•Introduction
In complex systems, the smallest touchpoints often determine real security.
This project addresses household water security in Mombasa, Kenya by focusing on a critical touchpoint — the last mile — where a filtration solution is embedded into everyday routines and restores trust in water at the point of use.
Context
Year
Type
Role
Collaboration
Semester Project at Lund University
2021 (12 weeks)
Team Project (Fabian Schray, Eleonora Sandre)
Industrial Designer
Sony Europe, UNOPS
•Challenge
Why does the last mile matter most?
Water access in Mombasa is supported by community-driven systems and everyday coping strategies.
Yet reliability can weaken at the final step.
Water is collected, transported, and stored across households — most commonly in the ubiquitous jerrican, the primary touchpoint of daily water handling — before it reaches the cup. Along this journey, treated water can become vulnerable again just before drinking, when trust should be highest.
How might design act at this precise moment — strengthening water security without adding complexity to daily routines?
•Design
An added layer of water security.
The Mombasa Blue is a household-level water filtration product designed to improve water quality at the last mile of everyday use in Mombasa. It adds a protective layer within existing water routines — strengthening security without introducing new behaviors.
Clean water, secured at the last mile.
Households can filter and drink water directly from the jerrican, reducing contamination risks at the final point of use.
01: Unfold the rubber tube.
02: Connect to the top of the jerrian.
04: Filter the water into the container.
Water transfer, secured between jerricans.
Water can be transferred between jerricans while remaining filtered, helping ensure stored water stays clean during handling and transport.
01: Remove the container.
02: Connect the tubes to both sides.
03: Connect to the jerricans and start to pump.
04: Water will be filtered to the target jerrican.
Simple assembly, repair with ease.
The design enables straightforward assembly and disassembly, allowing parts to be repaired or replaced with minimal effort and cost.
Backstage support, full-service experience.
To support the hardware‘s adoption and long-term use, the design is positioned within a lightweight system connecting various key touchpoints, helping maintain a reliable and low-friction user experience over time.
Colour, Material, Finish.
1: Lid
Color: Teapot blue
Material: PP
Finish: Textured (VDI 12)
Process: Injection molding
2: Cup
Color: Lucent white
Material: PP
Finish: Matte (50 GU @ 60°)
Process: Injection molding
3: Main body
Color: Teapot blue
Material: ABS
Finish: Textured (VDI 12)
Process: Injection molding
4: Layer
Color: Jet black
Material: PP
Finish: Textured (VDI 18)
Process: Injection molding
5: Lower body
Color: Teapot blue
Material: PP
Finish: Textured (VDI 12)
Process: Injection molding
6: Connector
Color: Jet black
Material: Food-grade silicone
Finish: Matte (30 GU @ 60°)
Process: Compression molding
7: Pump lever
Color: Teapot blue
Material: PP
Finish: Textured (VDI 12)
Process: Injection molding
8: Seal
Color: Jet black
Material: Food-grade silicone
Finish: Matte (30 GU @ 60°)
Process: Compression molding
9: Handle
Color: Teapot blue
Material: PP
Finish: Textured (VDI 18)
Process: Injection molding
•Process
Framing the system boundary.
Water security in Mombasa is shaped across multiple interconnected layers.
Through research, this complexity was distilled into five system levels, each supported by existing coping strategies. Rather than attempting to redesign the entire system, the scope was intentionally narrowed to the household-level point of use — where reliability weakens just before drinking, when trust should be highest.
This framing also suggested that the last mile could represent a high-leverage opportunity for intervention.
Validating the leverage point.
To validate this assumption, potential intervention layers were compared across impact and implementation complexity.
While infrastructure-level changes offered broad systemic reach, they required long-term coordination and large-scale transformation.
In contrast, reinforcing reliability at the point of use presented a precise and feasible intervention — capable of strengthening household water security without restructuring the broader ecosystem.
Zooming into the high-leverage zone.
Having identified the point of use as a high-leverage zone, the focus shifted to understanding its internal dynamics. Mapping household water routines revealed the jerrican as the most consistent and central touchpoint — involved in nearly every actions.
The intervention concentrates on this single node — a small change stabilizes downstream steps — strengthening water security while preserving established behaviors and minimizing disruption.
Ideating from a critical touchpoint.
To tackle the last-mile challenge, initial ideation focused on the local jerrican, as it anchors most water-related activities and marks the final interaction before drinking. This approach grounded concepts in existing behaviors rather than introducing new ones.
Narrowing mechanisms through performance criteria.
Building on the selected concept from Phase 01, ideation shifted toward developing the filtration mechanism itself. Concepts were then narrowed using performance-driven criteria such as water flow rate efficiency, operating force burden, and manufacturability.
Refining interaction, ergonomics, and form.
Following key decisions in earlier phases, this phase focused on refining the physical interface. Sketching was used to explore ergonomics and interaction details in preparation for further development.
Validating the concept through physical prototyping.
With the concept consolidated, this phase focused on producing a higher-fidelity physical prototype to assess physical feasibility, structural integrity, and interaction under more realistic conditions.
•Reflection
1. Purposeful design intervention starts from concrete user friction.
When facing a complex system shaped by multiple factors, it is easy to identify numerous areas for potential improvement. This project highlighted that meaningful design intervention does not come from addressing complexity broadly, but from focusing on concrete friction points within users’ daily routines. Grounding decisions in these moments helped narrow the scope and ensured the intervention remained both purposeful and accountable.
2. Make the intangible tangible.
Initial interview insights naturally pointed toward visible and tangible issues, such as the current community-driven solutions. However, mapping the full user journey revealed where these solutions quietly failed to carry through everyday use. This process exposed critical gaps at the last mile - issues that were not immediately visible, yet decisive in shaping the final design direction.
3. Looking ahead: questions for further development.
(1) From a hardware perspective, this project explored additive manufacturing as a prototyping strategy; translating the design into traditional manufacturing would introduce new constraints that could significantly reshape the form and structure.
(2) Additionally, future development would involve deeper exploration of inner filter materials and technologies to validate filtration performance under real-world conditions.
(3) More broadly, this project suggests questions about how products might respond more dynamically to their context. Future exploration could examine how emerging technologies, such as LLMs, enable physical products to better sense usage conditions and adapt interactions accordingly.
