Eco In Malan Lake
currency service system
Service Design #desertification #ux #community planning
Owners Ruixuan Li, Ruoxi Li
Contribution Service system, interaction design, interface design
3 months 2017.09 - 2017.11
Exhibition Exhibited in United Nations Hongkong 2018
Exhibited in Trends of Transformation Forum 2017
A project to build a community where everything is measured accroding to the ecological value 🌎 rather than economic value 💰
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What is Eco In?
Eco In is a eco currency service system designed for Malan Lake, which enables tourists in the region to pay all kinds of bills accroding to the environmental pressure that the activity put on the earth. It aims to design a sustainable development model of desertification control and to enlighten people to rethink the relationship between human and nature.
Outcomes
Design Objectives
01
For users: Build measurement standard of value: economic or ecologicalEnlighten people to rethink the relationship between human and nature, encourage people take ecological value as a measurement standard of value. Ultimately, affect our users to change their behavior and live in an environmentally friendly way.
02
For Malan lake: Build a sustainable development modelCreate a sustainable development model for malan lake project: 1. help the desert park to gain short-term return and more diversified sources of fund. 2. Improving social influences and attarct more people to participate into the project as well as desertification control.
Challenges
People are willing to do contributions to protect environment, but ...
We solved them in 3 steps
📍First step:
Set a small, achivable goal by designing a new brand idea
📍Second step:
Help people go action by introducing Ecoins Monetary System & Eco in App
📍Third step:
Make every piece of efforts obvious and meaningful with our Water Aid Service
Design details
Project Background
About Malan Lake
The change of same place in four years ︎︎︎
The ultimate aim of the Malan Lake Project is to design a sustainable development model of desertification control and to enlighten stakeholders to rethink the relationship between human and nature.
In order to realize this goal we are planning to build an multifunction integrated open community with vacation, leisure, conference, entertainment and education services.
Challenges are ...
01
No short-term return 🔁
No short-term return 🔁
Desertification control is a most difficult and inefficient undertaking which demands a surge of investment with no short-term returns.
02
Lack multiple sources of fund 💰
Lack multiple sources of fund 💰
The sustained investment to protect the desert is hard to secure in the long run because the current funding source is Mr. Yuan Shuhua’s personal fortune. Planting is no other mean to restore the ecosystem of the singularity technology and methods.
03
Lack of social influences 🙁
The project did not cause social concern and participation for the reason of lacking shared communication, social impact and interaction with the indigenous people.
Lack of social influences 🙁
The project did not cause social concern and participation for the reason of lacking shared communication, social impact and interaction with the indigenous people.
Research
Concept Exploration
The concept of the model includes four main parts: Brand idea, ecoins monetary system, eco in app, and water aid design.
To be specific, users get aware of brand idea and values through brand essence. Ecoins monetary system helps calculate consumption and offer an immersive experience. The App is a window where users receive feedback and make changes in environmental attitude and behaviour. Lastly, the water aid service provides water and recyclable construction material to the region and promotes participation and engagement of the user.
There are four function blocks in the integrated planning which are vacation, conference, leisure and entertainment.
Buildings are divided into main building and ancillary buildings: The main buildings should have rooms, restaurants, conference centers, exhibitions and other functions; Ancillary buildings are mainly involve staff quarters, power supply, warehouses and other logistics space; The infrastructure should include swimming pools, parking lots and other functions;
The Blueprint
01 / Design: Brand Idea
The concept of the model includes four main parts: brand idea, ecoins monetary system, eco in app, and water aid design. To be specific, users get aware of brand idea and values through brand essence. Ecoins monetary system helps calculate consumption and offer an immersive experience. The App is a window where users receive feedback and make changes in environmental attitude and behaviour. Lastly, the water aid service provides water and recyclable construction material to the region and promotes participation and engagement of the users.
“Change what you count and you change what counts”
Top figure shows the contrast of environmental full-cost accounting and traditional accounting. Triple bottom line (TBL) accounting expands the traditional reporting framework to take into account social and environmental performance in addition to financial performance.
