In-depth | BRIDGE DESIGN Picture perfect


Te Oslo School of Architecture and Aalesund University, Norway, are jointly encouraging architects and designers to collaborate on creating exhaustive, web-based, pictorial databases, to give non-maritime and student naval designers a better grasp of vessel bridge layouts.


O


ne of the many new trends to affect the maritime sector over the past decade has been the


outsourcing of vessel interior work to companies not necessarily immersed within shipping and boating culture. While qualified naval architects need lose no sleep over demand for their expertise when it comes to hull design and drawing up blueprints


for ship


structures, it is becoming increasingly common for shipyards to commission industrial designers to piece together the ergonomic considerations for vessels’ bridge areas. Tasking ‘outsiders’ with the layout of


the bridge has its pluses and downsides, as Sashidharan Komandur, researcher at the Aalesund University in Norway, and a specialist in human factors within ship bridge environments, tells Ship & Boat International. “Industrial designers can bring fresh ideas to the table, some of which haven’t been considered before by naval architects,” says Komandur, “but the drawback is that some of these design teams have never been on a ship before. There’s a real need to bring these designers up to date with what a ship’s bridge actually comprises and contains, and to do so as soon as possible, in order to save time during newbuilding projects.” Working in tandem, Kjeti l


Nordby, researcher at Oslo School of Architecture, and Aalesund’s Komandur have proposed a solution to speed up familiarisation with bridge area layouts. The process is intended to be a relatively straightforward one, involving the collation of multiple photographs of said area, and the structuring of these subsequent images into an online- accessible library format. Both academic facilities hope that creating a web-based pictorial database of the key features of typical wheelhouses will grant both


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Two researchers from Oslo School of Architecture spent 60 hours aboard the PSV Bourbon Mistral, taking extensive digital photographs of her bridge.


non-maritime and student designers a better appreciation of what they are playing with, as well as highlighting common ergonomic considerations and challenges that need to be overcome. And, according to Komandur, all that is required to commence the info-sharing process is a hi-res, off-the-shelf digital camera.


Extensive photo collation For this particular data-capturing trial, which was completed in 2010, Oslo School of Architecture sent two researchers aboard the Ulstein-built, Bourbon Offshore-operated PX105 platform supply vessel (PSV) Bourbon Mistral, where they spent a total of 60 hours on her bridge, shooting a comprehensive set of photographs. The resulting gallery provided an enormous amount of detail, indicating the sizes of various items of bridge equipment and how these items and other objects interfaced with each other, as well as providing close-up shots of panels, keypads, graphical user interfaces and


the colours of various electronic items and displays. Pictures were also taken from outside of the ship’s bridge, and the photos captured images of this work area in both daylight and night view modes. In addition to taking stand-alone


pictures of the bridge interior, the university’s two-man team captured images of equipment being utilised by the crew, and of end users working in the bridge environment. These shots comprised a mixture of real operations, which actually took place on the bridge during the duo’s stint on the PSV, and posed portraits, the latter snapped in order to add the human element to the growing collection of equipment shots, and putting bridge operability into context. Komandur recalls: “Details that might


seem mundane can prove important. For instance, the toilet is often the last section of the bridge to be installed, and overlooking this facility can lead to a very cramped, hard-to-access space. In the past, we’ve seen bridge


Ship & Boat International January/February 2012


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