Haven Life Raft - Case Study

Project Scope

This was a year-long project I did for my thesis in my 4th year of Industrial Design. This was the capstone project that required a lot of user research, concept design, and 3D CAD. I was to design something that solved a huge problem, and what better way than to save people lives in a flood. I studied and interviewed people from a developed country and a developing one. This was to compare and contract their handling of such a natural disaster. These were people who had experienced a massive flood in their home cities. I also interviewed first responders and studied the way they handle floods. By listening to these stories, I was able to narrow down the key features this design needed. Finally, I designed a scale model of the raft using fabric, CNCed wood, and 3D printed parts.

Haven won 2nd place for the Fasken Martineau Patent Award at the Humber College Thesis Show. It was also at the 2014 Rocket Show and an entrant into the Dyson Awards.

The Project

When a ship sinks, life rafts are deployed to rescue crew members. They can either be classified as a coastal raft for fishing boats or offshore for large ships. Existing ones often have a hardshell casing and take up a lot of space that requires training to deploy. In cities, where floods are part of everyday life, civilians don't have this training. They don't have the time or space to store and deploy a life raft, so they need a more compact solution. Haven is a last resort urban life raft used in flood risk situations. It is inflatable and deployed from a small pack using COs tanks inside its structure. It allows for up to 6 people to take shelter inside the raft.