Zheng Fang

I am Zheng, or call me Tim, an Industrial Design student at Swinburne University of Technology, driven by a passion for designing products that make people’s lives safer, smarter, and more connected. My design practice focuses on exploring the intersection between technology, human behaviour, and environmental challenges. I believe that meaningful design begins with empathy—understanding users' needs and the real contexts in which they live.

Throughout my studies, I have developed a strong interest in public infrastructure, product innovation, and sustainable design strategies. I enjoy turning complex social problems into simple, practical, and emotionally engaging design outcomes. My process combines analytical research with hands-on prototyping, using sketching, CAD modelling, and physical testing to bridge the gap between concept and reality.

My most recent project, FloodSense, investigates how design can improve urban flood safety. It is a self-powered mechanical warning device that helps people visually identify hidden flood risks around drainage points. The project reflects my ongoing curiosity about how design can enhance public awareness, reduce danger, and foster resilience in extreme weather conditions.

As a designer, I aim to continue developing solutions that are technically feasible, environmentally responsible, and emotionally meaningful—designs that communicate clearly with people and create positive, lasting change in everyday urban life.

Real-Road Hazard Warning

Installed directly on roadside drainage points, FloodSense provides a bright, unmistakable depth indication even under severe rainfall. The device gives drivers crucial split-second information to avoid hidden deep-water zones, helping prevent hydroplaning, engine damage and collision risks.

Modular Structure for Rapid Installation

FloodSense is designed as a modular three-segment assembly—including the float chamber, buoyancy core and signal head—allowing quick installation into existing storm-drain infrastructure. The lightweight HDPE body and EVA foam ensure long-term durability with minimal servicing.

Buoyancy-Driven Depth Indicator System

This cross-section reveals the multi-layer floating mechanism that passively rises with floodwater and activates the green–yellow–red warning stages. Each colour layer represents a specific water-depth threshold, allowing the device to communicate flood severity instantly without electronics or sensors.

Autonomous Solar-Powered LED System

The top housing contains the COB LED module, solar charging panel and battery pack. This sealed IP68 electronic chamber provides continuous illumination during storms and blackouts, ensuring visibility in low-light and heavy-rain conditions while requiring zero maintenance.

FloodSense in Action

This visualisation demonstrates how multiple FloodSense units create a distributed, easy-to-read warning network across urban streets. The colour-coded signals provide real-time depth awareness to pedestrians, cyclists and drivers during flash-flood events, reducing risk and improving urban resilience.

Acknowledgement of Country

The School of Design and Architecture respectfully acknowledges the Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners and knowledge-keepers of the lands, waters and sky that surround us, where we work, learn, create, communicate and make place. We recognise that sovereignty has never been ceded and this always was and will always be Wurundjeri Country. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who continue to make a better world through design.

We extend our acknowledgement to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, students, alumni, real-life clients, and knowledge keepers, who have contributed to our own education diversity and growth. We will continue to ensure that staff and students respectfully honour ancestral connection to Country and Place in everything that they do.

We are dedicated to the notion of design to make a better world and we acknowledge that making tools, shaping place, sharing stories, making meaning, wayfinding and collaborating have long been and continue to be both central and integral to First Peoples' cultures. We recognize that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ cultural contributions have continued relevance to design practice and commit to: reconciling ancestries of design and contemporary practice as well as pursuing culturally and professionally appropriate ways to engage with a diverse population of colleagues, industries and clients. In a time of treaty-making and voice we understand that there are overlaps between caring for Country and the sustainable production of goods, services, experiences, products and buildings.

Guided by the principles of respect, reconciliation, and reciprocity we undertake to indigenising and decolonising design practice by dismantling colonial structures and challenging biases that have marginalised Indigenous voices and design.

As students of SoDA you will be given opportunities to both engage with and educate yourself in Indigenous creative practices and cultural protocols through a lens of inclusivity, diversity, respect, mutual understanding, inter-cultural dialogue in all aspects of design practice. Indigenous people have been telling stories, making tools, and connecting to Country through visual media, placemaking and place marking for more than 60,000 years and these practices are part of an ongoing, evolving and live tradition.