Service Design (MA)
Kiran Dulay
My route into design hasn’t been a conventional one. I received my undergraduate degree in Economics and prior to joining the RCA I worked in fast-growing start-ups, a global technology consultancy and as the first employee in a company during pre-launch stage. I bring not only my practical experience from both the start-up and consulting worlds, but also a real enthusiasm for conscious design and a curiosity to try something different and have a bit of fun with it. I find energy and inspiration in both Service Design and other creative practices.
I’ve spent my time at the RCA challenging and enriching my former ways of understanding of human behaviours. During this final year I worked on two different projects within the built environment that explored the entangled relationships between people, interfaces and architectures. Both of these projects have fuelled a new curiosity for the role of pattern languages.
I enjoy taking an explorative approach to my research which has enabled me to engage people in my work to foster new learning and conversations. Whether that be through using a gaming platform to simulate user journeys or creating cards with recognisable movie characters to aid the discussion of traits, emotions and mindsets. I try to adapt my approach given the context to help reinterpret the as-is and provoke other alternatives.
During one of my projects I discovered object-oriented-ontology as a way of making another stakeholder (a crisp packet) the driver of design decisions when we couldn’t get authentic access to the right people, and further explored this approach in my written dissertation. De-centring humans and finding practical and suitable ways of including nonhuman perspectives is of growing interest to me.
Practicing design is warping and remoulding the way I work and think. I’m excited to see where it continues to take me, and I hope to normalise Service Design in the organisations I work with, as it's a practice at its best when involving the many.
Relationships - Understanding the different relationships we have with the London Fire Brigade
Shadowing - Spending time learning from London firefighters
Gaming - Using The Sims 2 to take people on different user journeys safely
Workshops - Running my own virtual Home Fire Safety Visits and mapping out fire scenarios
Fire Safety Pattern Library - A collection of the repeating patterns between fires and households
Common Ground Components - The designed components independently bring value but are strengthened when implemented together
Common Ground is a new initiative I’ve designed that acts as an additional layer to our fire safety systems in apartment blocks. Our levels of comfortability with current protocols differ and the alert systems we have in place don’t help us differentiate between a neighbour burning toast and a large-scale fire.
A key change I’m proposing with Common Ground is a shift from each household in apartment blocks individually considering how they react to a fire alarm, to residents coming together in their response, recognising how their collective actions impact the effectiveness of fire services. By changing the scale at which we consider fire safety it allows for better prevention and an organised response. Common Ground aims to do this by first increasing residents’ level of fire safety knowledge and then creating opportunities for a proactive approach to fire safety. It’s comprised of 4 key components; support, advocates, tools and rituals, and utilises existing services and campaigns run by the London Fire Brigade.
I used this project and my time in lockdown to build my own experimental approach to research by creating exploratory methods to understand the mindsets and behaviours of people in these moments. After a few rounds of people drawing their floor plan and mapping out what they would do in case of a fire, I tapped into the gaming world and set up The Sims 2 (it was the latest version I had) to simulate fire scenarios to further immerse people safely. This lead to people engaging in conversations in different reflective states having embodied a Sim. I accompanied this with a healthy dive into content online including social media, fire forums and relevant posts on Quora and Reddit which allowed me to compile a Pattern Library for fire safety to aid my process.