Bottom-up design of a life-saving technology. The lifeshell desk

Earthquakes continue to destroy poorly constructed buildings. Lifeshell is an affordable wooden piece of furniture designed to shelter people during a building collapse. It offers a temporary solution while waiting for retrofi tting. The Lifeshell desk project, developed through a citizen science approach, engages educational institutions to refi ne the design and its accessories, gathering input from students, teachers, and assistants. In-school sessions (2-3 hours) combine short lessons with hands-on activities. Each begins with a brief presentation on earthquake risks and the Lifeshell concept. Students then build multi-storey structures using wooden sticks and rubber bands. Working in groups of 2-4, they test their buildings on a shake table, evaluated on aesthetics, height, and sturdiness. This is followed by a lesson on structural engineering and the causes of building failure during earthquakes. A trainer then shows how variables like building height, mass, and oscillation frequency affect collapse, using model buildings on a shake table. Sessions conclude with a survey on the Lifeshell prototype, a Canva activity on user needs, and a Tinkercad exercise to propose design variations. Further collaboration took place with institutions such as IED Istituto Europeo di Design, focusing on desk redesign with second-year Product Design students. Their prototypes were tested using Guillotine 2.0, a small-scale impact device with the same image acquisition system used for full-scale tests. A seminar on wood technology supplemented the design phase. Feedback is assessed and integrated into updated Lifeshell prototypes, making the product increasingly tailored to user needs while raising awareness of seismic safety through active educational participation.