In Malan Lake, price of goods is positively correlated with its ecological cost. The low-price goods that industry offers to people is based on an overdrawn ecological environment. Because of there is no compulsary regulations make companies pay for pollution, many of them still regard environmental cost as external cost since no compulsary regulations make them pay for pollution.
One earth goal
How many planets does it take to support your lifestyle?The answer is 1.5 earths.1.5 is the ratio of an individual's Footprint to the per capita biological capacity available on Earth (1.72 global hectares / gha).
The attached "1.7" of the brand means one earth goal - through the help of ecoins monetary system, users live a lifestyle that cost under 1.7 gha, which is to make individual's footprint under per capita biological capacity. In this way, the ecological resources and services that the Earth regenerated are enough for our humanity's demand.
02 / Design: Ecoins Monetary System
“You can’t manage what you can’t measure”
Inside the region
If the user is within Malan Lake Resort (inside), when the user participates in entertainment activities, he or she can get a certain amount of ecoins as rewards and encouragement for participating in the environmental-friendly activity.
Surplus
If there are ecoins left when a day ends, the left ecoins are called "ecological surplus", the ecological surplus is saved to your balance. The ecoins in balance could be either exchanged for cash when you settle accounts or be donated in the form of bottled water to Malan Lake.
Outside the region
If the user leaves Malan Lake (outside) and still using our system on his/her mobile devices, he is still able to see his daily consumption and his ecological footprint. Since the user does not eat in Malan Lake anymore, which means dining statistics is not available, eco in uses the same average quantitate consumption for everyone as dining statistics.
Ladder payment
When user's consumption surpasses 1700 ecoins, it means that he or she have overdrawn "one earth". The overdraft part charges 1.5 times the price. The ladder payment connects the daily goal with user's expenditure, which aims to advocate people to be responsible for the environment and encourage them to engage in realizing the one earth goal.
Coding test
To simulate the calculation, an ecoins evaluation simulation system is made based on five different eco-footprint worksheet and calculators and referring to footprint network resources.
Python codes
Input
Output
03 / Design: Eco In App
Wireframe
Hi-Fi
Why Wearable Devices?
Lightweight Interactions
Information is quick and easy to access and dismiss. It is suitable since consumptions and activities frequently happen every day here.
Information is quick and easy to access and dismiss. It is suitable since consumptions and activities frequently happen every day here.
Holistic design
The boundaries between device and software are blurred, and the device is so closely to the user, which makes the ecoin app enhance the user’s perception that hardware andsoftware are indistinguishable
04 / Design: Water Aid Service
Every piece of your efforts is visible and meaningful
Water company and transportation
Bottles As Construction Material
The size and design of bottles are according to rules for construction module in China. (Construction module is a unit for versatility and interchangeability in different manufacturing methods, different forms and construction components to realize mass production of industrialized buildings.)
The construction process is similiar to earthbag construction way: Use inexpensive local sand and bottles to create structures which are both strong and can be quickly built. More information about how to build is on Earthbag House Building Methods.
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https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Build-an-Insulated-Earthbag-House/
Next Steps
Water bottle
For water bottle, the next steps are fabracation, testing and iterations. Including-
① Making bottle mould based on our solidworks model.
②Manufacture 200-1000 bottles to build a wall, to test its stability, load-carrying capability, corrosion resistance and explore its other possibilities like constructing chairs, desks, and other furniture.
For the whole project
Transition to the form of a social business and establish open cooperative mechanisms -
①Continue exploring and finalizing design concepts.
②Design a step by step rollout plan toexecute the designs.
③Promote and invite individuals and organizations to join the Malan Lake Reforestation Project.
④Bring local herdsmen into the project, and gradually build up a cooperative relationship with them, while providing commerce operations and jobs related to the afforestation efforts.
🌱 Lives in Malan Lake
