspectives. On the other one, all the factors contributing to the relief process: from the first minute interventions, communications, technologies, funding, mid and long terms processes.
Here below is what I’ve found out…
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Earthquake are consistent and severe, but not extraordinary in terms of losses or damages.
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Immediate communication and coordinations works fairly well under Protezione Civile lead.
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…but there is no current bottom-up communication standard.
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Info are fragmented and hand acquired
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Great progress have been made in reconstruction open datasets and accountability in some cases…
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…but Italy is one of the few “first world country” with no coordination for funds
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As a result, Church-owned heritage gets fixed extra fast…
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…while private struggles to receive funding (requires projects proposal and approval from the public)
Building on top of the key insights of the quantitative explorations, I went talking with the central Italy population to gain some insights. Layering feelings over facts to get a 360° view on the subject.
Through this investigations and after discussing the topics with several experts, I built up a detailed Opportunity Matrix, gathering each and every design opportunity I got into in these months.
And eventually worked to organize it on a unique concept, with business sense backing it. The journey has not ended yet: this step represents the conclusion of a strategic research phase, and the beginning of the strategic development phase.
Development and implementation that will be always guided by three core values…
